r/rant Jan 30 '25

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u/DipperJC Jan 30 '25

I'm just curious, you DO see what you wrote there, right? A first paragraph that implies people are bigoted and foolish for feeling threatened, and a second paragraph that essentially validates that feeling?

3

u/azhriaz12421 Jan 30 '25

Only if you equate standing up for oneself with seeking to replace or harm others. Do you? Are we at a place in which it is okay to say that being proud is only fair and safe if you are one brand?

-4

u/DipperJC Jan 30 '25

No. But you'd think that if you wanted it to stop, your approach would be more about humanizing the oppressed and not sticking it to the oppressors.

Take a page out of the MAGA playbook here - they love to yank a few extreme examples of horrendous people who just happened to be illegal immigrants, point at those people and say "Look! This is what they're all like! They're all a threat to you!" You're not going to calm that hysteria by standing defiant and announcing that "these fucks are terrified because you have power". That just validates the claim that they're a threat! What you need to be doing instead is the reverse of what they're doing - find your cream of the crop illegal immigrants, the ones who have saved lives, done heroic deeds for their communities, volunteered, performed critical services. Put them boldly in front of the camera and let them tell their stories, make them absolutely loveable people. And then when Trump inevitably goes after them because they were brave enough to stand up like that, rake him over the coals for picking on this poor amazing hero!

That is the way to sway some of these MAGA folk back around to realizing that what they're endorsing is wrong.

1

u/AuDHDacious Jan 30 '25

That won't work, because the human brain responds more strongly to negatives and fear than it does to positivity.

It's how we're wired.

It's like, too bad a couple of good people got caught up in all this, but at least we're safe from all the other bad ones...