Why do you consider him a friend?
I am stunned that politics or religion is brought up in the office.
Currently I work with 3 people closely and many others in other departments.
The three - My boss and I have worked together for 24 years. We have never talked politics or religion. Eight years with coworker A, and 3 with coworker B. I guess we could guess which way we lean, but never has a word been said about politics or religion.
I teach, and on the first day of the semester I declare the classroom off limits for religion, politics, or “That’s what she said” jokes.
Because I got to troll him back, and aside from arguing about politics, I was damn good at it.
We had some fun… I use his own his own words and actions against him.
It’s like…
“Calling 3 times when someone is trying to watch the live brodcast of ‘Better Call Saul’ is now where you want to go now? I think I can arrange a messured responce to this level of trolling…”
The guy hates being woken up. I see on Facebook that he had only 2 hours since he was last on, which means he was up most of the night… So I would keep calling him.
Once he gave me a time where I could call him on the weekends. Knowing he was still sleeping, I would call him at that time on the dot.
But that was Billy Shears, not Sgt. Pepper… 
Much FB drama would be alleviated if more people created and used lists. I rarely post to all of my “friends”. I have a family list (one for each side of the family; the joy of divorced parents), a politics list, a cooking list, a high school friends list, a sci-fi fan list, etc.
I have a core group of friends who enjoy discussing politics as a contact sport, but with a brain. No “birthers” or similar nonsense, and logical fallacies are also hooted down.
Well said. My stepmother, in particular, has gone full lunatic with anti-Obama and right-wing Christian statements with no basis in fact, so I just unfollowed her. When I want to catch up, I go to her homepage and do a quick scan, skipping over the nutjob stuff.
It’s election season; I’ve learned to accept that a lot of people go full-out crazy. It is far easier now that I live somewhere that my POV is pretty mainstream; it was ***much ***harder when I lived in Red State Bible Belt Land.
I’ve actually done this. New to my current job, I told a co-worker how hot I thought Hillary Clinton was and that was why I was voting for Bill. 20 years later he still brings it up. (He likes to find something and dig at you about it, it’s good natured though.)
Earlier this year I told him I’d switched to Debbie Wasserman-Schultz because of her curly hair and Hill was getting too old.
I gently lampoon what they’re trying to troll me about. For example, I just bid on a new job and half way through a very nice meeting, the guy goes and starts railing against liberals out of the blue.
Now, I always figure transparency is best and at some point they might connect my regular Facebook to my business one or see a bumper sticker on my car they disagree with. So, letting the cat out of the bag allows us to part ways amicably upfront with no hard feelings if necessary. And a lot of times, people (of all stripes) only have caricatures in mind when they’re doing on whatever thing they don’t like. Therefore, I assumed that this guy had probably never even seen a liberal in the wild.
I waited for my opportunity and then I politely asked if he had problems with any liberals that might work for him. He was a bit confused by the question, initially thinking I’d called him one (the horrors!), but I assured by smiling broadly and pointing to myself. This is what ensued…
Me: Yes, sir, I’m a liberal.
Him: You don’t kill babies do you?
Me: Not usually, but if I have to, I save it for Tuesday afternoons.
Laughter follows and I got the job, so I’m thinking it’s all good. Although I’m sure I’ll hear some from time to time, no to mention a whopping dose of Fox News in the background, but I think we’ve all marked our territory kindly enough to keep everyone coloring within the lines. Works for me.