No amount of steering will do it - many are on autopilot that only they can decide to disengage.

Yes - wasted time.

They live in a comfortable box, and are blinded when anyone attempts to open it’s lid.. They don’t like to squint, or to look up at anyone. You’re bothering.. even annoying them. They’ve been to school, and didn’t like it, so why are you trying to teach them? They know all they care to. They’re in control of themselves and those around them … and you scare them..

100% on point....

It's a complicated issue. Here is my explanation. Everybody wants to (consciously or unconsciously) raise their own self image. This means that everything one does needs to have some value. If you invest a lot of resources (time, work, thinking, money, status) into a certain thing you have to rationalize that it was worth it. When somebody comes along and says that this thing that you put a lot of effort into is wrong or somehow worthless it is only natural that there will be resistance. So some people just can't "afford" to change their minds because it would require so much of those resources. Some people naturally don't have a lot of those resources because of various reasons. Some people don't care enough about the issues to want to change their minds.

I agree. Why do people get so emotional about it too? My brother stopped talking to me all together because he said I'm too liberal and a democrat. I'm neither. I'm progressive and independent. All he can see is what he wants to see. That's fine. But I find the whole republican concept to be selfish. He's not a bad person.

I often see the same among some of my colleagues. The worst of it is, they don't really even hold views of that type, but they read things in the right-wing press (which, here in the UK, as in many other countries, is most of the press - there are really only two left-wing popular daily newspapers; a third, the Morning Star, has a circulation of less than 10,000 and has been close to collapse for many years) and just accept it, without thinking for themselves.

There is plenty of that here as well.
Every single day I’m reading posts that are racists, sexists, or worse. You point them out and you get the same type of responses as when you bring up god and existence with a Christian. The moral compass and intellectual pool here is no different than normal society. Don’t fool yourself. People are people and this group is no different.

I can fake the tribal stuff for a gathering, but I do long for deeper thought and connections.

Sometimes...it is time to get new friends.