Changing the minds of people who intend to vote for Donald Trump: A Call to Action

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Speevy

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This forum cannot get enough of Donald Trump. Every few minutes we have another thread about this guy, but it's all pretty much the same basic discussion.

He says hateful things. He's a horrible person. He doesn't know what he's doing. His poll numbers keep improving. How can he be stopped? Who are the idiots who are voting for this guy?

The general consensus seems to be that people who are going to vote for Donald Trump are stuck in their ways. They can't see reason. They just plug their ears and we expect them to show up at the polls in great numbers in November.

I would say that 99.999999% of Neogaf is already against Donald Trump, and that's good.

Now, I don't know about most of you, but growing up in a Christian family I was always taught that what I should be doing is trying to minister to people. I was told that I should spread the gospel of Christ to as many people as I could, every day.

Now, that obviously isn't what this thread is about. But I'm thinking about that more and more. Christians say that if you care enough about your beliefs, you should get out there and talk to other people, no matter how averse they are to what you have to say.

So...if people on this forum care that much about this election, why don't we start a thread (it can be this one if you like) dedicated to talking to Trump supporters and trying to "convert" them one by one to the other side. If it's that important, it should not matter how many times they tell you to shut the hell up. It shouldn't matter if they're your family members. It shouldn't even matter if they're total strangers who threaten you with bigoted words or violence.

It is that important, right?

So...what's this topic about? How many people have you personally convinced not to vote for Trump?

How many people are you still working on?

I am trying to get my sisters to see the light. They won't vote for Hillary but I think I can get them to stay home on election day.
 
From what I've seen, the biggest threat is people who are voting 3rd party. I suppose those are the people I would try to talk to.

Anyone that has decided to vote for Trump is a lost cause.
 
Fortunately, I don't know anyone stupid enough to vote for him.

But I feel like, if they're still voting for Trump by now, they're never going to be convinced otherwise.
 
I say more power to you and anyone that tries, but when it comes to politics, trying to sway someone's opinion/views generally turns into a giant shit-show that just plays on a loop until one person or the other throws in the towel.
 
I'll try and convince Liberals voting 3rd party to go Clinton, but I don't even want to converse with someone that might ponder voting for that piece of trash Trump.
 
As has been stated, Trump supporters are stuck in their ways. There is just no reasoning with them when the majority are uneducated, one-issue voters. Feels like wasted breath.

We need the independent and non-voters. They really are our best chance. Even if it's just convincing GAFers to just go out there and vote, would be a win.
 
~Devil Trigger~ said:
is there ANYONE on GAF voting for Trump??

i know there's a GAF-defense-Force for everything so...
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Quite a few of Trump supporters have been banned for various things, but plenty of the remaining supporters show up whenever Trump is looking victorious in polls, or when he makes some sort of meme. It's rare to see most of his supporters appear in threads about his latest gaffes because they don't want to look bad or get called out for supporting Trump.
 
Servbot24 said:
From what I've seen, the biggest threat is people who are voting 3rd party. I suppose those are the people I would try to talk to.

Anyone that has decided to vote for Trump is a lost cause.
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Agreed. I live in Iowa and I see a lot of this. Iowa is pretty much all white so I wonder if it's harder for people I know to empathize with the plight of minorities. I graduated from a high school where there was literally two black kids in the entire 9-12 grades. White privilege is being able to voice your opinion through a 'protest vote' without fear of serious consequences for you and your loved ones.

The fact is this: Trump seeks to harm a group of our citizens.

You can fucking hate Hillary with every fiber of your being and it still wouldn't justify voting for Trump or a third party candidate. The above fact is all that matters. A third party vote is a throw away vote and therefore a vote for Trump. You are actively participating in his brand of America and you should feel ashamed.
 
tarius1210 said:
Probably a silent minority.
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Trump-Rally-Burlington-IA-Silent-Majority-Sign-GettyImages-640x480.png
 
I've encountered people that will or want to vote for Trump but they are strangers. It takes more than a 5 minute convo to get any traction.
 
Ryan_09 said:
As has been stated, Trump supporters are stuck in their ways. There is just no reasoning with them when the majority are uneducated, one-issue voters. Feels like wasted breath.
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I'm the one who stated it, but no breath is wasted in defense of something so monumentally important.

If we were trying to end segregation, would we say the same thing? Lots of people wanted to keep that around. I say stopping Donald Trump is just as important.

If you haven't gotten screamed at by a redneck today, you're not doing it right. (I kid)
 
People voting for Trump don't give a shit about morality. Trump has promised to restore any perceived erosion of the status of white men being at the top of the food chain. They are 100% willing to sacrifice the liberties of their fellow Americans to see that realized.
 
It's probably not worth trying to "convert" someone at this point unless they're on the edge and they are looking for advice.

Example: my parents have always been hardcore republicans. Have always hated the clintons. They don't even like trump but their dislike for Hilary runs so deep it doesn't matter.

Any point that gets brought up is met with a shrug and "still better than Hilary."

So I just shrug and say good luck to Trump in taking PA
 
Tagyhag said:
Fortunately, I don't know anyone stupid enough to vote for him.

But I feel like, if they're still voting for Trump by now, they're never going to be convinced otherwise.
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My dad is voting for Trump for Supreme Court picks. Mom and her husband are voting for Trump because they are "R" cheerleaders who would vote for a pile of crap if he had an R after his name and quote Fox News like its gospel. Step mom is most likely voting for Trump or third party.

They all passionately hate Hillary and will never vote for her in a million years.


^ yep I'm getting the "still better than Hillary" mantra too.
 
Ryan_09 said:
As has been stated, Trump supporters are stuck in their ways. There is just no reasoning with them when the majority are uneducated, one-issue voters. Feels like wasted breath.

We need the independent and non-voters. They really are our best chance. Even if it's just convincing GAFers to just go out there and vote, would be a win.
Click to expand...
I don't live in the US, but whenever I see Trump supporters online, I try to dispel their conspiracy theory-laden nonsense whenever they spew it, point by point, without trying to convert them to Clinton. It might not convince them, but hopefully some bystanders will look and see Trump isn't all what his supporters say he is.
 
I try my best with every Trump supporter I meet, but it's like talking to a brick wall. They believe literally anything Trump says. I've seen people going back on believing climate change just because Trump calls it a hoax.

The one that infuriates me the most is a Bernie or Buster who has gone to Trump and now goes online to try and convince people to vote for Trump. He's a friend and boyfriend of another, closer friend, but I genuinely despise him for doing that.
 
There are many people who tend to vote Republican who ought to be appalled by Donald Trump. The attack on the Khan family is so personal and so clearly in opposition to the values most Americans hold.

There's a big opening here for the Libertarian ticket. It's going to get some establishment GOP support. Already rumblings that Mitt Romney will endorse. If Trump starts to lose by 8-10 points in the polls, Trumps is only going to go off the rails more and say more stupid shit.

If he looks like a loser and says more offensive stuff over the next 4-6 weeks, the door is open for Paul Ryan and others to disown Trump and tell people to vote Libertarian, this one time. Both of those guys, Johnson and Weld, and former GOP elected officials.

15% in the polls gets Johnson into the debates and he'll start to look viable. Conservatives who can't stomach Trump exist, and they might vote third party this time.
 
People voting third party didn't cost Gore the presidency and it won't cost Hillary the presidency either.

I doubt you will change the minds of Trump supporters either.

You need to focus on getting the vote out by encouraging people to register to vote, getting on the phones and helping to drive people to the polls come the big day. The white supremacists voting for Trump are energised and ready, you need to fight voter apathy on your side if you're going to win.
 
From my Euro perspective, things become FUBAR in the moment he became the official nominee.

It is not only showcase of crazyness of Rep voters, it is also showcase of weakness of total Rep party, which - and I am sure about that - have many great potential candidates, as well as people dredded by Trump.

But somehow he prevailed.

IMO, it is done. Only thing that can save the US (and world) now are the votes of ethnic minorities and groups actually motivated to vote. I hope the pressure to vote from celebrities and other motivational groups will increase as November approaches as well.

But as I said, the greatest problem is that Reps let it happen.

I see that as smoking and letting cancer happen and then realizing you actually got cancer.

My 2 eurocents.
 
If people are still voting for him after all the idiotic statements he's made in the past year then you can't change their minds. They want an idiot in the White House. We need to get the people on the fence instead.
 
Have conservative family and get the "better than Clinton" line as well. Clinton is absolutely toxic to life long conservatives and Republicans. Would a better strategy be to attempt to divert their vote to Johnson? I mean, he was a Republican governor. Could be an easier sell.
 
Speevy said:
I'm the one who stated it, but no breath is wasted in defense of something so monumentally important.

If we were trying to end segregation, would we say the same thing? Lots of people wanted to keep that around. I say stopping Donald Trump is just as important.

If you haven't gotten screamed at by a redneck today, you're not doing it right. (I kid)
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I agree with you! But yo, Trump supporters are pretty thickheaded. Not saying we should give up, but man is it a downer sometimes... it only feels like wasted breath due to their views essentially being set in stone. I'm hoping, if Clinton wins, we can continue the positive culture shift that's been happening the last half-decade. Just as Trump has legitimized bigotry, a W for Hillary will legitimize that we won't stand for it.

As for rednecks... not too many of those around here in Cheyenne... good bunch of people all around. xD

Thankfully, with my military workplace, and Trump's very anti-military policies *coughNATOcough*, put me in a decent position to convert at least a few of them by presenting facts that him winning will hit them right where it hurts. I still stand by my opinion though that we should be focusing on the stragglers though. It seems to me to be the safest option.
 
Silas Lang said:
Have conservative family and get the "better than Clinton" line as well. Clinton is absolutely toxic to life long conservatives and Republicans. Would a better strategy be to attempt to divert their vote to Johnson? I mean, he was a Republican governor. Could be an easier sell.
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Not in the case of my parents. They want a republican. Not someone who used to be a republican governor.
 
I know a lot of republicans. The ones I actually have enough of a rapport with to convince are either voting for Hillary or not voting(mostly because they care waaay too much about their guns).

The ones I only know through work are jovially for Trump to the point that even correcting BS facts they put forward in a light manner pisses them off so much that I don't even try to convince them to change their mind, hell, I don't even tell them who I'm voting for.

Trying to convince the type of person that was fully into the tea party movement that they may be mistaken about anything related to politics is a fool's errand.

~Devil Trigger~ said:
is there ANYONE on GAF voting for Trump??

i know there's a GAF-defense-Force for everything so...
Click to expand...

There are a few who know how to discuss without getting their asses banned.
 
On the 4th of July, I was at my mom's and some of us made the bold move to actually discuss politics/Trump. I live in Oklahoma and fully expected full-blown Trump support from my Southern Baptist family.

My stepdad indicated that he'd be supporting Trump because he likes that he's not a politician, and apparently, that's good enough for him. I explained two or three things that I felt would make Trump a sure-fire bad president, and admitted that I was probably alone in thinking that and that was fine. I didn't want to argue, but I was happy to have a discussion.

My nearly 80-year-old grandpa then chimed in that I'd be surprised to know that there are others that agree with me. He told me and my stepdad that he and my grandma intended to support Hillary. His business did well enough in the years of Bill Clinton and he can't stomach the way Donald Trump treats people. He also said he'd be worried for his grandchildren that Trump would involve us in unnecessary wars.

Surprisingly, we discussed this for a bit and my stepdad, who I don't think follows politics closely at all, was swayed. He was at least given pause about his earlier support of Trump.

It was a nice conversation and it seems worthwhile to broach the subject if you feel it's important. My advise is to always explain your intentions first, though. Don't argue; discuss. It shouldn't be a debate and no one has to "win". If everyone can agree to that, have at it and be willing to move on from the subject if it starts to get at all heated.
 
Silas Lang said:
Have conservative family and get the "better than Clinton" line as well. Clinton is absolutely toxic to life long conservatives and Republicans. Would a better strategy be to attempt to divert their vote to Johnson? I mean, he was a Republican governor. Could be an easier sell.
Click to expand...

Yes, definitely the easier sell. Especially if he starts to surge and gets on the debate stage. Johnson is off the radar now but as Trump falls, his visibility will rise.

And strategic voting aside, how could someone vote for Trump at all? I'm a lifelong Democrat and if we someday had a antiwar candidate who smeared POW's or parents of war dead, I'd be appalled and would have a hard time voting for that person.
 
All of the Trump supporters I know think that Hillary is the most evil person alive. Most of them like Bernie, oddly enough.
The biggest shocker was that all of the women (who don't know who Elizabeth Warren is, basically) wanted Hillary to nominate Warren because "No one is dumb enough to vote for two women.".
 
Rather than try the impossible, I'm just gonna do what I can to get people to vote. Like my cousin is eligible to vote for the first time this year and I just helped her register last night. Will continue to do so with anyone else that needs that push to register and I think I'll go to some Hillary phonebanks for presumably battleground states. I live in CA so doubt she loses us lol.
 
amar212 said:
From my Euro perspective, things become FUBAR in the moment he became the official nominee.

It is not only showcase of crazyness of Rep voters, it is also showcase of weakness of total Rep party, which - and I am sure about that - have many great potential candidates, as well as people dredded by Trump.

But somehow he prevailed.

IMO, it is done. Only thing that can save the US (and world) now are the votes of ethnic minorities and groups actually motivated to vote. I hope the pressure to vote from celebrities and other motivational groups will increase as November approaches as well.

But as I said, the greatest problem is that Reps let it happen.

I see that as smoking and letting cancer happen and then realizing you actually got cancer.

My 2 eurocents.
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It's not that they let it happen. It's that they made it happen.

Donald Trump was nominated by the Republican Party, and by Republicans nationwide. Tens of millions of people turned out and voiced their support for Trump, and appointed him as their nominee.

I find the notion that Republicans were somehow victims, or pulled along for the ride, to be dismissive of the evil of the GOP.

If you consider yourself a republican, then Donald Trump is who you are. And if you're so ashamed to admit that, then you should reconsider whether you are actually a Republican, or simply a byproduct of political inertia.
 
People should go to r/Donald, Breitbart, Drudge Report and read the Youtube Comments of Trump video. They love the guy.

They want someone who isn't politically correct and most importantly isn't a politician. Very tough to get them to choose the super corrupt Clinton.

Bad choice all around really.
 
Like some here have already expressed, you will be hard pressed to convert current Trump Supporters over to Clinton. You could convince "true" Conservatives begrudgingly voting for Trump to vote Libertarian (when Jeb/Romney get on board that train). The best thing you can do outside that is register friends/family who you know are Dems/Liberals and get them to the polls on election day to get that +1 in the Clinton column.

I don't want to say it is a lost cause talking to Trump supporters, but it's impossible to have a conversation with someone that doesn't care about facts. They feel how they feel and Trump would have to cross some imaginary line they have created in their head/heart/gut in order to lose their vote.
 
Gallbaro said:
They're not racists, they're realists.

So no you cannot change them.
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Who aren't racist? There is large subset of Trump supporters who absolutely are racist and support enacting racist policies. Those people are also not going to change their minds so your last sentence still stands, regardless.
 
TrumanBurbank said:
People should go to r/Donald, Breitbart, Drudge Report and read the Youtube Comments of Trump video. They love the guy.

They want someone who isn't politically correct and most importantly isn't a politician. Very tough to get them to choose the super corrupt Clinton.

Bad choice all around really.
Click to expand...

Hillary Clinton isn't super corrupt. She's a person who has made mistakes, and continues to be held politically accountable for those mistakes time and time again.

This kind of "Well they're both bad." talk is what has helped Trump so much.

You need to know that you're not stuck with a choice between two bad alternatives. You have one alternative that perhaps isn't your ideal president, and another that is totally unacceptable. There is no other choice.
 
Gallbaro said:
They're not racists, they're realists.

So no you cannot change them.
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I mean, I guess you could argue that as a white person it makes you a realist to support the candidate who seems more likely to pull you up and push others down. Still kinda racist though.
 
Makonero said:
I'm getting the "At least we'll get republican Supreme Court candidates with Trump" argument now. I've given up.
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White, young, female who is currently a college-addict and married to a black man in my workcenter is dead set on voting for Trump simply because "Hillary is a feminist" and the false hope that the military will get much higher pay increases. Trump supporters are crazy, yo.
 
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