The most I get from my close friend when I ask them about anything political (Gaza, Climate change, etc) is a “wow” or “damn”.
With my family members it’s a literal “I don’t care about politics” or “talk to [insert random distant relative name], he knows all about this stuff”
How can I make them care? How can I convince them that this stuff is important and shouldnt shrugged off so easily?
How can I convince them that their boss cutting their wages in half is an important matter that shouldn’t be justified by some abstract notion of “that’s just how it is”?
If they are privileged enough not to care then they may be benefitting from the status quo; it is hard to dissuade someone away from this if they materially gain from exploitation.
Being “neutral” with the staus quo is supporting it; being apolitical in the context of an exploitative system is taking a political stance that they are not vested in changing it.
On the other hand it may also be due to alienation and the empty nihilism of an overbearing crushing system; these folks, however, often feel there is not much that they can do so they are not truly apathetic just dejected.
Some people are just empathetically immature; you have limited time in your life on where you want to emotionally invest in guiding a person to the light.
/edit: spelling/clarity
We are conditioned to believe that politics is only election campaigns and inter-party disagreements and compromise.
We are typically not taught that wages, rent, transportation, community, and so much more is also political, and more impactful on our lives than party politics. I typically start there to gently suggest to people that there’s more to politics than just election season theater.
Really big or emotionally heavy topics like Palestine or climate change are too big and too abstract for most people to even begin to engage with.
Talk to them about good political news as well. When all you hear is “everything everywhere is terrible” it’s easy to just tune it out. Successful unionization efforts, protests, progressive legislature.
“hey come here do u want free healthcare”
Don’t be a downer. I am emotionally detached from my politics for the most part for better or worse, so I mostly talk about communism in jokes unless there’s an opportunity for a good conversation. In that case I still joke a decent bit and don’t get too negative. I like to present the sad facts of capitalism sarcastically. This strategy may not work for non-teens.
If you want to know the secret to revolutionary optimism it’s accelerationist shitposting.