That's like saying "when was the last time a Flat Earther convinced you to change your mind?"

However, it doesn't logically follow that because someone has never changed their mind based on conservative viewpoints that they are wrong.

I also like the misuse of "false equivalency" (sic)

The right has zero credibility left. Televangelists are more trustworthy.

I wouldn't care so much, but I have family who still believe everything Republicans (and their radio/newz channel) say.

Sorry to burst your theory.

I offer up "The DU Great Pit Bull Debate May 2013 Edition" as evidence. People passionate on both sides of an issue argue and fight and offer what they believe to be facts, the opposing party believes they debunk those facts, names are called, posts are hidden, rinse and repeat.




Back to your question. I can't recall any situation where I've been sold on a RW point. I was, however, in a project management class recently that was facilitated by a nasty RW lady. A team project we had was to balance the City of Milwaukee's budget without increasing property taxes. Options we were given included increasing fees for things like garbage and vehicle registration and parking. The team I was on started out vehemently against tax increases although it was clear something HAD to be done to increase revenue. I was able to convince the rest of them that regressive taxes and fees are far worse and, much to the shagrin of the facilitator, we came to a good consensus on a modest increase.

I dunno... being in WI and going from the very middle-of-the-road slightly left to the divisive dog-eat-dog/hate your neighbor culture that Scott Walker created has been interesting. Everyone became much less willing to work together and it's sad.

Nature of the game.

Mostly because I was working with people who listened to that crap every waking moment, I was immersed in it for several hours every day and heard every argument repeated until well past the point of nausea.

They never convinced me of anything despite the fact that was all the political argument I ever heard.

In fact I called into the shows often enough to realize the hosts almost never really believed their own arguments because if you started to make telling points against them they would always without fail cut you off the air.

Poe's Law. Like you said, sometimes it's hard to tell whether or not even they believe what they say. You'll hear, say Rush, put a spin of ridicule or half-truth on a particular talking point that misrepresents the left, and the people I'm around KNOW and will even admit it's over-the-top, but will sweep their cognitive dissonance aside and go along with it. All in the name of being a loyal team player.

On several occasions I called and got through to refute points made on local RW talk radio and in each case they rebutted me by using non-sequitors or strawman arguments. Basically responding not to what I said, but rather a distorted version of what I said; that is, one that makes their argument look good....and you get cut off: You never get the chance to re-clarify or point out where they distorted your argument. Limbaugh is atrocious in that regard. He'll always say he welcomes opposing viewpoints, and his screener tends to put easy for him to "defeat" non-articulate callers on to make him look good, but on the occasions where a shrewd caller can make it past his screener and offer a very articulate argument, he just comes back with a BS answer and the caller never gets the chance to point that out.

Not sure if I have a solid answer. I discuss politics with my parents alot. They've never changed my mind about big things. Abortion, gay rights, and social safety nets to name some.

Now on some things, like economics & healthcare, I tend to not "win" the discussion. My Stepfather is a very smart man & knows a lot more about economics than I do by virtue of his job & his investments in the market. I feel he makes valid points that I cannot refute. This doesn't always change my mind. But does get me thinking.

And on healthcare. He totally changed my mind. He is for a single payer system. Which seems like a great idea to me. I was/am a supporter of Pres Obamas plan. Hell, anything that'll get people the care they need. What's funny about this to me, is he's a staunch Republican and I believe single payer is a liberal idea? From what I've seen. Particularly here. Tho many seem to reject it.

Discussing ideas with my parents may not always change my mind. But it does get me to learn more about a position I think is right. Or I try to.

However, the RW has changed a lot of minds, and not just here. Prior to the election of President Obama, we were generally speaking, opposed to the PATRIOT ACT. Now, generally speaking, we are in favor of the PATRIOT ACT, because President Obama is in the White House. Since it would be cynical to say that we like the idea of a secret police who answer to no courts when our guy is in charge, I can only assume that everyone with a D after their name now thinks that we really need the PATRIOT ACT to defend the country from the vague shadowy forces of evil out there.

There are a number of issues that are much like that. War, we were opposed to it. We cheered Cindy Sheehan, and we supported her and others like her that spoke out against the War on Terror. We used to update posts here and on Huffington Post, and on Daily Kos, and Moveon.org. We used to let everyone know how many people died the day before, and we would talk about the milestones we passed, milestones of deaths that were tragic and wasted lives lost to the lies. Then President Obama was elected, and we stopped counting. So either we never cared about the dead troops, or we were now convinced that the war which was started over lies, was no longer evil and wasteful, it was now a good and just war, because our guy was in charge.

So while you read this, know that already someone has flagged it for the jury to decide that it violates the rules. We aren't allowed to speak ill of Democrats, or perhaps they'll decide that it contains RW Talking points. If that is true, then when did we decide that truth had no place in our party platform. Because we were opposed to so many things, and we are now in favor of them. Nothing has changed, except the man at the top.

If you wonder why the support for our party is falling. Then you need look no further than this. We claim the Republicans are awful evil and stupid. But as soon as we are in charge, we continue doing what they were, as if an evil program can be made good and wonderful because one of us is in charge. The we censor and ostracize those who object to our inexplicable change and question our dedication to our principles. So go ahead, flag this, and members of the jury, decide it is nothing more than RW talking points that we used to oppose the war, and now we are the staunchest supporters of it. I remember, and I wonder why the rest of you don't.

So yes, there are a lot of us who had our minds changed, just about every one who identifies as a Democrat in Washington DC as a matter of fact. There are so many that I have started feeling something that the RW could never make me feel. I am feeling ashamed to be a Democrat.

If the TPP were being considered under a repub administration, there would be multiple threads of outrage about it. Instead, those who express concern over things like this are called Chicken Little's.

Now, they tag your post, and claim you are using RW talking points, and the Jury agrees and blocks your words. We have begun to censor those who question the direction of our party.

Conservatives I've interacted with in this regard tend to take one of two approaches to "convince me"

1) they insult and denigrate me. Essentially trying to use social pressure to get me to agree with them. "Gosh, I don't want people to think I'm a satan-worshipping, communist, mass-murdering pedophile, so I guess I better agree with you!"

2) They try to engage and convince like normal people... using the bad information their position is based off of. This generally leads either to me convincing them as to the validity of my position, or leads to them defaulting back to #1, there.

A distant third is them simply ceasing the conversation with "Yeeeeeah weeeeeeell, I guess we'll have to agree to disagree" or something like that.

It's not that I have a knee-jerk opposition to conservative viewpoints. It's not "well, you're a conservative, so you're wrong!" I have an opposition to non-fact, however, and non-fact seems to be the primary basis for most of what conservatives believe these days.

Uusally, pretty much without fail, they'll use the #2 method first, and when I come back and easily refute it ( because they are ignorant/unread ) they get all huffy and revert to the #1 method. This is also the point where they by then pretty much drop all pretense of objectivity or rationality and bare their predjudices or erect a wall around their single pet issue.

Happens every time.

I don't think I've ever had my political opinion changed due to an argument. I have had new information brought to my attention which has caused me to alter a political opinion. But, I can't recall if ever someone has convinced me I'm wrong.
I define politics as The interactions of sub-societies within a society. I define a society as 2 or more persons.

Ah, the overwhelming responsibilities that come with always being right. Must strive to appear humble.

but I do agree with Libertarians on ending the wars (including the war on drugs), but thats where any commonality ends.

Breaking up the banks may be a common point as could be opposition to Citizen's United, not sure.

While I wasn't so sure.

Turned out they were correct.

I thought it was jihadism too based on a hunch but I waited for the facts to confirm my opinion.

If the known facts were different then I would have a different opinion.

not like. Does that count? Politically they are opposed to helping the poor and the sick, they hate gay people although now they say so with less venom if they are conservadems or Blue Dogs as opposed to full Republicans. Politically, people who say 'fuck free health care, I pay my damn taxes, let the poor do the same' are not just incorrect they are morally absent.

No, dear OP, no one has persuaded me to hate the poor, oppose access to health care for all, nor to despise those unlike myself. The OFA folks tried to get Democrats to join Rick Warren and to bash gay people, that will always, always always be remembered. Some are still defending that crap, excusing it, others are still vomiting hate and venom when they hear that the poor get some help or some attention, they shout 'fuck them'.

(they may certainly have convinced me that they were right about other things!)

Have people who hold more conservative views than me on some aspects of politics ever made me at least realize that the issue is more complicated than I originally thought? Yes, certainly, on quite a number of issues.

But I think that people who are both overall right-wingers, and sufficiently thoughtful about the issues to debate about them, tend to have such different values than I do about very fundamental issues, that their arguments tend if anything to have the reverse effect on me. I do not want to strengthen the role in politics of people and organizations who believe in harshness toward poor people and minorities, authoritarian punitiveness, or anything associated with the 'just world theory'. For example, I agree in the abstract with a lot of the criticisms of the EU in its present form, but I do not want the UK to be either the 51st state under another Bush, or run by the likes of Farage. I sometimes say that 'I would be a Eurosceptic if not for the Eurosceptics'.

Sometimes they have gotten me to consider economic questions - they may have convinced me capitalism can work, but I still think it has to be regulated and that some things, like health care, should be set aside and not subjected to it. But I don't share their extreme fear of socialism.

Right wingers of today do not consider their positions very well, and they are based on emotion. Old fashioned rational Republicans might be able to convince me some points are worth considering.

Oswald acted alone. Iraq was a threat. The deficit is destroying America. People are over taxed. Business is over regulated.

Same old same old same as it ever was.

In the non-virtual life? Never.

The reason aren't my intransigent opinions. It's their faulty reasoning.

and boy it did...

about politics????

can't remember

If you truly pay attention to the right, and some of the more intelligent people on the right, you can structure your point of view differently. An example for me was Ann Coulter. I was listening to a talk she was giving -- 8 or so years ago -- and during the Q&A session, a student told her that he was tired of the Bush administration interfering with education. Specifically, he was angry that Bush wanted any student with a history of drug use to be ineligible for government educational assistance. I agreed with the student, so I was interested to hear her response. "You specifically do not like Bush's policy, but the problem is not Bush or students with records of drug use. The problem is the eagerness of institutions of higher education being so eager to accept government aid. As soon as a college accepts government aid, they have knowingly consented to government interference. I despise it, too, but be sure you understand where the problem originates." Coulter's comment did not change my mind about how the abhorrent nature of Bush's proposed policy, but she made an excellent and relevant point I had not considered before.

The problem is with the strings attached to government money... and the so-called Christian fundie influence.
It's as though you're getting charity from a fundamentalist church when rightwingers have control of the money.

The history of extremism from the right wing in America is well-deserved. Conservatives have a legitimate role to play in American politics; right wing extremism is not a legitimate American political movement. The Republicans used to fight the influence of these extremist outlyers until Reagan and his cohorts invited them into the republican party as normative members in order to gain thier votes. I'm always willing to listen to the ideas and information that a legitmimate American conservative might present during discussions about political or social problems.
Finding a conservative republican that isnt infected by right wing mendacity is the real trick.
This reminds me of the fox "news" habit of insisting that facts (especially scientific facts) are just opinions, even when the fact is a simple as "2+2=4".

Right wing attempts to destroy America are not legitimate political endeavors- no matter how often and loudly corporate media claims them to be- and no one that loves America is going to allow that love to be destroyed by the lies and paranoia of right wing extremists.
Being open minded is an important part of being progressive~ accepting the paranoid rants and racist raves of right wingers as legitimate political discourse ignores the lessons of history and devalues American cooperation and cohesion.

of all issues since the early 1900's at least
I can not think of one thing they got right.

but we're worlds apart on how to fix it.

we don't need to convert them

we need to win office

what those that don't agree care about really doesn't matter once they are rendered politically obsolete at the voting booth

80-20 instead of the fake meme 50-50.

Promote the party positive and leave the other party to do what they want to when and how and once they are voted out of office, no one will care about them anymore and then they shall go away.

It's either overly subtle for me (in which case I apologise) or severely under-thought (in which case I'm terrified).

the nation is 80-20

the republican leaders are draconian extremists
extremists make up about 20% of the total nation

we don't need their votes if one votes straight democratic across the country in all.

it really is simple.

If you are debating a hardline to the right, why bother.Waste of time.

They won't listen. You can't covert 100%

But winning 51% nationwide in each place, and being mainstream and having all 3 branches,
will lead to an 80-20 vote in each house.
Just get rid of the extremists from being relevant either way.

The extremists are a small finite minority. Like a bratty toddler, a time out if the answer,
not a debate.

What I mean is that in issues, say economic policy, they themselves will have opinions or ideas that I can live with- BUT - because they are either not very well read/informed or under the thrall of confirmation bias it is NOT the actual opinion of the particular party, political figure or bloc that they support at the ballot box. In short, they put a moderate spin on the bad policy to make it sound agreeable to me even though I know damned well that's NOT the way the GOP rolls. You see, I'm an ex-conservative, and I know all their tricks.

The other point is that as an ex-conservative, I get irritated when right wingers try to redouble their efforts to convert me. They act like they're offering me new as yet unheard revelations that are sure to make me come to their side, but are in reality preaching to a disgusted ex-choir member, so to speak. I try to tell them that I fully understand their position: But I'm in complete disagreement with them. They can argue a suavely or with all the sophistry they can muster, but it is they that have it wrong, not I.