Having attended an aunt’s 90th birthday party, with practically the whole clan there, my FB circle is expanding. Today one of my cousins ‘liked’ a meme that said ‘Blacks sold blacks into slavery’, ‘All ghettos are run by Democrats’, basically ‘Stop whining and take responsibility for our racism.’ I’m not going to get into it with her. But I do wonder how another cousin, who is Black, puts up with seeing stuff like that from family members – especially his sister-in-law.
Never. What did Mama say about conversation in polite company? No politics and no religion.
But sex is still okay! (I have a really naughty-minded family!)
I guess I am lucky since all my relatives are strongly supporting Hillary. Some of them, including my wife are kind of infatuated with Bernie, but she, at least, recognizes that he would not be a good candidate. I think my sister’s BF likely supports Trump, but I haven’t seen him in a year and a half so the question hasn’t come up.
My late mother thought that Nixon should have been required to ring a bell and say “Unclean, unclean” when walking in public, so you can see where my politics come from.
Through the Reagan years, it was fine, but the conversational shift towards mean streaks and pure nastiness happened right after Bush lost to Clinton. After that, I didn’t reply when it was brought up when I was in their houses & they didn’t reply if I ever brought it up under my roof.
This year, a few were Bernie fans that hadn’t been on the (D) side in a long while.
Also, Facebook complicates things because there are some people on there who will take it as a personal affront if you mention or join in the conversation about speech plagiarism at the GOP convention.
Like I invented plagiarism yesterday Just To Embarrass ________ (insert current wives name here)
There’s a typo in your post there.
I had to wrack my brains to think of which family members I might disagree with. The closest I can come are the ones from Arizona who think that all the water in Colorado River is theirs, and want to dam the Grand Canyon so that people stop stealing all of their water. Discussing river systems and ecologies, the state and international politics involved in this project, or even the destruction of a National Park, is pointless.
I was relieved recently to find that in between horrifying views on marriage equality ("why weren’t civil unions enough for them?? Man/woman!!11!!), we all agree that Trump is a very very bad idea. I will take what I can get.
did you read my pit post the other day http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=798663 ?
the sadder thing about it is not only does my family believe it apparently 70 percent of the area I live in does too … so I just let let them rant and come on here for sanity …
??? I’m whooshing myself, but I don’t get your joke.
(Other than that “Sex is okay” is clearly a grievous understatement: sex is FANTASTIC!)
Butt sex is still okay!
Get it now? 
Being US Latinos Republican hate is basically standard so it’s not an issue i have to deal with. I am good friends with a couple Trump supporters though.
Since we are all now adults, what purpose would such a chat have?
They are not going to change my opinions, nor am I likely to change theirs.
No reason to confirm, for the 14,782nd time, that we disagree.
(plus, I am so much smarter than they, it would be like rubbing their noses in their ignorance)
I have an aunt who has been active in Republican politics for decades, attending the conventions as a state delegate, and was even on Mike Huckabee’s political team. She’s so Republican she thinks Reagan was one of our greatest Presidents.
So the family tries to avoid politics in general, except for simply mentioning election results, or plans to travel to the convention. My aunt knows she’s right on all things political, and how can you discuss that?
I don’t discuss politics with anyone. It never ends well.
Not successfully. My sister and I have jointly agreed to shut up.
There’s no real point. They can agree with me on everything, but abortion and gay people are the only things that matter.
My parents are a bit better than most, but tend to wind up going with what everyone else around them is doing in the last minute. They were all gonna vote for Obama until the last minute back in 2008.
Some of my relatives still refer to our president as Obummer.
Survival tactics…
[ul]
[li]Oooh! Is that Sharon’s potato salad? [/li][li]I thought we had the cicadas a couple of years ago - think I’ve got some stragglers in my yard. Have you had a lot of bugs? Think they’ll go away or should I spray them? [/li][li]My tomatoes aren’t growing well. How do you get yours to grow so nicely? Fertilizer? How often do you water them?[/li][li]<jabs arm with anything handy> Does this look infected? Think I should see a doctor about it? If I scoot now, I think I can get to the urgent care at the drugstore before they close.[/li][/ul]
The number of issues on which I disagree with the Right and the Left are about equal, and there are no issues on which I’m moderate. But I mostly just roll my eyes.
I don’t discuss politics with anybody.