These matters once were limited to awkward moments at Tennessee Thanksgiving tables, but the explosion of social media (and lies perpetuated via those platforms) means that every day is Thanksgiving in terms of encountering a distant right-wing family member at your Tennessee table spouting Donald Trump cultist nonsense. The ubiquity of the form also means we can have awkward and possible tense exchanges with complete strangers. This problem only has been exacerbated recently as Trump devotees take to all forms of media to bloviate about his recent win, securing the greater share of popular votes for the first time and a second term in the presidency.

I generally fall into the camp relying on the advice attributed to George Bernard Shaw, “Never wrestle with pigs. You both get dirty and the pig likes it.” I understand the impulse, however, to not let inaccurate (verging on insane) comments go unanswered. So let me offer some descriptive advice about how these exchanges typically proceed. Remember that fact-driven messages have little appeal to Trump-oriented relatives who gleefully voted for Tennessee’s senior U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn. Some likely believe that the moon landing was faked, but televised wrestling extravaganzas are real.

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Let’s start with a Trump devotee posting something like, “President Trump won 2024 and he won the 2020 election and almost everyone who looks at all the fraud agrees.” This one has learned to mimic the Trumpian tactic of asserting as agreed-upon fact things that demonstrably are untrue. But how to respond? You might be tempted to ask politely for his sources. Mistake. He will demand your sources, even though it isn’t your argument. Alternately, that person will give sources such as Breitbart, or something from conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, or some third-hand link to an opinion piece (far right wing readers do not distinguish between news and opinion) from Fox News or NewsMax.

You could point out that the same election protocols that carried Trump to victory this time, four years ago tallied his loss. You might be tempted to retort with a link to the report from Trump’s own Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) mid-November 2020 announcement that the election just concluded was the most secure in American history. You could quote Trump’s own Attorney General Bill Barr concluding that the election rigging claims were bullshit.

You could quote fact checkers who note that Trump lost 60 court cases (before judges of all political stripes including Trump appointees) on his groundless election claims. Each of these runs into a Trump defense/deflection trope. CISA is just “deep state.” Barr defied the great leader, meaning he is a Republican in Name Only. Fact checkers work for media outlets, and all non-Trump media are biased and wrong on all matters, except for when you need to cite them for a Trumpian purpose.

Yes, we know this is nonsense, but it may be hard to counter the cavalcade of lies when seated at a table in Nashville, Memphis, or Chattanooga. In this closed, Trump-deformed world all statements are opinion, all opinions are equally valid (and logical fallacies are something they don’t comprehend or recognize), but messages that challenge the Trump claims can be dismissed on almost any grounds. Trump supporters are locked into the paranoid idea of a grand coordinated conspiracy with multiple parts all working together and never spilling the beans--all to deny Trump an election or convict him of crimes—a conspiracy that magically disappeared this time around.

Take, for example, East Tennessee’s congressman Tim Burchett who spouted the insurrectionist challenge to Arizona and Pennsylvania results in 2020, but is quite happy this time around, even though voting rules and conditions were equally safe and fair in all tallies.

This defies logic, evidence, and lived experience, but does not seem to prompt position reconsideration. Simpler connections (Trump lost and his ego won’t let him admit it, or a jury saw the evidence and convicted) do not compute for Trump cultists. These folks do not shave with Occam’s Razor. Oh, and do not think of using or explaining that concept online or to your Tennessee relatives. You’ll be dismissed as an egghead, elitist academic whose goal is not critical thinking but indoctrination.

You might do better doing some significant digging and get primary sources. Get and provide links or PDFs of the actual court judgments. This is a bit more difficult for Trump extremists to comprehend or challenge. In that case, they could default to their last step down the synapse ladder, name calling, rough online but devastating at your dinner table. That’s as close as you are going to get to a win. Stop there. Do not reply in kind. Take the issue win, even though they will scream in true Trumpian fashion that it’s not a win. Game over, and they’ll shift to bellowing their next false meme—or just resort to more of their candidate’s whoppers, insufficiently corrected by news media, and propelling Trump to victory by those here in Tennessee and elsewhere who care only for sides and not for accuracy.

Of course, you could just pretend not to hear the right-wing bloviating relative at your Knoxville or Bristol or Murfreesboro dinner table, and ask someone to pass the mashed potatoes.