[chrisan]

Guns

"Freedom of speech" to say _whatever_ on twitter etc

Vaccines being good

Anything that helps another person is "socialism"

Not sure about a poll of 1300 people, have you tried changing a hardline Republican's mind?

I dunno, I grew up in PA/OH so I have a lot of republican friends. I gave up trying to show them the other side.

[jimmygrapes]

Spoiler alert: I'm probably what you'd call a hard line Republican

That said, yes, I've changed the minds of people with fixed ideals, many times, over several decades. Step one is to listen to them without trying to.

> Guns

What is the mindset that needs to be changed? Republicans, as a bloc, support the right of anybody of sound mind and character (presumptive prerequisites for being part of a potential [and hopefully unnecessary] well regulated militia) to own a gun. They're pretty flexible about restricting edge cases, as long as those edge cases don't grow to be standardized restrictions. Maybe you think nobody should own a gun, I dunno, but if that's the case it seems like the kind of extreme absolutist position you're complaining about.

> "Freedom of speech" to say _whatever_ on twitter etc

Again, what's the argument here? I can guess you are dog-whistling about how Republicans just want to use racial slurs or something, but it's just a guess and if I'm right then that's a pretty strawman type assumption. Republicans want to not be removed from a pseudo-public forum for holding a minority opinion - surely you can empathize with that framing?

> Vaccines being good

Republicans as a whole are fine with vaccinations, and most are vaccinated many times throughout their life. Don't let the backlash to COVID-19 trick you into thinking they aren't vaccinated for other things. Also, don't confuse vaccines with vaccine mandates, c'mon, no wonder you can't change their minds if that's what you're doing.

> Anything that helps another person is "socialism"

OK I'm beginning to think you're not being honest with your experiences. That is a very gross mischaracterization (in both the senses of disgusting and wholesale). Maybe you mean they are against the idea of welfare payments or wealth redistribution? Those are pretty nuanced concepts even still, so you really gotta get into a proper discussion. Based on these examples you've provided, I have a hard time believing you have really attempted to have a conversation with a Republican, or maybe you have just had very bad luck as I said earlier.

If you want to change minds, you have to know where they are and where you want them to be, and have a path for them to get from A to B.

I bet you and I agree on a lot of things if you'd just be willing to listen.

[thatswrong0]

Not the OP you're replying to but: I think there's a chasm between what views Republican voters hold, and what the Republican party stands for, and not being able to distinguish between the two leads to people talking past each other.

And yet, being a Republican voter means implicitly endorsing the views of the Republican party. So maybe this chasm doesn't matter. If you vote for a person who explicitly is against climate change, LGBTQ+ rights, etc., then that says something about your own personal philosophy.

> They're pretty flexible about restricting edge cases

The RNC is most certainly not however. No matter how many kids die in school shootings, any attempt to seriously tighten up the rules is met with a chorus of "they're taking our guns!". Getting anything passed took us.. how many school shootings?

> Republicans want to not be removed from a pseudo-public forum for holding a minority opinion - surely you can empathize with that framing?

Well, that framing is pretty disingenuous. And Republicans generally support that businesses should be able to serve whoever they want. Labelling a private company's platform as a pseudo-public forum is also at odds with the general ethos of "don't let the government tell me what to do". On top of this, the general outrage about deplatforming often entirely ignores the series of platform rule-breaking that leads up to said deplatforming.. and yet then if an unarmed black person gets killed by a cop, you'll so often hear cries of "just follow the law" coming from the right side.

In short, I consistently see Republican politicians / pundits / voters completely abandon their ideals the moment it begins to personally affect them. (Note: this until-it-affects-me probably explains the party's platform about LGBTQ+ issues, racial issues, etc.)

> OK I'm beginning to think you're not being honest with your experiences

Most of my family members, as the whole, are what I would call "reasonable republicans" who generally care about the principles of small government and not interfering too much with the economy. And yet some of them too occasionally fall into the Fox News inspired trap of labeling anything related to social welfare as "socialism". It's a real thing man.

[blagie]

> If you vote for a person who explicitly .... then that says something about your own personal philosophy.

I'd suggest 1984. Democrats do horrible things Fox News reports on. Republicans do horrible things NY Times report on. Each side votes on different information. In most cases, the information isn't even wrong (although sometimes it is). It's just that major politically-inconvenient things are simply omitted.

This isn't just the US with the red/blue split. The whole world is going with personalized they-are-the-enemy news. I see the same think happening in many countries with completely different ideological divisions.

> Labelling a private company's platform as a pseudo-public forum is also at odds

See Standard Oil and friends a century ago.

> ...if an unarmed black person gets killed by a cop...

Which happens, but not a statistically significant amount.

There is a much bigger problem with the criminal justice system (see The New Jim Crow for a good analysis), but it can't get fixed, in large part due to corruption on the side of the Democrats. The Democrats talk a good game, but are mostly against justice system reform. Law firms donate to Democrats, and anything which reduces the influence of money on justice consistently gets blocked by Democrats.

Police issues are more complex, with corruption on both sides (I'm sure you're familiar with the red side, but Democrats have strong union ties, including police unions).

> how many school shootings?

Not a statistically significant amount. If you want to save kids, improve road safety and have more COVID precautions. Seriously.

I'm not a Republican (let alone a hard-side one), but I do read both sides of the media, and both sides ignore facts, science, and reality.

Don't get me started on Democrats and charter schools. That's the biggest evolution / climate change of liberals.

[jimmygrapes]

Oh yeah, I think I might agree for the most part. The RNC and general party platform is very often not reflective of the people who vote Republican, and I can't yet figure out why that is (other than simple contrarianism). I don't think the official platform is so black and white as to be entirely disconnected from the voters, but i get it.

Your point about the cognitive dissonance in the "censorship" thing is very salient. I wasn't sure how to word it properly, so I threw "pseudo" on there to hedge it a little. I don't think I was being disingenuous, though; once you take at face value the de facto nature of social media being a (not the) primary method of information dissemination and conversation of the lesser man, the whole public/private thing becomes more academic. Yes, private companies can do what they want. No, I don't like being removed from them. Yes, I think that they should not be so heavy handed with removing opinion. No, I don't think any legislation is appropriate to remedy that concern. And so on. Nuance, you know? Which is what the original poster was saying Republicans don't have (along with ability to reason out consequences).

I dunno man, I just want to try to get "the other side" to realize we ain't all cardboard caricatures.