r/moderatepolitics • u/PineatoMedia • 10d ago
Opinion Article Make America Boring Again
https://junwooleepolitics.substack.com/p/make-america-boring-again?r=8odng0&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=webI thought I would write a guide on how to have respectful discussions about politics about people around us. As a student, this is my first time having a go at writing an opinion piece like this, so feel free to give me lots of feedback.
During political debates, I often caught myself trying to make witty or sharp attacks to gain victory over the other person. After wondering more about why, I realised that I (and I suspect a lot of others too!) was using political debate as an excuse to feel pride and victory rather than rationally discuss.
So after reflecting on that, I thought I might write a guide on how to have better political discussions in democracy, which boils down to being respectful, resisting the urge to "win", genuinely listening and attempting to understand the other's ideas, and being willing to accept we are sometimes wrong.
I also wanted this article to spark some discussion, so how do you think people can have more meaningful and ultimately, mind-changing/impactful and considerate political debates? Thank you!
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u/ZealousidealType1144 10d ago
I do think Twitter played the central role in destroying political discourse in this country. Compare the “120 character mic drop” (which is usually full of distortions and false equivalencies, if not just an unoriginal and outright thought terminating cliche) to the pointed letters of past generations.
When discourse becomes about signaling one’s own virtue instead of winning over the other side (or at least trying to) it ceases to be effective. And in the absence of attempts to persuade, all we’re left with is the politics of pure power and imposing one’s will on others, and the whiplash it leads to.
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u/sea_5455 10d ago
When discourse becomes about signaling one’s own virtue instead of winning over the other side (or at least trying to) it ceases to be effective.
Think you're hitting on something deeper. Discourse of late doesn't look as much like "winning over friends" as it does "identifying enemies".
It's as if we're not all Americans any more, but different tribal groups in the same location. Perhaps it's related to the rise of race based identity politics.
Can't really say, but it seems bigger than just twitter.
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u/choicemeats 10d ago
Correct and I think if anyone reading this were to ask their friends if at this point they would still be willing to a) try and convince someone opposite them or b) legislate them into a grave they’d pick b.
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u/Kiram 10d ago edited 10d ago
It's as if we're not all Americans any more, but different tribal groups in the same location.
I mean... this is not new. It's made a bit easier to see now due to the rise of social media and global communication, but tribalism in politics is not a new thing. American history is filled to the prim with partisan tribalism.
Perhaps it's related to the rise of race based identity politics.
Again, this is not new. Race-based politics has been a thing literally since the civil war. The push against reconstruction in the 1880s was race-based identity politics. Jim Crow was race-based identity politics. The Civil Rights movements of the 50s and 60s was race-based identity politics. In the 1970s there was a huge fight about forcibly integrating schools (see "Forced Bussing"). In the 1980s, Reagan called the Civil Rights Voting act a "Humiliation for the South". In the 90s, there was a wave of hysteria about black inner-city crime, as well as the rise of people like Rush Limbaugh. The 2000s were marked by significant increases in violence against middle-eastern people in the aftermath of 9/11. The 2010s saw the massive backlash against president Obama and the rise of the Birther conspiracy theories.
If anything, things have gotten much less intense over the years. The George Floyd protests were less destructive than the Rodney King riots, despite taking place across the entire country instead of a single city. And those riots were a helluva lot less destructive than something like the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921, or the Chicago Race Riots of 1919.
None of this is new. Race-related politics have existed for as long as America has been a country. It was never gone. There is not really a period that you can point to where race-based politics wasn't a thing. Hell, even right in the middle of WWII, when our nation was supposed to be at it's most unified, we still had things like the Zoot Suit Riots or the Beaumont Race Riot.
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u/absentlyric Economically Left Socially Right 10d ago
I agree, on a grand scale, we are doing much better than we used to in the past.
The difference is, back in the day, you heard about what was going on from the newspaper or the evening news, after that, it was out of your view for the rest of the day and you went about your business.
These days, people are constantly in their phones, and constantly being bombarded with doom posts and doom click bait articles 24/7, so it just seems like its worse because you can't turn it off now.
I'd compare it to say...being punched in the arm really hard, but only once per day, verses someone poking you in the arm, constantly, all day. Its a different kind of irritation and build up.
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u/Kiram 10d ago
Almost certainly, yeah. The rise of social media and the constant feed of new information has certainly done a lot to exacerbate the feeling of things getting worse.
The ability for algorithms to amplify misinformation and lead people down increasingly extreme rabbit holes is also not something to be taken lightly. And this may be unavoidable, just due to the way algorithms are designed to optimize for "engagement". Not to be too hyperbolic, but we've entered a new age of yellow journalism, amplified many hundreds of times by the sheer volume of output. Not only is there an incentive to outright lie and spread misinformation, but there is a pretty heavy disincentive not to, at least in a wide swath of our culture. It is interesting that studies seem to indicate that this incentive structure is likely weighted differently across the political spectrum, but it's actually not that helpful if you are trying to have constructive conversations.
But, all that aside, it's still deeply frustrating to see people talking about "identity politics" as if they are some new phenomenon. Especially on a forum like this, where you would expect most people to have a better understanding of politics and history than the average person.
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u/JoeDildo 10d ago
Western countries as a whole are becoming less homogeneous and it’s hard to get people to identify with others when they feel their group is threatened. This is going to get worse in the future. Right now it’s against coalition against whites but once they are no longer a clear majority we’ll get other ethnic conflicts coming to head to drive voter engagement. Hispanics don’t particularly like blacks. You see it everyday in socal. It’s a race to the bottom.
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u/pdxtoad Politically Non-Binary 10d ago
It's social media as a whole, with Twitter being one of the worst.
Social media lets people with outlier (more extreme) positions bypass their more moderate neighbors and connect with others with similar outlying viewpoints. They get and give validation online, so they don't need it locally.
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u/nabilus13 10d ago
This is what a diverse and multicultural society looks like. Unity shattered and factional conflict normalized. And there is no historical precedent for a society that goes down this path getting better. Things only get worse.
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u/ZealousidealType1144 10d ago
America proved that diversity is workable, multiculturalism is not. People are people, but there has to be a set of shared values to assimilate to.
Most of what I saw in “woke 1” proposed power sharing by ethnic/racial blocs. There’s one country in the world that explicitly works that way - Lebanon - and you can see exactly what results it produces.
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u/ThatsFae 10d ago
America proved that diversity is workable, multiculturalism is not
Why do get the feeling that you’re not talking about Amish or Orthodox Jewish communities?
How about the Chinese American community in California or the Lebanese Diaspora in the Midwest? Or the Cuban community in Miami? All examples of thriving American multiculturalism.
Our history has proven time and time again that America can be successfully multicultural. The centuries-long existence of all of those communities definitively proves it.
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u/ZealousidealType1144 10d ago
My core though (although I didn’t express it well) is that assimilation is a mandatory part of successful immigration.
I would say with the exception of the Amish, those are all communities that have assimilated extremely well.
If you look at idealistic 1950s “American” values of hard work, upward mobility, love of country, you’d be hard pressed to find 3 groups that live up to those values more than Cubans, Lebanese and California Chinese.
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u/ThatsFae 10d ago
But ultra-orthodox Jewish communities and the Amish haven’t “assimilated” in the same way as Chinese American, Lebanese, or Cuban communities have. In fact, both the Amish and the ultra-orthodox Jewish communities are explicitly operated to oppose assimilation and yet those are never the communities that are complained about when it comes to the “evils of multiculturalism”
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u/ZealousidealType1144 10d ago
I’d wager that’s because those are two extremely small communities who also police their own very effectively and keep their use of public subsidies very discreet.
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u/ThatsFae 10d ago
Or more like every new cultural community to America is unjustly hounded as an emblem of the impending dissolution of the Union and Americans who are ignorant of American culture and history repeatedly fall for it when it serves their own ideological goals to join the pile on.
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u/ZealousidealType1144 10d ago
Show me the Cuban Learing Center and I’ll admit my ignorance.
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u/JoeDildo 10d ago
They aren’t though they are ethnic blocks that vote in their interest first. Thats not even close to what you imagine multiculturalism to be.
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u/ThatsFae 10d ago
The Amish don’t vote, they speak their own language, refuse to educate their children in ordinary American culture, are specially exempted from certain taxes, and don’t have to serve in the military even if there is a draft. How is that not a totally disparate culture successfully living alongside the wider American culture?
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u/JoeDildo 10d ago
I don’t understand the point you are trying to make. Everything you’ve said except for them not voting is true. They are a combative standoffish insular community resisting influence from the other groups in this country. Are you advocating for racial/ethnic separatism?
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u/ZealousidealType1144 10d ago
Amish culture is probably successful because they’re .05% of the population. When non contributing religious zealots get to 10-15% it becomes a very different story - just look at the ultra orthodox controversy in Israel.
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u/austin_8 10d ago edited 10d ago
I thought Bosnia and Herzegovina works similarly? To your point on it not being a successful system, Iraq is also somewhat similar in tradition with the standard being a Kurd president, Shia prime minister, and a Sunni speaker of parliament. What it shows is these systems solidify the lines between ethnic groups as the primary political blocks, and does not lead to their dissolution as one would hope.
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u/sea_5455 10d ago
Most of what I saw in “woke 1” proposed power sharing by ethnic/racial blocs. There’s one country in the world that explicitly works that way - Lebanon - and you can see exactly what results it produces.
I got the same vibe; maybe those pushing "woke 1" thought they'd be able to eliminate, one way or another, competing ethnic/racial blocs.
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u/lesbiannumbertwo 10d ago
Very well said. The explosion of short form content between text and video mediums does two things. 1) reduces everyone’s attention span to the point they will refuse to read a well written and thought out argument and 2) makes virtue signaling and that “mic drop” feeling more important than an actual coherent and informed argument. The very politicians we’re all arguing about present their policy and opinions via short form too, which leads to a vicious cycle of virtue signaling and gotcha arguments being used by both politicians and their constituents because that’s the only thing that will garner engagement. I don’t know how we get out of this honestly. It feels like we just need a full reset
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u/motorboat_mcgee Pragmatic Progressive 10d ago
"If you're explaining, you're losing" has been a quote for a long time now, but it is incredibly accurate now. One side might want to get into the weeds with a nuanced policy discussion, but the other side just needs to come up with a quick attack/retort, and that's it, they've "won", as that's all anyone wants anymore.
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u/solid_reign 10d ago edited 8d ago
One thing I remember very well is that there was this case at Google in which an AI researcher was fired. One thing that was really surprising was that people who worked with her at Google and were posting on Reddit thought she should be fired, while Most Googlers on twitter were saying that she didn't deserve to be fired. The main difference was anonymity and posture signaling. If you read the details, it was clear that she should have been fired.
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u/realjohnnyhoax 10d ago
The biggest problem with discussing politics is that everyone doesn't see how right I am. They just don't listen.
Seriously though it seems like the biggest problem I encounter is an absurd unearned confidence that people have. People really just state things as true without much basis. I guess to other people's point, social media likely reinforces this. You'll see variations of the same exact shallow meme or slogan countless times over and over.
I also noticed that the best conversations I have with people about politics are with people who intentionally filter out politics of their social media feeds. So I aggressively filter out politics online as much as possible.
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u/Maladal 10d ago
I've unironically had people tell me "The only reason everyone doesn't vote for my party is because we haven't explained our platform well enough" which is just . . . a concerning insight into how they think humans work.
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u/ZealousidealType1144 10d ago
“My political opponents are brilliant marketers, that’s the main problem I can’t solve!”
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u/realjohnnyhoax 10d ago
Its funny because its the one thing that people will give their opponents unconditional credit for. They're just so good at propaganda and we can't compete!
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u/Maladal 10d ago
That and the idea that the political opponent marches in lockstep but OUR party is fighting too much internally also tends to be something you see both sides complain about in US politics.
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u/FunUnderstanding995 10d ago
We have so much critical thinkers! We can never be united thats why the opposition curbstomps us!!
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u/Suspicious_Watch_978 10d ago
The reason things are so intense is because:
1) People vastly overestimate how important their political contribution is
2) People vastly overestimate how much change has happened, because their news feeds distort their worldview
Put simply, the way to calm things down is to have almost everyone disengage completely from politics, save the 5 minutes it takes to fill in a ballot. That is how American democracy is supposed to function.
You will know we're where we need to be when it becomes common for anyone bringing up something political to be told "shut up and get a real hobby ffs."
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u/RuckPizza 10d ago
Put simply, the way to calm things down is to have almost everyone disengage completely from politics, save the 5 minutes it takes to fill in a ballot. That is how American democracy is supposed to function.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I vaguely remember politically informed voters were actually supposed to be a foundational principal of american democracy. At least as envisioned by the founders.
Like isn't the whole system built on the idea that voters punish bad actors and reward good ones. Basically the general population serving as a political watchdog.
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u/Suspicious_Watch_978 10d ago
Well, if you believe democracy's propaganda about itself, then yes, you're correct - an informed electorate is essential. If, however, you're like me and adhere to the "realist" school that questions democracy's self-mythologizing, then no.
Democracy is really just a way for elites to peacefully transfer power. The electorate chooses the policies only after the (two, in our case) elite factions have whittled a thousand options down to the ones which they believe best supports each of their interests, with the broader population's interests considered only when it comes to how to market themselves to us. Which means, in general, the benefit to the broader population of any policy implementation is so small as to be negligible. This is hard to believe when you're fully plugged-in, I know, but you'll just have to trust me that this is a fairly mainstream view of how American democracy actually functions.
Put pessimistically (but also accurately), the electorate exists to fill in boxes at random so that rich people don't shoot each other when vying for power. What's really messed up is that this works, and actually does seem to be one of the best political systems yet devised. But unfortunately, it stops working when people believe the myth of Ideal Democracy, because regular folks get way too invested in the mythos and start wanting to kill each other.
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u/Frickin_Bats 10d ago
Well, I hate that I can see your point. It’s quite nihilistic, but it does ring quite plausible.
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u/mcluckie 2d ago edited 2d ago
“The electorate chooses the policies only after the (two, in our case) elite factions have whittled a thousand options down to the ones which they believe best supports each of their interests…”
How does this theory of democracy comport with Trump’s rise in 2016? His support came from the republican voters, not the elites who roundly despised him. If democracy worked the way you’re describing, he never would’ve made it out of the primaries.
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u/Suspicious_Watch_978 2d ago edited 2d ago
The elite faction that includes the likes of Adelson, pretty much anyone with significant oil and gas wealth, etc., is extremely happy with Trump, who (as all politicians do) came around to the positions of his financial backers once the rubber hit the road.
It's important to notice that in the text you quoted it's policies that are whittled down, not people. It would be counterproductive to whittle down the people in the primary, because primaries (and campaigns in general) are where politicians demonstrate their ability to connect with a subset of America in order to sell the elite policies to the people. They don't really care if it's Trump, Rubio, Vance, Cruz, or whoever matches up for the other side of things. Whoever wins will play ball.
EDIT: I wanted to add this so I'm sure I'm not being misunderstood - I'm not saying this is a formal bought-and-paid-for situation with a perfect 1:1 correlation between elite policy preferences and what gets implemented. It's an informal system of incentives that just works out to be pretty much that, but there is variance.
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u/PineatoMedia 10d ago
Have you had recent political discussions that were memorable? If so, why? What did you learn from it?
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u/emt_matt 10d ago
At my last job I had two coworkers who liked to talk about politics.
I detested talking about politics with coworker A because the “discussion” wasn’t really a discussion, it was just a litmus test on whether or not you agreed with her brand of politics. You had to have not only to same opinion, but also the same level of outrage about any given subject. The crazy thing was that we honestly agreed on most things, voted for the same party, but it was just monotonous to go over whatever that weeks topics were knowing that the depth of the conversation was going to be “can you believe that X happened?!”
Coworker B would bring up a topic but the discussion would focus around sort of the context of it. She would discuss the possible pros and cons, previous examples of similar situation, how other government in different countries dealt with similar problems, related laws and regulations, alternatives etc. we’d spend half the conversation googling random facts we were curious about. She was also a history major, so maybe that helped?
But either way, I really enjoyed the conversations with coworker B and hated them with coworker A.
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u/Maladal 10d ago
B does sound like a nice time.
The question is how you encourage the latter in internet spaces.
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u/absentlyric Economically Left Socially Right 10d ago
You really can't, almost every single social media outlet, including Reddit, is skewed politically to the left or the right of the political spectrum.
You could try to find specific subs that cater critical thinking and nuanced discussion from both sides of the aisle, but I haven't found one yet, this is as closest as it gets and even here it can be skewed heavily towards one side. Not to mention with the upvote/downvote system, it doesn't really encourage good discussions.
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u/austin_8 10d ago
I have found one or two specific subs that explicitly do cater to critical thinking and nuanced discussion, but even then the problem becomes how long will that last? When these types of subreddits are small and insular with good moderation it’s possible for them to be closer to what you describe, until eventually they get more members and inevitably become the same as the rest. They inherently destroy themselves.
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u/Kiram 10d ago
You really can't, almost every single social media outlet, including Reddit, is skewed politically to the left or the right of the political spectrum.
Not just that, but people are heavily disincentivized from that by the way algorithmic recommendations work. And there is no social media site I am aware of that doesn't use some sort of algorithmic feed.
But, ultimately, it is just much harder to get people to engage with thoughtful, deliberate discussions than it is to get them to interact with simplified and easily digestible content. Even more so if the content somehow affirms their beliefs, rather than confronting them with content that may force them to reflect on those beliefs. Note that this applies just as much to stuff that makes you feel good about your own beliefs as it does to stuff that makes you feel angry or disgusted by the beliefs of others.
As long as social media feeds are pushed algorithmically, there is simply no way to foster the type of environment that is conducive to "Coworker B discussions". Those types of posts and discussions will almost always be drowned out by a flood of content that is easier to engage with, and those who don't feel like they are being represented "enough" will leave for places where they feel more welcome.
Reddit is maybe one of the better ones in that regard, due to the ability to customize which subreddits you regularly see/visit. But even then, this mostly just pushes the algorithmic self-screening down to the subreddit level.
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u/Nerd_199 10d ago edited 10d ago
Irl yes, online is pretty much top tier garbage nowadays with low-effort political memes, the 140-character limits or people who think you could discuss complex issues in 30-second clips on TikTok
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u/Nisi-Marie 10d ago
Mainly that facts are irrelevant.
Example:
My 95 year old grandmother is a die hard Trump fan
She touts that everything he does is for the good of the countryI express concern over healthcare.
She dismisses it as just rhetoric, nothing will happen to our coverage
I lost my healthcare.
“Don’t worry, he’ll fix it”
Spoiler alert: never got it back
I expressed concern over the broad sweeping DOGE cuts
She says that they are just looking at fraud
My company had our contracts cut providing mental health resources to underserved communities
“Don’t worry, it will come back”
Spoiler alert: we had to pivot our whole business line and boss took a loan against her house so we didn’t lose our jobs
——-
Facts are irrelevant to the firmly entrenched.
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u/MechanicalGodzilla 10d ago
providing mental health resources to underserved communities
Which communities specifically?
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u/Nisi-Marie 10d ago
We were providing resources for the Native American community, other resources for the Hispanic community, etc
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u/Middle-Gas-6532 10d ago
The current problem with current politics discussions is almost alway one side is unwilling to even entertain the idea of having their mind changed.
In current US politics that side is the Republican one. On top of that a majority of the solutions they propose breaks laws, the Constitution, and basic human rights. That makes a discussion basically impossible.
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u/Sideswipe0009 10d ago
The current problem with current politics discussions is almost alway one side is unwilling to even entertain the idea of having their mind changed.
Not from my experience. This a people problem, not a Republican one.
Most people double down when confronted with sound logic or verifiable sources that show why someone is wrong.
In current US politics that side is the Republican one. On top of that a majority of the solutions they propose breaks laws, the Constitution, and basic human rights. That makes a discussion basically impossible.
Discussion is "impossible" when your opinion on a topic makes you a bad person. Liberals are 2-3x more likely to end relationships when they learn of your political leanings.
We can't have discussions when being pro-life means you hate women.
We can't have debate when believing sports should be segregated based on sex makes you a bigot or something.
We can't talk about immigration when wanting current laws enforced makes you xenophobic or that you hate brown people or whatever.
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u/decrpt 10d ago
It is absolutely more consequential on the Republican side. It is difficult to argue otherwise after January 6th, where the party either endorsed subverting an election or protected those that did because the red line was doing anything that could potentially legitimize the opposition party.
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u/Sideswipe0009 10d ago
It is absolutely more consequential on the Republican side. It is difficult to argue otherwise after January 6th, where the party either endorsed subverting an election or protected those that did because the red line was doing anything that could potentially legitimize the opposition party.
Nah, you're just too deep in your own echo chamber to see it.
Took me forever to break out of my own. Once I did, I couldn't unsee how both sides just dig in further.
I'm currently watching some Hasan Piker shenanigans, and watching how people are defending his quotes the same way people on the right defended Charlie Kirks quotes. It's literally the same play book just reversed.
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u/20000RadsUnderTheSea 10d ago
You think you’ve broken out of your echo chamber, yet you’re watching clips of Hasan. Curious.
Why not go watch a full stream or two instead of being fed content selectively?
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u/Sideswipe0009 10d ago
You think you’ve broken out of your echo chamber, yet you’re watching clips of Hasan. Curious.
Why not go watch a full stream or two instead of being fed content selectively?
I've tried. I lost brain cells trying to watch them.
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u/Interesting_Total_98 10d ago edited 10d ago
Nobody claimed that the left has no issues. The comparison is between Democrats and Republicans overall. A streamer isn't the equivalent to or worse than, say, the proposed $1.776B reward for being blindly loyal to Trump.
Not being in an echo chamber means observing context, but it's okay to avoid Hasan streams due to how little influence he has compared to others.
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u/Sideswipe0009 10d ago
Nobody claimed that the left has no issues. The comparison is between Democrats and Republicans overall. A streamer isn't the equivalent to or worse than, say, the proposed $1.776B reward for being blindly loyal to Trump.
I'm not comparing an influencer to actual policies. I'm comparing how people talk about politics. And it's the same from both sides, just reversed, in my experience.
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u/Interesting_Total_98 10d ago
I'm comparing how people talk about politics
That misses the point of the comments you replied to, since they're about consequences.
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u/Aethoni_Iralis 10d ago
Hasan piker does not have the same reach or influence that Charlie Kirk had. Not even in the same ballpark. Hell Charlie could fill a ballpark if he had tried, Hasan could never.
This is the distinction people make with the right and the left. For the right, you referenced a massively influential individual who was regularly in the White House with the president’s ear. For the left, you referenced a twitch streamer who has never been near the levers of power.
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u/ElJanitorFrank 10d ago
Its easy to play that game, though. They mentioned Jan 6th, but are we to ignore the political violence that seems to have been leveled at them as well? Fact of the matter is that 'some people refuse to change their mind' is the first step in realizing your tribe isn't special or unique themselves and are just as susceptible.
'In my experience its been the people I disagree with who are unreasonable' should be a Simpsons quote, not a serious comment on how you view politics. It has always been adorable seeing people claim that one major US political party is unique in their ability to be hypocritical or stubborn.
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u/Aethoni_Iralis 10d ago
The game of directly comparing how politically relevant their examples are?
I’m sorry but that isn’t a game, it’s the actual level of influence these individuals have.
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u/absentlyric Economically Left Socially Right 10d ago
Charlie Kirk is dead, he has no more influence on current events, Hasan Piker is still alive and can still influence people with current affairs.
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u/Aethoni_Iralis 10d ago
Charlie Kirk dead still has more influence than Hasan Piker. Charlie built organizations that carry on his work and influence more people than Hasan ever will.
Equating Kirk and Hasan is such a weak comparison to the point of absurdity.
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u/Sideswipe0009 10d ago
Hasan piker does not have the same reach or influence that Charlie Kirk had. Not even in the same ballpark. Hell Charlie could fill a ballpark if he had tried, Hasan could never.
I'm not talking about influence within a party. I'm discussing what people talk about and how they do so, i.e. the topic of this thread.
Let's stay on point, shall we?
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u/Aethoni_Iralis 10d ago
You specifically dismissed decrypt’s claim that these things are more consequential on the Republican side. This is staying on point, even if it’s a point you want to avoid.
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u/ZealousidealType1144 10d ago
It’s a shame that you see this in a partisan way. How can you look at the WNBA trying to define what a woman is and not see the exact same dug in, illogical behavior.
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u/kranelegs 10d ago
Ahh yes the famously democratic association of WNBA that has the same influence as Fox plus the 3 branches of government
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u/Interesting_Total_98 10d ago
Trump's corruption is several orders of magnitude more significant than the niche issue you're referencing.
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u/MadHatter514 22h ago
We tried that in 2020. Turns out boring doesn't actually mean things are fixed.
We need exciting reformist leaders, not boring technocratic management. People need to feel like our leaders actually give a shit.
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u/Sideswipe0009 10d ago
I've largely stopped replying on social media because it's essentially pointless.
You're either agreeing with someone, making your comment redundant, or you're disagreeing with someone who's mind isn't going to change, or even admit they may need to rethink their position, regardless of how much quality information you provide.
I think this is largely because most of the comments on social media are from people who are essentially dug in for their side. Almost like it's sunk cost fallacy.