this post was submitted on 20 Jul 2026
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As a leftist, I dislike this sentiment. We should not normalize isolating folks on the far right.
Of course, do what you want with your friend groups. Kick someone out if you don't like hanging with them. But if you can swing it, there are a lot of cases where it can be really good thing to expose conservative folks to leftist worldviews in a friendly setting.
I feel including conservative folks has a much more direct and convincing theory of change than excluding them does.
(Again, it is cool if you don't want to do that.)
I agree with the sentiment and have practiced this for years -- it was pounded into me during my education-- but have not found any balance in it. The evils stay evil and I feel like they thrive on my making room for them. Its very odd that some otherwise sane and caring people can have these parts of their personalities that are completely distinct from the rest of how they think, and it doesn't make any sense to me personally. Usually the biggest hurdle is around Israel support. So we stay friends, but I think they are evil shits and they think I'm a peacenik moron who is naive out of touch with the real world (I think).
I'm not certain, but I think at its core is racism and lack of respect for others, while wishing them well at the same time. So they want to tell themselves they are good people, but hate on certain ethnic groups. Kind of a "I'm going to shoot you in the head but I feel bad about it" sort of thing. Ironically they dont know a single thing about islam, and universally dont know any muslims.
They tend to be middle class too-- truly middle, and well above average intelligence, mostly with career success. They dont worry about money, really ever. Victims of propoganda? I still dont know.
Not sure if you were making a reference, but one of Israel’s most distinctive propaganda tactics is literally called Shooting And Crying. Basically, get your former IDF soldiers to act all sad about the atrocities they had to commit, so the public focus stays on sympathy instead of the war crimes and genocides they committed. Nobody feels good about kicking a crying person while they’re down, so it’s a way to shunt blame and avoid being held accountable for your own actions.
Basically, divert the blame onto the shadowy and faceless “they”. They ordered me to do bad things. They put me in situations where I was forced to make impossible choices. They forced me to struggle to survive. They are the reason I had to do all of those awful things. Because “they” is a faceless amorphous entity that can’t be held accountable and can’t defend itself against allegations. Meaning “they” is easy to shift blame onto as long as I remain a sympathetic victim in the public’s mind. If I keep crying, I never actually have to apologize for my war crimes, because they should be the ones apologizing instead.
Wasnt aware of that. Horrifying but right on brand for them.
I've been doing a little bit of this with someone I work with. The thing that really got her attention was me pointing out I can't make a gallon of gas by myself, buy I can make a kilowatt of electricity with stuff I have lying around my house/yard. And that equipment will make me more kilowatts, for free.
Yeah, the Technology Connections video on solar panels vs ethanol production (growing corn to turn into ethanol to add to gasoline) was honestly a great tool for convincing people who simply never bothered to think critically about it. I don’t even need to get them to watch the video, I simply paraphrase some of the arguments he makes.
Alec is a treasure. I have some moderately terrifiying switches and I need to figure out a way to send them to him, even if he didn't do a video he would probably like them.