Something I’ve noticed from watching many political debates. Below is an example, but the pattern shows up all the time.

In one exchange about George Floyd, a guy argued the cop wasn’t responsible because Floyd had fentanyl in his system. That claim finally gets fully debunked. He concedes it’s wrong. Then he’s asked whether that changes his view at all. It doesn’t.

That’s the tell. If a fact is actually doing the work in your belief, removing it should move your confidence at least a little. When it doesn’t, the belief came first and the argument came later. The facts were post-hoc justification.

Politics often works like sports fandom. People admit their team plays badly, makes terrible decisions, even embarrasses them and still never switch sides. At that point it’s identity, loyalty, and sunk cost.

When beliefs reach that stage, debunking arguments doesn’t change minds because they just get replaced with new ones.

So if facts and logic mostly expose motivated reasoning rather than convert people, what actually changes the upstream intuitions that generate political beliefs in the first place?