What do you do when people don't care?

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So they do care, just not enough? What should they be doing about it?

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I think people tend to have a very narrow view of what goes on around them. And frankly, I don't think that's really a bad thing. Everyone does it. It's just a fact of life. But we have to account for it. Talking about big-picture issues doesn't work when people are focused their narrow view of the world. Even if they agree with the issue, they won't be riled up and take action. I think there's 2 takeaways to this:

First, regarding talking to the people around you: narrow your focus. Focus on things that affect them directly, or frame things in a way such that they interpret it in a way that affects them. Don't talk about concentration camps, talk about Trump retroactively rescinding birthright citizenship and how that might affect their lives (especially effective if that person happens to be an ethnic minority or is in a relationship with one). When talking about anti-immigration policies, focus on ICE arresting American citizens because they didn't look American enough. You don't have to convince people of everything, you just have to convince people of enough that they feel personally concerned.

Second, regarding yourself: it's easy to think that all Americans are similar to the people that you're with. Society is a bell curve. You don't need to shift the entire bell curve to the left to exact change. You just need to stretch it out leftward - pull the left leaning people more to the left. Trump didn't win by convincing leftists to be right-leaning, he won by convincing the right-leaning moderates into shifting right. Consider the audience and pick arguments that would be most effective against that particular audience. Be more direct toward more left-leaning people. Republican? Sow seeds of suspicion toward Trump. Moderate? Make them fear for their way of life. Left-leaning moderate? Maybe we should punish the rich. Leftist? Hell yeah socialism baby

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I care, you care, and many of us here on lemmy care. We should work on how to coordinate ourselves together rather than try to change minds.

I've tried, a lot, to change minds. I started with the most difficult person, and recently a new hire at work is kinda centrist-left and I tried to convince him. No matter whether it's a nazi you're talking to (ahem.. the first one) or a liberal, minds can only change themselves. They have to want it, you cannot hack their brain and override it.

I gave up, because even the people who are closest to me politically seem to move further to the right when faced with uncomfortable reality. They don't engage with icky thoughts like "What if police killed an innocent man?". They rationalize it to keep their comfort zone intact. "Well, if they just followed police instructions..." blissfully unaware of many cases like Daniel Shaver.

You point to an example that breaks their rationalization, and they will diminish it. "Oh that cop made a mistake". Point to many examples and they suddenly got to go wash their hair. People's psyche protects them from stress.

And that is the default mindset in this society. Avoidance of discomfort and inconvenience. Fear of the unknown. They want their life to be neat and happy and to all make sense. They don't appreciate it when someone tries to take that away from them.

Do you think there's something about people like us that makes us more accepting of challenging our own worldviews? I have some thoughts but I've written enough.

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Most of the folks I talk to hear agree with me that things are going wrong

That's not surprising, though be careful on what the definition of "going wrong" is. For example, Emerson College recently put out the results of some polling part of which found that 67% of voters think the US is on the wrong track. It's highly likely that 67% includes voters from all over the political map. But, while both a hardcore Trump/MAGA voter and a Bernie Bro voter might each say that the US is on the "wrong track", we'd probably have trouble getting those two voters to reconcile on the color of the sky, let alone what the "right track" would be. Also, be wary of coworkers who actually just want to be left alone and will "go along to get along". They will tacitly nod and agree with just about anything, so long as you go away and let them get back to work.

or that x,y, or z is a problem, but not enough to do anything about it.

Ok, but what is the ask? What are you expecting them to do? And why do you believe that they should be the ones doing it? Again, going back to my previous comment:
Maybe they do care about your thing, but they have their own “most important thing” and if your thing and their thing are in contention, they are going to pick their thing.

You may view things as so bad that everyone should be out in the streets protesting 24x7. They may not see it that way. They may put "protecting themselves" at a higher priority than protesting whatever it is you are upset about. This might be especially true if they have families to care for and that can drastically change how people prioritize things.

Once again, I'd go back to understanding their beliefs and priorities. Why won't they do the thing you want them to do? It probably comes down to those beliefs and priorities being more important to them than whatever it is you are promoting. And again, I would note your complete dismissal of their point of view. They have given you some insight as to why they aren't taking action:
" I want to do something, but I have to protect myself."

It's clear they prioritize their personal well-being over the perceived value of whatever you are asking them to do. Why is that? What is it that you are asking them to do that they see it as risky? If your goal is to organize something, can you work to provide them the perceived safety that would get them over that hump? Do they have other issues and their answer is just a proxy to avoid an argument? I'm afraid I'm just repeating myself here; but, you need to really understand them if you want them to change their minds.

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This is correct. Leave this shit out of work. I agree with OP but I don't want to talk about religion or politics at work.

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I mean, I care, but what can I do about it? There isn't a CEO I can shoot to make it stop, nor can I make voting day get here any sooner. All I can do is stamp out ignorance when I see it.

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Especially at work, where you can't leave and should probably be focusing on the work.

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When I meet someone who doesn't care, I work twice as hard to fix things.

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There is so much you can do about it, here's a simple suggestion: promote open censorship-resistant communication systems like Lemmy.

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That is a particular subset. There are people who see nothing g bad happening to themselves, but do have their eyes open and see the bad things happening around them. But, again, they are ready and primed.

It is much the same as addiction counseling: until people are primed to change, there is little to do but leave your hand out stretched, not pushing any further than that.

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I love Jon Stewart but I think he's a little off base with this take. Are we supposed to not call out the overtly fascist stuff the government is doing? Will that get more people to listen the next time we have to call out an overtly fascistic act or will we have to hold our tongue then, as well? How many grannies need to be eaten and impersonated by wolves before we're allowed to move past the "ooh what sharp teeth you have" crap?

With fascism especially, if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem. The people going through life like everything is fine are implicitly supporting the fascism. I'm not going to stop yelling about how a pack of wolves has taken over the government, just because some people think the word is overused.

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To add to this, be sure to wait for the immediate pushback. Stay calm, and understand that this will be a slow burner. Kindness and repeated contacts to the change minds more than one off aggressive arguments.

People have a difficult time changing their points of view, and some people can feel lots of psychological pain during that process.

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I think what we're dealing with, in part, is a collective action problem. There's a lot of people who want to do something but either don't know what to do or don't agree on what to do. It's one way that a minority population can stay in power.

What an individual can do is miniscule compared to a crowd. Also, some people are willing to break laws to make change and others are not.

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I'm not being dismissive of their view, I understand the need for self-preservation. I think the crux of it is how do I get folks who agree things are going wrong to move from that space into one of more action? Almost everyone I'm talking to at work agrees with me, but no one is interested in organizing or preparing, and that's what baffles me most.

I don't know myself - I don't have some grand plan or idea. Im a regular person (albeit one with a better historical understanding of history due to education). I'm just scared about what's coming next, and I'm completely isolated at the end of the day. Rather than buy a bunch of guns and ammo, I would prefer to connect with folks to build mutual support, or to prepare to strike/protest/boycott (or whatever seems most effective at the time).

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I think there's a mixture of not believing Hitler-level nazi shit is happening until actual gas chambers are running, and a what can one person do anyway mentality. Frankly, I had high hopes of Trump being soundly defeated and that it would be the turning point in the collapse of MAGA. But if enough people couldn't be bothered to vote against him, I honestly think only having his long-overdue Big Mac Attack is going to stop him. Without him as a figurehead I think MAGA will self-destruct as all the self-centered orcs claw each other apart to get on top. But as long as he somehow keeps wasting oxygen I think we just have to hang on.

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I heard something on a radio show during Covid on how to talk to people who have "gone down the rabbit hole". It was discussing MAGA as a cult. The guest on the show was a woman who was raised in a cult in the 70's and she "got out" and spent her time talking with others in the cult to help them to break free. I can't find a reference to the show, but I think it was Carrie Miller hosting.

My takeaway was that you can't come at people and tell them that everything they know is wrong and you will show them the way. They'll fight you. You need to deprogram them similarly to how they were programmed into the cult. Small bits, here and there to slowly guide them to questioning their beliefs. Once that happens, show them how to research and seek out information and let them know that they will be safe.

If someone found a link to the podcast/radio show, I'd be super happy.

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Really? And what happens?

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This is as inspiring as it is terrifying.

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In the case of my mother, I instituted a no-politics rule in 2020. However, as of last week, I’m sending her accusatory emails about the various articles of his fucked up actions. I’ve decided that she is partially a bad person for having full info about who and what he is and chose not to know. I’m very angry and she’s going to keep hearing about it. The relationship might be over.

I know that doesn’t help your situation. I just needed to vent. As noted, I’m very angry. With her in particular. For choosing this again.

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Counterpoint, I grew up in a smallish town in Idaho and was still absolutely surrounded by Democrats. State wide, only sixty percent of the voting age population actually turned out, and of those one out of every three people voted against Trump.

Hell, Democrats outnumbered Republicans in some countries and again, this is fucking Idaho.

This means that if you talk to an a Idahoan at random, there is a more than fifty percent chance they either largely already agree with you, or they are largely insulated from and not paying attention to politics and thusly susceptible to being swayed with the right approach and concrete examples of what Trumps doing to fuck them and their friends over specifically.

Left wing ideas and policy are still far more popular among the general public, which is why Republicans have to lie about them constantly.

Look for your local anarchist bookstore, look at what your counties Democrats actually organized, especially things like local pride events, show up, and network/make friends.

As is fun to note, there are more Democrats living in Texas than New York state, so the idea you should just give up on finding any around you because you live in a red state instead of one where the numbers are reversed is honestly rather absurd.

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What do you do when people don't care?