Threats of Personal Violence, Even Joking, Will Not Be Tolerated On Either Site

I have a lot to learn from everybody. Some days I do better than others 😁
The whole ‘dealing with trolls’ or other Internet opponents is just something I learned or adapted to out of necessity. I wanted to get in the discussions, but nasty Leftists were always derailing interesting exchanges.
So to stop that from happening, I just did what I would do in person, I cracked jokes on them until they stopped or went away. When you do that, others see it and often join in (safety in numbers), which is also fun.
Pretty soon it became like a sport, and it was as much fun as (or more fun than) the discussions I had wanted to participate in, in the first place.
The first time I really went after someone who was just causing trouble, the moderator called me a ‘Troll Hammer’. I didn’t know what that was, I didn’t know it was a compliment, I thought he was attacking me, so I attacked him next for calling me a ‘Troll Hammer’, until it occurred to me what he meant. 😁
The best training ground in my experience is forums where there are plenty of Leftists. They’re nasty, they play dirty, and there is always someone to fight with, day or night. From watching what other people (good guys) do that works, and trial and error on your own part, you begin to see patterns and basic personality types, and various techniques or strategies that work best with certain types of people. Nothing extensive is needed, more like a basic tool set of 4 or 5 different ways to deal with the several basic types of opponents you would regularly face. It’s not very complicated in practice, once you get used to it.
The arguments over on Breitbart didn’t usually involve a lot of profanity. The opponent might, but he usually figured out pretty quick that strategy wasn’t going to help him. It usually involved factual corrections with lots of mockery and ridicule thrown in, because that’s what the Left understands and hates.
Their peers are always watching or participating, so ridicule them in front of their peers. If they don’t withdraw immediately to go look for an easier target, just keep ridiculing them. Most Leftists make it pretty easy to do. Eventually they get angry or frustrated and blurt out some Leftist ideological idiocy. Anybody here at WQTH could easily destroy their talking points, then end with a large dose of ridicule. They hate that, and most of them can’t do it well enough themselves to try to do it back, they just run away. They look for someone easier to pick on, someone who won’t make them look bad.
One of the most effective tactics was to just tread water for a while in the give-and-take. Even after you have developed a few ‘go to’ plays or techniques, you can’t always tell which one would be most effective until you study your opponent for a little while. You can even let them get the better of you for a while. It boosts their confidence and makes them careless. It’s sort of like ‘rope a dope’. They keep attacking, but you’re not tempted to react emotionally to their attacks and lashing out back at them. You’re studying them, seeing what they ‘give away’ in their comments that you can use against them. That takes you out of ‘reaction mode’ and puts you in more of what might be called a ‘hunter’ mode. You’re not taking anything he says personally, you’re testing or prodding or just keeping the conversation going long enough until you spot an opening that you can exploit.
Instead of getting angry (which makes it much harder to get the better of your opponent), you’re smiling. You’re giving them rope to hang themselves with. Keep the back-and-forth going long enough to learn a little about your opponent. Whatever he gives you, whatever he reveals about himself, there will usually be things that can be used to ridicule him later. Let him do it, and wait for him to make a serious mistake, something you can nail him with.
They always do make a serious mistake, some just take longer than others. If they are taking too long, you will have observed them long enough (by that point) to set a few rhetorical traps to speed the process along.
When they do make a mistake, when they expose their neck (i.e., some weakness), that’s the moment to strike. Most of the time they never see it coming. They don’t ‘know’ you, you’re just a random Internet person. But they remember your screen name afterwards. You will know they do, because they almost never test you twice. They’ll avoid you. They’re looking to demoralize or just take their anger out on conservatives, and getting ridiculed or humiliated by a conservative accomplishes the exact opposite of what they’re trying to do. The new guys won’t avoid you (and there’s always new guys), because they haven’t learned yet, but the regulars learn.
If you are using humor to mock them, once you see other conservatives chiming in with ‘laughing’ emojis or other encouragement, so you know even their own people must be laughing at them, then you laugh at them too. Don’t let them off the hook, rub it in. By then they usually have lost all composure, which only makes it easier to mock them. It’s like chasing somebody downhill at that point, and they leave rather than continue to be mocked.
In all the time I was playing that game, very rarely did someone came at me a second time after an experience like that. It’s like a hustle, and they know when they’ve been had, and they don’t want that experience again.
Another effective technique is arguing in the form of asking questions instead of declarative statements. Especially if you can include jabs or ridicule in the process. You don’t want to go full speed on them right at the start, you want to draw them in, let them get comfortable and overconfident, and they’ll get sloppy.
It’s easy to convert a declarative approach to an interrogative approach. For most people, debate by declaration or decree is human nature. You see it all the time. I do it myself (and try to catch it and fix it before I hit ‘post’). All you have to do is take your declarative statement and put a question mark at the end of it, and then change the first couple words to make the statement into a question. It is much harder for your opponent to attack a question than a statement, and it interrupts their entire thought pattern. It puts them on defense instead of offense. They can ignore your questions, but after they do that a couple times, you can use that fact against them too. Mock them for their obvious inability to answer simple questions.
Every opponent is different (which is good, otherwise it would get boring), that’s why you have to tread water for a while, let the argument or debate develop long enough to figure out the best angle of attack. After a while you develop a general outline response to the 3 or 4 most common opponent types, so you’re not starting from scratch each time, and then tweak it or personalize it to your specific opponent, based on what your opponent reveals about himself during the fight. You have an idea what direction you’re going to take the discussion more quickly after you do it for a while, so you don’t have to spend so much time analyzing the opponent. You learn to recognize what kind of opponent you’re dealing with quicker.
One of the best strategies is to make yourself less vulnerable to counterattack. Get in the habit of arguing against your own points as you type. When you instantly/habitually argue against your own points as you write your replies, you see how the enemy will probably attack your points too. Recognize the openings your opponent is likely to exploit, and then either reword your reply to remove that vulnerability, or take the opening away by answering that ‘objection’ yourself pre-emptively as part of your reply. And if you can’t re-word it or make it less vulnerable to counterattack, delete it. It’s better to just not say it, if you can’t say it without leaving yourself open to counterattack.
Attack your own replies to see where the weak points are, and shore them up or fix them if necessary, before you click ‘post’. It is very frustrating for an opponent to not see any obvious angle of attack. If you combine that approach with asking questions, then he’s on defense. Add humor or subtle (or not subtle) mocking, and he’s getting hit with multiple tactics in combination, with no easy way to counter.
It becomes second nature after awhile. It doesn’t take long before it becomes habit. You begin formulating your replies without leaving chinks in the armor, making it hard for the opponent to score a point. The less time you spend on defense (because you purposely didn’t leave any easy openings for your opponent), the more time you can spend on offense, and offense is a lot more fun, once you have sized up your opponent and baited him into making a mistake.
Most of all, it’s a challenge that is also fun. Almost like a sport. And people almost always get better at things they enjoy doing, so don’t forget to have fun with it.
When someone attacks you, and your involuntary response is to grin because the game is on, you’re on the right track 😁