A lot of people don’t like cruelty. I think only talking about cruelty is not really a winning battle, but it’s still worth pointing out here and there, e.g. how abortion bans don’t really lower the number of abortions of viable fetuses, they just cause women immense suffering and sometimes death because people seek out backalley abortions or aren’t able to get proper medical attention for ectopic pregnancies, etc.

There are also sickos who love cruelty, but don’t let their loudness make you think they hold a monopoly on public opinion. There really are people who tell themselves that people aren’t being abused or don’t comprehend the real magnitude of suffering or, in some cases, genuinely are just misinformed, and it’s worth trying to help those people.

Incidentally, I don’t think it’s terribly important to do outreach to genuine sickos (which includes every reactionary public figure), but we should also encourage the more bog-standard reactionaries to develop a better outlook, which usually requires some level of empathy with the actual problems they face even as we firmly reject absurd narratives they parrot (e.g. “Do you think trans people are the reason your rent is too high?”). A lot of people on this site used to be chuds, and at least in some cases having people actually talk to them and not only abuse them was helpful in reforming.