Comment by watwut

Steelmanning is not challenging them at all. It is whitewashing them, making softer argument so that they are more palatable and frequently undistinguishable from support.

The only person challenged by such steelmanning is opposition to MAGA. They now have two opponents. They are made look as if they were exaggerating or were crazy when they accurately report to what MAGA does or says. They now have an additional, basically unintentional bad faith, rationalization to deal with against them.

> there is no solution to this problem that involves remaining with this group as part of your society because it takes two to tango (ie. both sides need to put in genuine effort at growth).

The problem is that what happens is that the opposition to MAGA is constantly asked to do growth, to steelman, to concede and move more to the right to accommodate MAGA. It is highly asymmetric and provably does not work.

> I have an engineering mindset of finding out how to improve things

I think that making it clear what MAGA wants says and supports to moderates and center is way better strategy then basically helping them.