Generally, my tactic is to not engage directly, but address the rest of the audience, essentially pointing at the subject and mocking him ("Can you believe this MAGA Traitor?..."). When he tries to respond, again ignore him, and just point and laugh.

They get really frustrated being made fun of, without having the satisfaction of creating liberal outrage.

You're not gonna change their mind.

You'd be better spending your time breaking a brick wall with your skull.

Fuck em. Block em.

I'm here for entertainment, as I assume most people are. If seeing that sort of rhetoric is a negative to you, block it. Marie Kondo your online life and yeet anything out the window that doesn't spark joy. Put your anti-MAGA efforts towards improving your IRL community where you don't have to futilely battle pseudonymous trolls.

Bully them. The only way to deal with a bully is to show your strength.

You know how a lot of libs like to police language? That’s weak and only pisses off bullies. Instead, use their language against them. For example, a decent liberal would never do this but you can do more emotional damage to a maga and make a point they would understand by calling them a ‘regarded fage’ (paraphrasing because that is a ban worthy insult in many places online) over and over again than you ever could by using logic against them.

You might not like it, but nut shots and low blows work better.

Don't feed the trolls. If you find a bigot willing to have a good faith debate, maybe, but there is no reasoning with cult members. They have to want to change.

Very rarely do people like this actually want to discuss why they are the way they are. They don't care about your opinion, and will actively react negatively to any push back. Of course, you can always block them, but there is another choice

Politely ask them to snap a pic of their hog and post it.

You’ve actually found right leaning people on Lemmie? I thought they were either shoved out, bullied out or pushed out or just given up and left and went somewhere else.

I'd say don't believe in it.

i block those fools, and the community in conservatives, some of them are bots too. theres a reason they are here, banned from reddit for the same thing.

bully them until they give up

Publicly denounce them, then block them.

Reinforces to the public at large that they are unacceptable, and removes their agency to engage you.

When Lemmy first got popular and all debates happened and such, I kept debating politely while they kept bashing, insulting and all that. I’m over that.

When I see such opinions now, I block them. They are seriously not worth my time, energy and effort. Let them wallow in their misery.

They won’t realize it but everything bad they hope happening to others will certainly bite them back sooner or later. The moment they do not fit their (own) ideology of fascism just a tiny bit, it’ll bite them back.

On the internet, you're not likely to change their mind, like at all. But in person, if you can connect with someone and bring it back to family, and community, you can slowly change someone's mind and show them that they've been lied too. It doesn't happen overnight, but it can be done.

On the interwebs, don't even bother.

This is really rare on Lemmy, but a direct logical rebuttal is not the right answer. That's like trying to force your way out of a finger trap. They have no obligation to be constrained by logic themselves, and since just giving the appearance of it is easy they'll come out looking decent on a fast, casual read.

Sending pigpoopballs is also not the best answer, since that makes them look persecuted, and blocking them just stops you from downvoting. Something in between works best.

Here's an example I remember because it did work spectacularly well: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/23469562/14918633

OP didn't know anything about the science or the history, and was obviously going off of their shitty Facebook feed. So I sidestep a bit, supplied new facts about issues they hadn't heard of a bit, and set them up to have to talk about several things they definitely do but wouldn't admit to (not reading, homophobia, and moving on when they start to lose). Boom, feigned medical emergency.

Edit: And importantly, in the actual typical Lemmy case, be nice and listen to other viewpoints. If you try this kind of approach with someone who's making a good faith effort you're the asshole and will look like it.

Reply to their remark with a warning for other users then block them.

Up to you? I used to hang out on a WN part of reddit back when that was allowed and debate people but that's not a thing anymore. The problem is you have utterly no idea if you're getting through to anyone. I do feel like people had to back off their angry racial ideas and adopt a softer "racial zoo" argument that made it seem like all they wanted was to preserve racial diversity rather than eliminate any particular race. I mean at times I wonder if they were looking in the mirror going "is that really why I have this swastika tattoo?" but I have no idea.

I do think the far right cannot survive much scrutiny of its ideas because they are very irrational, but to be honest the left has done a terrible job pointing this out. I know many people even on the moderate right feel like there's a grain of truth to racism that they'll admit in private with other white people, but then once you confront racism and question common assumptions about race* all that falls apart. Many attack racism as a moral failing and that doesn't work because it makes it sound like the truth is being suppressed for moral reasons.

*The most pernicious being the idea that a person can have a single race on a fundamental level that isn't up for debate

Find some place... as an example, hexbear's instance has c/slop... to drop a link to the offending user's comment or post and whatever happens... happens.

You've got the option of Reporting the post/comment to the moderators. Which will require you knowing the moderation rules of the community in question to take advantage of.

Short bullet point/talking point responses. Replies with things like, "This is racist/sexist/genocide denial/etc", then disengage. You don't need to get into a long drawn out comment war/debat bro situation.

Make fun of them for being a goober.