The political discourse (god how I hate that term) is a spiteful, cynical beast.
It always has been (remember Grover Cleveland getting called out for having an alleged love child? Well our readership isn’t quite that elderly, but you get what I mean) but the speed has increased.
Not only must you have The Right Opinions™, they must be The Approved Opinions™, and you are no longer allowed to have No Opinion™, because Silence is Violence™.
I don’t capitalize lightly, but to emphasize how every political position (or non position) has become, for lack of a more enjoyable word, a Brand.
Black Lives Matter isn’t a slogan, it’s an organization. So is “Stop AAPI Hate”. Hashtags aren’t just to raise awareness, they’re operational financial entities, marketing themselves off the backs of tragic news stories.
Grifting of victim’s families aside – suppose you choose to not engage? After all, a few people still resisted changing their photos to black squares for [political reason] last summer – and suffered as a result.
Those gay and on the right are familiar with the experience of being asked to respond every time the Trump admin made headlines for something LGBTQ(etc) related, so much so that Chad Felix Greene wrote a manual debunking these hysterical media reactions.
Being confronted with questions like “how could you vote for someone who hates you?” isn’t just inappropriate – it’s designed to demoralize.
So how to engage? Or do you even engage? Here’s some tips I’ve picked up, a few “Rules for Anti-Radicals”:
1. Go for the joke
I enjoy (at times past tense) politics as a hobby, but to be able to actually enjoy it I have to approach it like anything traumatizing in life – with some humor. Nobody likes a scold or to be hectored, and the Left still hasn’t learned that they lose the majority of people by happily taking up that role. Go for the joke and make sure it’s good.
2. Move it along
Some people have way too much time on their hands, and I’ve noticed this in Leftist conversations. In absence of a personality they’ve filled their personal void with political talking points, resulting in a deeply boring individual and the possibility for endless discussion. You’re not in a Buckley v Vidal debate between two sharp, sassy queens, you’re losing precious minutes of your life being lectured to by a Gender Studies major. Facebook walls are not Socratic theatre. Politely move the conversation along, we all die eventually.
3. Be kind
I didn’t say be nice, that’s an important clarification. Nice is fake and I’m not from the South, or Minnesota, or wherever it is where they can put on a sheepish grin and disarm the other person with a backhanded compliment. Kindness is realizing you’re talking to a person, most likely a hurt person if they’re coming from some aggrieved Leftist perspective, and that you’re not the direct object of whatever issue it is they’re trying to process. Understand this and treat them as such, it can disarm what becomes otherwise heated engagements.
The above three should help you in the majority of situations and get you out of the tempting, but unsustainable / unlikable “facts don’t care about your feelings” mindset. You don’t have to politically engage with anyone, whether it’s someone shouting at you on a street, ruining a perfectly nice family gathering, or engaging in verbal diarrhea across your Facebook timeline. Being gay and on the right puts you in a minority of a minority, so use the opportunity to be exceptional.
look, if you can’t #bebest, at least look best