This is tangential but another tone-policing manoeuvre I love to pull is by telling people they are entitled and that they lack personal responsibility, playing the reverse card on them.
Say it's a video about a cyclist showing poor infrastructure and poor driving. When some dingdong decides to weigh in and says something like "You need to ride on the sidewalk" or some shit I respond with "Your generation is so entitled that they think even the bike lanes belong to their cars. I hate to break it to you but if you can't safely operate your vehicle when there's a cyclist nearby then you shouldn't be driving. A license is not a human right and you are not entitled to have one. The biggest problem that America faces today is the lack of personal responsibility from people like you."
There's nothing that takes the wind out of their sails like adopting their rhetoric word-for-word and turning back on them.
"I understand you're feeling upset right now" gets the best results
This is tangential but another tone-policing manoeuvre I love to pull is by telling people they are entitled and that they lack personal responsibility, playing the reverse card on them.
Say it's a video about a cyclist showing poor infrastructure and poor driving. When some dingdong decides to weigh in and says something like "You need to ride on the sidewalk" or some shit I respond with "Your generation is so entitled that they think even the bike lanes belong to their cars. I hate to break it to you but if you can't safely operate your vehicle when there's a cyclist nearby then you shouldn't be driving. A license is not a human right and you are not entitled to have one. The biggest problem that America faces today is the lack of personal responsibility from people like you."
There's nothing that takes the wind out of their sails like adopting their rhetoric word-for-word and turning back on them.