You engage them as human beings. Agree with them when you agree with them. Challenge them when they get reactionary. Be open about your politics but don’t make your entire relationship with them about politics. This is how you build trust.

Their experience will inform their ideology. And if they trust you as a person, one day they may be curious about communist thought.

Developing consciousness is a long-term battle, not an overnight one.

Others covered details well. I just wanted to add a reminder on the perspective of being the one trying to do it, to remember that none of us are above mistakes or hold all of the correct knowledge and experience in our singular hands, and that trying to do it piecemeal, without a program, is always going to be harder and especially in the context of individualism, is going to be more susceptible to falling into traps of arrogance that others should be listening because “we know better.” To attempt an analogy, you could imagine it’s something like that people in our circles are teachers and/or experienced in the field, but the institutions of the status quo (assuming living under a dictatorship of capital, etc.) do not recognize that knowledge and experience as meaning anything and don’t give credentials for it, and so most people don’t take it seriously at the offset. Instead, they will tend to view you as being an equal in the subject matter, if not lesser depending on if they start to hear you say certain things they have been conditioned to associate with crackpots and extremists. So it’s important to remember that not only is your personal knowledge and experience limited, and vulnerable to mistakes, but that other people often won’t even be viewing you as having knowledge and experience in the subject that has more relevance, importance, or academic authority than their own.

And to be fair, why should they? If you have not struggled with them, seen what they deal with in the day to day and worked to make improvements with them, built some level of trust that you have their best interests at heart and vice-versa. Without that, it may look like you are asking for them to question and reject a lot of pre-existing notions for no apparent gain, introducing more chaos into their life rather than stability. Individualism and its consequences in general has done a lot of damage, and I think it’s very easy to lose track of what it’s doing if immersed in it. This part kinda goes beyond the topic alone, but individualism is something I think needs being more broadly understood in the western “left”, as its own form of consciousness to have. So far, it is something where either I’m missing important perspectives people are already regularly sharing on it, or it would seem it’s under-represented in the part it plays in how difficult it can be to organize and move people ideologically.

Our comrades must understand that ideological remolding involves long-term, patient and painstaking work, and they must not attempt to change people’s ideology, which has been shaped over decades of life, by giving a few lectures or by holding a few meetings.

https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/works/red-book/ch13.htm

The key is that this stuff takes time. We’re competing with not only “ideology which has been shaped over decades of life,” but also the constant reinforcement of that ideology by every corporate media outlet and every U.S. public institution. There’s going to be a lot of backsliding – expecting it lessens the understandable frustration.

Preventing that backsliding is so important that, to me, the best entrypoint into leftist thinking is media criticism (Manufactured Consent, Inventing Reality, Citations Needed, etc.).

I am the nerd who talked about Marxist theory explicitly and constantly for years. It worked on a few (neurodivergent leftlib) people. If they don’t listen to that (most won’t), whenever people complain (and not much otherwise, people like it when others agree with their complaints, not “bring everyone down” or “complain about nothing”), chip in comments (in a similar tone, showing your sympathy/shared struggle) pointing out how the people causing their problems are wealthy or tied to wealth. Slip in the notion that the authorities handing down bourgeois ideology are subject to the same moral condemnation they place on other things and tied to wealth. Note contradictions in reactionary narratives (comparing headlines or just counter-examples to major ideas like the need for growth, human nature, etc) at good times. If opportune, add light explanations on your understanding of the structures lying to and hurting them, and what could be better (only a full vision of society if they are interested). If they are receptive enough you can drop socdem, investigative journalist, etc sources, just not too explicit to poison the well.

Do not be too evangelistic about it. “Preach the gospel” as in taking intellectual comfort in the “good news” you have, not giving the impression that you despise all who do not accept your worldview in its totality in a short time frame. Be open minded. Marxism is a most solid and rational worldview. Do not take others opinions as a threat to your identity. Do not be defensive. Everyone you talk to will probably have a less coherent way of seeing the world. If you hear them out non-judgmentally they will be less averse to hearing you out. Good faith reciprocates. At best you actually understood their perspective, which helps you poke holes it. At worst your own perspective evolved and you got something out of it.

If someone is too (materially) comfortable, escapist, and/or immoral (to the point of accepting the logical ends of fascism consciously), focus your energy elsewhere.

This isn’t totally easy in practice (especially autistic myself), but it’s the best advice I’ve seen.

Have you been to any organizer training? It could definitely help in your approach. The IWW one I attended a few years ago was definitely helpful.

I think it’s crucial to remember that people aren’t just passive containers of information, but also agents who make themselves through their actions, especially together with others. And it’s this action that is an especially important driver of change.

In my case, I was part of a union campaign at work with a few coworkers. They were left-leaning nerds, but more nerdy than left-leaning. Our campaign was long, and we didn’t win, but it changed each of us for good. We came to see, concretely, what was possible with collective action. I don’t think any amount of theory or history could match that practical lesson.

I don’t think you can. All the effort and energy you poured into educating yourself is nearly impossibly to extend to someone else. They have to want to learn, and most people don’t. People aren’t stupid or ignorant, they are overwhelmingly incurious, and incuriosity is much more devastating to the mind than simply being ignorant.

If you could tell people where they went wrong, and have them accept it, the world would be a smoother place.

You pick your battles, convince the people you know you can convince, and further down the road we look to systemic solutions for undoing imperial programming.

First, realize the average adult American reads at a 5th grade level, and that 20% of adult Americans are functionally illiterate.

If you’re using words that a 5th grader would not understand, 50% of the people you’re talking to don’t know what those words mean.

Second, realize many or even most of these people are functionally in a cult, that they are basically brainwashed cult members, their minds are programmed with a million landmine like triggers that will cause them to fallback to thought terminating cliches, erroneous apologetics, false counterfactuala, or just become angry at or untrusting of you, and all your progress will be lost.

You have to become their friends first, establish personal trust, and if you can, limit their exposure to echo chambers… which at this point is basically all corporate social media, which will automatically algorithmically slot them into echo chambers.

Ok, got it?

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/freedom-mind/202104/the-definitive-guide-helping-people-trapped-in-cult

Good luck.

Normally, properly deprogramming/deconstructing a cult member takes years and years of therapy with psychologists that specialize in precisely that, while the subject is isolated from the cult.

organise, win. the essay that darkernations linked is also good to understand “brainwashing”

I feel you, it’s difficult as hell. The most success I’ve ever had was someone admitting I was right about something. Never actually “converted” someone though.

I guess we just have to accept there’s not going to be a single conversation that’s going to change someone’s opinion. Mostly we have to meet people where they are at, otherwise they aren’t even going to listen to what you have to say. Some form of Socratic dialogue I think is a good approach. I see the best I can do is plant seeds in their minds, and whether they grow into something will depend on the contradictions playing out in society and onto their consciousness.

Another thing I’ve noticed is people seem to be most open for solutions in places they are most vulnerable.

"The basic call to action looks something like this:

1. Stop accusing the masses of being “brainwashed.” Stop treating them as cattle, stop attempting to rouse them into action by scolding them with exposure to “unpleasant truths.”
2. Accept instead that they have been avoiding those truths for a reason. You were able to break through the propaganda barrier, and so could they if they really wanted to. Many of these people see you as the fool, and in many cases not without reason.
3. Understanding people as intelligent beings, craft a political strategy that convincingly makes the case for why they and their lot are very likely to benefit from joining your political project. Not in some utopian infinite timescale, but soon.
4. If you cannot make this case, then forget about convincing the person in question. Focus instead on finding other people to whom such a case can be made. This will lead you directly to class analysis."

https://redsails.org/masses-elites-and-rebels/