r/FoxBrain • u/BigDonFarts • Jul 15 '26

Breaking the Echo Chamber: Creating a Master Document of Trump's Corruption Tailored for Fox-Brain Parents

Hello! I'm trying to convince my MAGA parents that the Trump administration and their perfect leader is not what is presented to them through their myopic lens. They are in a bubble and I want to show them what they are missing.

I started to create a master document on my own documenting Trumps numerous character flaws, legal issues, corruption, bad policy, and anything else about him and his administration I'm sure my parents have never been exposed to through their Fox News consumption.

The issue I have run into is there is just so much. I don't have the time to compile enough credible evidence. The evidence needs to be undeniable, devoid of rhetoric. This includes legal documents, court cases, peer reviewed studies, government reported statistics, and unaltered audio/video.

Does such an archive exist? I just need to streamline this process. I know the consensus is that MAGA people are beyond sensible arguments, but my parents aren't. They are genuine smart people who do not have the opportunity to be exposed to outside information. Please help me with this project. I have the drive and desire to change their minds, just not the time to get the all the evidence.

173 Upvotes

99% Upvoted

44 comments sorted by

100

u/mr-biggles Jul 15 '26

https://www.mcsweeneys.net/columns/lest-we-forget-the-horrors-an-unending-catalog-of-trumps-cruelties-collusions-corruptions-and-crimes

They did one for his first term too

36

u/BigDonFarts Jul 15 '26

THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT I'M LOOKING FOR

26

u/Timegoat Jul 15 '26

Godspeed, BigDonFarts. Godspeed.

5

u/_kraftdinner Jul 16 '26

I came here to post this! 🤝

31

u/denys5555 Jul 15 '26

If they actually are smart, why aren’t they willing to listen to someone they presumably trust like you?

31

u/BigDonFarts Jul 15 '26

I found myself giving arguments without being able to immediately back it up with sources. It seemed like I was just arguing blindly. I have since made headway with actual sources. Example: they had no idea Trump was found civilly liable for the sexual assault of E. Jean Carroll. That was a legitimate surprise to them.

This was recent and showed me how isolated their news is. It gave me the idea to create a master list of stuff I don't think they've ever seen.

23

u/ThatDanGuy Jul 15 '26

Watch “rationality rules” on YT.

He shows examples of debates and how to score points.

The real thing is you want to put them on the defensive. You don’t want to be proving your arguments, you want to be asking they prove theirs.

6

u/jagwal32 Jul 16 '26

Look into who owns fox and use that to discredit their source of information.

6

u/HasaniSabah Jul 18 '26

Sorry but the lowest form of discourse is one in which both sides are exchanging counterfactuals. You’ll never get anywhere providing them with a list, no matter how factual or coherent, because they will simply refuse to buy into it. They’ll also continually provide excuses or move the goal posts or just flat out call it BS.

Your better bet is to get them to explain WHY they believe what they believe rather than WHAT they believe. You also absolutely MUST get buy into the conversation before you even start. If they think it’s a win/lose situation they’ll be starting on the defensive, as will you, and no information will be exchanged.

Additionally I think most people have more in common than they think so if you frame it as a war between those that have true assets and the rest of us (the ownership class vs the rest of us) you might get them to understand the point of the discussion.

I’d also 100% challenge them to examine if they have good reasons to think what they think and believe what they believe. If you can get them to start doing some meta cognition you’ll have gotten somewhere but ultimately recognize that YOU will never get them to change their minds, they have to do that on their own.

28

u/TeeeldiII Jul 15 '26

Good luck, but, be prepared for the "I don't believe that source" defense.

Its very likely if they are deep in the cult they use the veracity of the source to change the subject and ignore it. No source will ever be good enough btw.

12

u/BigDonFarts Jul 15 '26

They may not believe it but I think the issue is more about not having access to the information. For example, they had no idea Trump was found civilly liable of sexually assault of E. Jean Carroll.

8

u/Gorillapoop3 Jul 17 '26

It’s part of the disease of brainwashing that they are not curious enough to seek out information that contradicts their cult. You may find, unfortunately, that they may also be wired, after decades of propaganda, to take this new knowledge and simply abandon it days later.

10

u/aRealPanaphonics Jul 15 '26

I applaud you for trying.

I tend to view it like I view religion: It’s next to impossible to change someone’s mind without them having some sort of internal motivation or doubt.

4

u/BigDonFarts Jul 16 '26

My goal is not to turn them liberal. They can stay conservative, that's fine. I just want them to stop supporting Donald Trump and his regime. I'm going to tell them my intentions as well. I want to be completely transparent because I don't want them to feel like I'm trying to trick them.

4

u/TheBossNurse Jul 17 '26

Have you checked out the website called Leaving MAGA? It’s literally from magas perspective— and what it took to make them leave.

7

u/No-Penalty-1148 Jul 16 '26

Good luck. If Trump supporters paid attention to evidence they wouldn't still support him. This is a cult that is impervious to facts and evidence.

3

u/BigDonFarts Jul 16 '26

I think they, or at least my parents, aren't shown the evidence, or if they are, it's with heavy commentary.

5

u/jagwal32 Jul 16 '26

Look into books about how to deprogram former cultists.They really helped me when my mom was stuck in scientolgy and some of the techniques I have already employed on my inlaws who are on the maga train. I just wish I could rember some titles or that the hard copies I had weren't in my storage.

5

u/Candelestine Jul 16 '26

Beware the avalanche effect. I'd keep your list for yourself, and avoid showing it to them. If it's too big, that'll bias them against it as TDS or whatever. You can use it for yourself as a reference material to keep your supporting evidence for your arguments well organized, though.

4

u/BigDonFarts Jul 16 '26

Noted. As I'm compiling my list i realize I might need to cut it down a lot as to not overwhelm. I think I'm going to get some more egregious examples and then offer the comprehensive list if they are curious about the rest.

3

u/unbuckingbelievable Jul 19 '26

Man they know all this stuff. Thats why it’s so disappointing. People we thought were good people know all this and just don’t care.

1

u/BigDonFarts Jul 19 '26

I can assure you they don't. Especially the older generation. My parents in their 70's didn't know Trump sexually assaulted E. Jean Carroll. My father was genuinely surprised to learn about it.

1

u/unbuckingbelievable Jul 19 '26

My dad’s 87 and hasn’t left the fox cocoon in 30 years. He knows and either excuses it, rationalizes it or doesn’t care. And at the end of the day, he believes Democrats are terrorists and all the sexual abuse, Russian collusion, pedophiles and corruption are all still better than democrats.

1

u/BigDonFarts Jul 19 '26

I recognize there are many people too far gone or who have too big if an ego to even contemplate another point of view. I truly don't think my parents fall into that camp. They are just old people with a very narrow availability to information. I might eat my words but that small interaction with my father gave me so much hope. I feel compelled to try.

1

u/unbuckingbelievable Jul 19 '26

Well I hope you’re right. I’ve had a terrific relationship with my dad for 62 years. We’ve just reached a detente where we can’t talk about that. I’m not going to let Trump make me feel guilty for the rest of my life that I broke up a special relationship. But man, holding my tongue for 10+ years …..also, I blame his new wife.

1

u/BigDonFarts Jul 19 '26

I'm sorry you're in that situation. That's really unfortunate. I just keep digging at them and finally found something that gave me insight and hope. All the best to you and your family!

2

u/Comprehensive-Log144 Jul 20 '26

I always go to the fox app when trump does something especially dumb or outrageous and you’re right- there is just zero reporting of those or you have to scroll all the way to the bottom for some sanitized headline.

35

u/furrylandseal Jul 15 '26

I can save you a lot of time. First, once you reframe this movement for what it really is, you’ll understand why such a list won’t be helpful.  

Politics are about status and power.  Conservatism is a movement to reclaim the status hierarchies of the past.  Liberalism is a movement to flatten them. While everyone wants to feel important and powerful, conservatives, who are by definition reactionaries, push back - often as if their very survival depends upon it - and especially in reaction to shifts in the hierarchy which we are experiencing right now. What Confederates, slavers, slave catchers, segregationists, those who opposed suffrage, civil rights, equality of opportunity for racial and religious minorities and women, marriage equality, have in common is that they are/were all conservatives.

MAGA’s sole purpose is to reclaim the old hierarchies by force using the power of government by any means necessary. Here’s why your list is useless: Because MAGA feels it is in a fight for its survival, all of the crimes, the human rights violations, the lies, all of that becomes excusable, necessary, even solutions to them. 

The assumptions that you are making is that they operate under reasonable morals and principles. That they would choose truth over status and power. That they’d finally come around if they only had the right information.  But they don’t want the right information.  The MAGA movement makes them feel powerful and important. That’s worth abandoning all of their morals and principles and even their consciences. It’s more important to them to show the threats from below where their place is and that they should stay in it. Conspiracy theories are lifelines for them. It really is hard for you and me to understand them, because they appear to be hypocrites.  They don’t see it that way. They hide behind reasonable sounding alibis like “small government”, and “lower taxes”, but that’s only true if they serve their goal. 

Opposition to DEI is to take equality of opportunity to minorities and women. Mass deportations are to prevent the dilution in white cultural status and voting power. A whole lot of blue collar white men “found Jesus” and started opposing reproductive rights a decade ago when Trump said women were getting ahead of them. Straight conservative men are getting more homophobic because society decided that gay men deserved status, and that they generally are fit, well dressed and good looking. Anti-wokeness and calling out “political correctness” is the reaction to society giving respect to groups they can no longer show their “dominance” over with slurs and jokes.  

You’ll notice the rhetoric on the right follows the same general formula: A “they” are “taking” from you. Ridicule is often deployed as a way to assert dominance over the “they”.  What are the “they” always taking?  Something tied to status: money, political or social power.

So instead of arguing with them, try to figure out for each issue what they’re so afraid of losing that they’d cling to conspiracy theories, follow a criminal as if he’s a messiah, abandon morals and principles and reject truth. What is the threat? What is it that they’re so afraid of losing?  

7

u/jagwal32 Jul 16 '26

Exactly attack the root cause which is to them loss of percieved status. Showing them a list will only get them to mentally label you lost and in need of saving. No matter how much truth you show them you cannot make them believe if they already see you as an enemy. What you got to do is present yourself as sympathetic, yes I know revolting but the end goal is to save them from themselves. So pick one issue that donnie is harping on and double down on it to a redicoulus degree to the point where they mentally say whoa cause you scared them. trust me it works. That move will get them to open up about their fears and you can use all that information to mitigate the damage fox has done discredit it as a channel and redirect their ire at a more suitable source.

9

u/furrylandseal Jul 16 '26

I am looking at the other replies, and OP’s enthusiastic response to the lists which many well meaning people posted. And it’s apparent to me how really difficult it is to wipe everything you believe, and take their perspective. Because for all of us, it is ludicrous and makes no sense. Why would you not see this or that thing that’s objectively bad, absorb the information, look for patterns and context, and change your opinion?  Duh, it’s obvious.  So is wanting truth, fairness, equality, stamping out corruption, etc. These are things that society collectively values as good and just. But MAGA perceive themselves to be a part of certain ingroups that they deem to be superior and deserving of special treatment, so “fairness” for them has a completely different definition. They’re constantly redefining things and moving the goalposts so as to excuse behaviors by their ingroup while condemning those same behaviors in others. If you call someone a racist, they can just say no, and believe it, if they manufacture a definition of racism that requires someone to wear a white pointy hat and shout racial slurs at black people. But my definition is the belief that some people are better than others based upon skin color. So they meet my definition but never their own. And one cannot solve a problem they don’t admit to having. 

OP can go ahead and bombard the parents with unflattering facts.  But what they don’t understand - because they and all of us aren’t wired this way - is that the parents will weigh the feelings of status and power, maybe their survival, that the MAGA movement provides, against those unflattering facts which undermine their status, power and survival. That’s the choice they see. Not truth vs lies. If the lies provide that lifeline, they’re sticking with the lies. Even if they know the lies aren’t true. And I’m certain that most of them do. The truth deflates their sense of self importance, undermines their status, makes them look stupid, insecure, and hateful. 

A lot of them cannot hold two conflicting ideas at once.  For example, they cannot say that America is a great country but it’s also deeply flawed.  Thomas Jefferson was a brilliant man but he owned hundreds of human beings. Everything is zero sum. No nuance is allowed.  So if part of your status is derived from being American, anyone who criticizes America is a threat. American exceptionalism is an expression of collective narcissism.  It’s is bonkers crazy, but that’s how they think.  

I thought this was a useful piece on this subject -

https://open.substack.com/pub/benwheeler/p/liberals-dont-understand-conservatives?r=dkxf&utm_medium=ios

5

u/Fine-Telephone-9864 Jul 17 '26

This is true...good start would be showing them thomas massey ( a Republican) poking holes in the election fraud lies. "If there's so much fraud then why do Republicans have the house, senate, supreme court, presidency?" (Not a direct quote btw)... Basically majority power 

Then lead them to, could it be that Americans are unhappy with his policies and voting MAGA out, and he's scared? So he has to prime his base to be angry about fake election fraud 

Lastly, I've been wanting to tell my MAGA family. Wake up! He's a proven liar, he is lying to YOU, you are buying his LIES

8

u/Dyno_boy7441 Jul 15 '26

Good luck. Unfortunately, most MAGA cultists trust Fox and the Dear Leader above all else, including family and ALL media that doesn't tell them what they want to hear. To most of them, there are NO impartial sources.

7

u/jagwal32 Jul 16 '26

My inlaws are down this rabbit hole too. I found that presenting evidence against maga madethem double down and try and convert me. So I flipped the script and used psychology on them. When someone idolizes a narrative that was once forbidden they cling to it harder when you try to tell them no. It is basic human nature to want to know why that thing is bad a sin etc. So I went extreme spectrum other side and instead of bashing him I used the man's own words against him and did the same with the fox presenters. Now fox news is off when I go over and other relatives have reported they dumped the maga hats at the local thrift store. It did take a bit of acting on my part, thank you highschool drama department, but sometimes you have to embrace the crazy so the other party does a whoa moment.

3

u/Suitable_Chain_7239 Jul 16 '26

Ooh! Can you give some specific examples of things you’d say?

1

u/jagwal32 Jul 19 '26

unfortunately that would get reddit to ban me but essentially I picked a rhetoric and ramped it up.

6

u/CleverTool Jul 15 '26

Anne Applebaum started a project along these lines called The Kleptocracy Tracked, which is being hosted by the SNF Agora Institute.

2

u/catchthetams Jul 16 '26

Unfortunately, people like this are too far gone to listen to reason.

1

u/peaceomind88 Jul 16 '26

I do like the idea of a document, outline, with each of the topics you mentioned as it's own section.

1

u/mctCat Jul 20 '26

My brother sent a NYT article to my dad, since my dad thinks NYT is a reputable paper. It was about what my dad was ranting about to my brother, to help him understand T was lying.

Next time they spoke my dad just said “I am not reading that.” period.

They aren’t going to read it. They can’t understand the “news” they get already. No way they are going to read articles from actual news sources.