I don't have any answers for you, I just want to commiserate by sharing my own story of talking to a lib friend about Ukraine:

This was not terribly long after the invasion first happened, maybe a few months. I make my stance clear that I don't believe the US should be engaging in a proxy war with Russia in Ukraine. They ask my why I think it's the US fighting a proxy war and not the US aiding Ukraine in defending itself from Russia's unprovoked invasion. I explain that after Ukraine agreed to surrender its nukes in the '90s it bounced back and forth between being basically a Russian satellite state and being a Russian satellite state that'll play ball with the US, which was always a shaky situation, until the US played it's hand with the Maidan coup trying to bring Ukraine firmly into the US's control.

They say that's not true. They ask why the US would want to control Ukraine, sort of incredulously. This from a guy who was opposed to the Iraq War, and the Vietnam War.

I think I came back with something like "Russia has refused to subordinate its economy entirely to the US, so the US seeks to destroy Russia. Controlling Ukraine is part that."

And from there the conversation devolved. Putin the madman vs. Putin the guy with explainable motivations and historical reasons for his actions. Me explaining why I think NATO is bad. I know I said at some point that prior to the invasion western media had been pretty clear that Ukraine was a barely legitimate gangster state, and that the Ukrainian state and the United States were prolonging the war at the expense of Ukrainian people. Pandora Papers.

And I guess what I've realized, not just about this guy but all the libs I know—hell not just the libs but the people I know from all over the spectrum—is that their politics are highly individualistic. When I was a baby leftist I'd see people make analyses like that and I've realized I didn't fully understand what they meant. But I think I see now that individualistic in this sense doesn't just mean "self-centered" or "antisocial" or "opposed to community" but that they literally think of politics in the terms of individual actors. So this lib I was talking to hates Putin, and Trump, and Netanyahu, and George W. Bush—and therefore hates the politic projects these men engaged in when they had power—but he doesn't recognize that the long-term aims of US foreign policy, which both predates and outlasts any individual president, are a force for destruction and evil across the world.

I don't want to belittle my friend here, but I suspect his opposition to the Iraq War was almost entirely because it was a thing George Bush wanted, and not because he was opposed to the US destroying a stable-if-hostile state in the Middle East and remaking it as a neocolonial project.

Normally I just refuse to argue politics like this with friends and family, though. If someone asks what my opinion is I'll tell them, or if they're saying something homophobic or transphobic I will push back there, but otherwise I don't think fighting about Donald Trump with my MAGA uncle or Obama/Biden/Harris/Clinton with my lib aunt or Tulsi Gabbard with my father who claims to be politically nonaligned but libertarian curious is going to do anyone any good. And I'm certainly not going to try and convince any of these people that the American project is evil, or that capitalism is bad. If they asked me about these things I would tell them my opinion, but mostly this shit isn't worth burning bridges over. Except for the lib mentioned in this post, I will argue with him because he invites it. But he enjoys arguing politics anyway.

On his end, the argument was that Putin is a maniac and that nato should not appease him in his crusade to restore the Soviet Union.

Debate is a lot less effective than you'd think. Poke holes in their arguments and get them to look things up on their own time, you're not going to be able to convince someone who is just ranting at you.

how do you all deal with the conflict of people that you love desperately clinging to the horrid power structures that replicate the horror of the modern world?

The answer is difficult but simple. Stop trying to change everyone’s opinion, because you won’t.

Unless your friend has political power, there is no point in trying to change their mind beyond honest and unashamed expression of your own opinion. By openly debating with someone whose mind is not open, you work to close them off further. It makes your views seem desperate for support; only tentatively reasonable, therefore easy to dismiss.

Socialism is inherently righteous. It does not need to beg for acceptance. The truth of anti-imperial, anticapitalist politics is sustained empirically and based in scientific theory. Bourgeois political theories come and go with the rise and fall of bourgeois interests.

Your friend likely will never change their mind. But they might one day, through life experience, gain some curiosity about it. Only at that moment is there an opening, and instead of fire-hosing leftist theory at them, they will ask earnestly for information. Onboarding only works if it’s a mutual desire.

So its not his point, but there are intelligent defenses of funding Ukraine (at 'finish them' not 'meat grinder' levels; thats definitely fucked and punishing people on both sides of the border for the shitty decisions of a few assholes while also fucking global food supply).

I think a lot of people form their conscience as a social coping and cohesion tool rather than a system of ideals to guide them through life. He doesn't really believe in lib nihilism; it's just how he a kids friction.

the UK

uphold Norf FC thought, throw a wigan kebab at the bloody tosser with extra mushy pea wet and walk him around shitlingfordshire birmingham for a few hours so he knows that its a stupid fucking idea to support NATO and his own bloody failed state country, the fucking dodgy bastard