He just fucking called me today out of the blue. We haven't IRL seen each other in 9 years. We videocall once in a while but it's becoming more and more tense. Like ffs, chuds can't just not talk about vaccines or trans people for an entire conversation. Jesus I manage to hold it in and not mention Western exceptionalism every chance I see it.
The thing is that I still hold a lot of gratitude for this friend for everything he's done from age 18-36. I was a super undeveloped plant before he took me in and taught me how to be a human, interact with people, talk to girls, have a sense of humour, do drugs, start a bunch of hobbies (I must have picked up 5+ pastimes from him teaching them to me), go to the beach, etc etc etc. Like half of what's good of me comes from him.
He was always a great guy and pretty smart. He's mostly been a giver his whole life. But petite bourgeois background and all, and now he's on the Joe Rogan - Jordan Peterson train. He's a few steps away from r/QananCasualties. As gently as I can, I tell him to careful with that shit. "DM that to me if you have to, but please don't post it on Facebook" or "That guy is a non-scientist, but hey there's an abundance of peer reviewed articles I can show you on the topic". I've never actually called him a bigot, even though he probably deserves it.
He might be one of the 2-3 people I'd drain my savings or donate an organ for. But despite gratitude, I'm really not looking forward to meeting. He's certainly gonna talk my ear off about vaccines, steroids, trans people, the omnivore diet, and how terrible homeless people are. Am I supposed to invite him up to my tiny flat (which I love) with my poster of Lenin, DPRK flag, bust of Stalin, and a bookshelf full or theory. I quite literally threw away all the liberalism. I definitely don't want to take off my N95 in front of him; I will get shit about that and being vegan (again).
I talk to IRL comrades and the consensus seems to be to "manage" conversations with him, like one does with their grandma. Change the subject, ignore what he said, take a piss or pull out my phone when it's too much.
Sorry and thanks for letting me rant.
That sucks man. Especially these days it seems like people can just turn into these angry, cliche-spewing caricatures so easily. I have friends who get into reactionary bullshit, but luckily not that badly.
I've had luck with just signalling obvious boredom or annoyance when they get onto shitty topics, Saying things like "do we have to talk about politics again?" or "I dunno man, people say all kind of wild stuff these days, I try not to worry about it". They want people to agree or argue, just making them feel kinda lame can take the wind out of their sails. I don't know if that'll work for you but just my experience.
Hope it goes better than you expect.
I've had luck with just signalling obvious boredom or annoyance when they get onto shitty topics, Saying things like "do we have to talk about politics again?" or "I dunno man, people say all kind of wild stuff these days, I try not to worry about it". They want people to agree or argue, just making them feel kinda lame can take the wind out of their sails. I don't know if that'll work for you but just my experience.
Actually that's pretty good advice. I'm a very direct person, so I struggle with all these dodges
I get it, and I personally respect directness. The propaganda is like psychological armour though, you can wack away at it all day but you'll get exhausted long before you break through. Occasionally you get them to lower their defences though and you get to talk like people about their real worries, instead of playing wack-a-mole with whatever bullshit they heard on Rogan or Reddit or whatever.
Like I said, I don't know if this would work for everyone or in every situation though.
They want people to agree or argue
Social media poison has a big part to play in this behavior, but also liberal politics demands that they act this way.
Am I supposed to invite him up to my tiny flat (which I love) with my poster of Lenin, DPRK flag, bust of Stalin, and a bookshelf full of theory
if you're not going to invite him,
Idk, i'm using ironic (or not) course correction/misdirection, although i'm mainly dealing with racism against immigrants with chuddy friends, e.g. how come you are not blaming farmers for hiring them, neither does your side of smoll beans businesses. covid is harder i would think, but maybe just casting ideas that becoming dumber to own the libs via long covid is precisely what a lib would want (well you can expand conspiracy further that koch brother needed to sell oil to restaurant goers)
Like ffs, chuds can't just not talk about vaccines or trans people for an entire conversation.
Yep, it's incessant. Like I only bring up stuff people can agree with, but like, I never make it a point to whinge about stuff all the time like chuds do. I swear it's like they have an itch that causes them to rant about "woke" or Muslims or something at every opportunity.
