I’ve deradicalized 3 chuds so far. Two were capital “G” gamers who routinely dropped the gamer word, and the other is my boomer Reganite co-worker. And now all three are now card carrying sra members. It’s fucking exhausting but it’s also literal praxis and worth ever minute.

Read as much theory as you can. Yeah it fucking sucks. Yeah it’s fucking work. But this is the bare minimum to be anything other than a bitchy do nothing lib. Audiobooks and video essays are fine. Make time for this because it will pay dividends.

Learn the Socratic method. The dude was onto something with this one. If you can git gud at this form of debate, you can change minds. It takes time, but it’s like planting and watering a seed. It takes a long time before you’ll see anything happen, but once it does, it’s satisfying.

Keep at it constantly. And start with the small shit. I like to start with basic capitalism and money velocity. Help them understand how corps are like pyramid schemes. Or how stores like walmart suck money out of a community and deposit it thousands of miles away. You’re trying to build a foundation. Chuds are mad at capitalism, they just don’t know it. But don’t use words like capitalism, Marxism, proletariat or things like that. Those words stop thoughts. Use “big business”, “economics” and “working class”.

Pick your battles, but don’t give up ground you’ve already gained. If you’ve talked them down off some racist bullshit, don’t give an inch back. Set it in stone and never move. But don’t push forward too hard either. Too much and they will shut off. Baby steps.

And finally, always be understanding and willing to listen without getting upset. Stay even keeled and consistent. Don’t mirror their volume or anger. But do empathize with them. You’re trying to undo literal decades of mental trauma, shit is going to be dicey in there.

Beyond that, don’t get discouraged if you can’t reach them all. At the end of the day you really don’t owe them a response at all. They will probably get addicted to arguing with you if you’re any good. Humans have a natural desire to debate. And withholding your argument is an equally valid tool in your arsenal.

I work in a construction-adjascent industry, so I interact with chuds daily. Folks with Trump stickers on their hard hats and welders masks aren’t uncommon.

What I do, to start out, is act dumb. Some people don’t talk politics at all, which is alright. You can talk to people about socialism without talking about what most people think of as politics. A lot of people in construction know the rate that their company charges for their labor, or the quoted price for the job they’re currently on, and pointing out and complaining about the huge difference between that and our wages isn’t political to most people, for example.

Some people will start talking about a recent event, clearly trying to probe you out. I avoid whatever the lib response is, because it’s usually at least partially wrong, and chuds are already innoculated against it by their preferred right wing dork, while also not going for the straight theoretical communist response. I say something that they’re not going to expect that’s also not bad.

As an aside, when I found out that Bernie had dropped out, I was in a work truck with a full crew getting lunch. A guy in the backseat was scrolling Facebook and said “Oh shit, Bernie Sanders dropped out.” The truck was silent. Working people, even those with a mild case of right wing brainworms, know where their bread is buttered. They’ll shit on Pelosi, and Schumer, and Clinton, and Biden all day long. But from most of the people I’ve worked with, Sanders doesn’t get that kind of response. People have got a certain respect for him, and are clearly open to left ideas. People who would otherwise support the right.

Now, some people will open up with a screed that could’ve been written for Breitbart. “Damn, that’s crazy” gets me a lot of milage. You gotta pick your moments with these people, but the ones you get can be great. Like, when the Pfizer vaccine was looking like it was going to be ready soon, after the election, and chuds were saying it was all part of a conspiracy to make Trump look bad, I got to break out “Dude, Trump said that there’d be a vaccine before the end of the year” and it broke their fucking brain lmao.

But there are a few people who are left of lib that I work with. A coworker of mine had seen a train on another jobsite where someone had painted information about violence against and abductions of native women, and that was an experience that had clearly effected him. There’s an architect I work with sometimes who won’t come out and say that he’s a leftist, but his politics are too good to be a lib.

We all laugh at anti-Biden memes, though.

ive recently tried to think of it as an anthropologically study. what do these people really believe? what are their limits to the cypto-fascism that they follow. i suppose in your guy, it might just be obviously, on its face, “all of it.” these days I have to deal mostly with libs, which can be a bit more subtle. so my new plan is gentle leading questions (if i don’t get too frustrated first; had one being a slave apologist and i almost walked out).

they’re just regurgitating propaganda, it’s all they know how to do. it’s hard to get them to “go left” but it’s easy enough to get them to see that both parties are the same. just start talking about wealth inequality and you can usually find a small amount of common ground.