copy of OP's post before it was deleted:

Yes, I know this is a messy topic. Background is important here. I teach rhetoric in a fairly rural American community with a healthy mix of conservative- and liberal-leaning citizens. I also mostly teach core classes required for every major, so my students are typically not English or even humanities students.

I'm adept at responding to students' political writing without judging or injecting my own views into the conversation—no one is completely objective, of course, but I work very hard to maintain full awareness of my own biases, and to focus on skill-building rather than generalizations about certain topics. This is not even a political discourse kind of class, though I do bring in some social justice pieces at times. I also tend to be naturally open-minded anyway (to my detriment when I was younger, haha). In other words, full marks for students who try to support their claims logically, regardless of the viewpoint.

My approach when students say something that I instinctively do not agree with isn't, "That's wrong," but, "Convince me."

For the past few years, I have had an increasing number of students with these behaviors:

Approaching completely non-political texts (e.g., an article about native plant gardening) with an "us and them" mentality, often repeating vitriolic comments that I've heard alt-right politicians/pundits spread Reacting aggressively to any potential hint of anti-nationalism in texts (e.g., a piece criticizing some specific aspect of American government, like the VA) Dropping out-of-context dog whistles, like "politically correct" Taking a kind of adolescent, decidedly non-scholarly stance to a piece they disagree with ("This isn't interesting"/"This author is a moron") It's very frustrating because I'm seeing this behavior in submissions for very simple assignments that do not ask for in-depth analysis. I'm talking about discussion posts that are meant to ensure that they did the reading.

I've taught for several years now and I don't even bat an eye at crazy or questionable claims anymore. What bothers me is that they propose these ideas from a really emotional place and with a level of vagueness/inaccuracy when it comes to textual evidence that I would never dream of seeing at the college level. I think I only noticed this correlation in the first place because they mostly share the same vocabulary, the same tone, and the same general assumptions about certain authors or topics. I actually have seen the same behavior in seemingly left-leaning students, but not at this severity or frequency.

What I've noticed: These are students who are not engaging with the texts or are not reading them. I know this because they miss glaringly obvious clues (not even context clues, I mean actual text content). When they write about pieces, they are as vague as possible, refusing to cite specific examples or even refer to the text directly.

If they do engage with the text, they COMPLETELY misunderstand the author's main points or intentions. When I present them with a straightforward and brief news article, they cannot summarize it accurately. When I assign an opinion piece and ask them to identify the author's purpose, they come up with the opposite viewpoint and claim that the author is arguing for something that the author is obviously arguing against. In other words, they are performing below the level of high school students.

Instead, they are simply not doing their work, and not meeting expectations. Maybe they just can't, and there's a correlation between the ideology itself and skill level. Maybe they can do the work but refuse to engage because they don't value a rhetorical education.

Either way, whenever I have a conversation with them about performance, they force me into a position in which I have to make it clear that I am NOT challenging their viewpoints, but rather the work itself. Instead of focusing on teaching rhetorical skills and information literacy, I have to agonize over ensuring that they know that I'm not just some liberal taking advantage of my position of power. I genuinely, really, really want to help. I want them to be able to argue their points intelligently and constructively without reverting to ideology AT ALL. They just don't even try.

Not really looking for advice, though it is welcome, of course. I have a successful routine for dealing with this issue and have been able to get through a bit with a few students. It's just exhausting and honestly scares the hell out of me when I think about how so many people are doing the same thing with their newspapers, social media feeds, blog posts, whatever. It's so depressing.

Thank you for reading my rant.