If you are the one biting your tongue a lot, then you have a very strange definition of “balance”.
Maybe I should have said “I pick my battles?”
Tennessee–I was ridiculed by two old farts in a restaurant, recently, for masking.
I kept my cool.
Twenty years ago, I might have punched them.
Thirty, & I would have gone for em with a chair.
Today, I ignored them.
I live in the land of Lindsay Graham.
I work retail.
I do a lot of inner eyeroll and invisible headshaking.
Most people I find to be polite, “normal” (whatever that is) people, and in my job politics has no place. The mask mandate time was a bit of a trial, but then it was them rolling their eyes and sighing lustily as I asked for the umpteenth time that they wear it in the store AND wear it properly.
Most of the Trump types I know are essentially good people who are just too easily led and have bent for critical thinking.
Ugh - … have NO bent for critical thinking.
We live in a very red county. Luckily, our only nearby neighbors are liberals who prefer living in the country.
I live in Indiana, which is a fairly red state (although our governor has been pretty good about dealing with Covid–he’s not a virulent anti-masker by any means). My particular neighborhood is pretty diverse. You can see Trump signs and BLM signs right next door to each other. No vandalism or screaming matches that I’ve ever heard about.
Mostly day to day interactions are fine. I still wear a mask when I go shopping and stuff, and no one has ever said a word to me. There may be the occasional people who are looking for a confrontation, but I’ve never run into any of them. I find that most people just want to get their groceries and go home, just like they did before all this started.
Eh, it’s in a small town in Mississippi, and it certainly isn’t a big enough college for the place to be primarily a college town. (Although I do think there’s a lot more culture-wars stuff, and more in-your-face politics, in swing states. I drove across a good chunk of rural Pennsylvania last month, and saw “FUCK BIDEN” signs pretty frequently. This just isn’t anything I have ever seen while driving in the deep South, and while some of it has to do with different cultural norms about cursing, I think part of it is just that people get angrier and more extreme in their views when they feel outnumbered.)
I haven’t been accosted by strangers for Trump, but my family members like Trump, and find my views more amusing than provoking.
At our last get together, my aunt asked me whether I wanted the US to become more like Venezuela? I said no, more like Sweden, and all those other European countries with their social safety nets.
Then my uncle made a reference to “Joe and the 'Ho”. That phrase made everyone laugh loudly, and the phrase was repeated several times as the most witty bon mot imaginable. I sat in stone-faced silence. I wasn’t just insulted for Kamala Harris’ sake. I was more disgusted that in spite of all the progress we have made in women’s opportunities, this is how a woman who makes it into the top echelons is regarded. Degrading sexual jokes. It never ends.
I will say my male cousin noticed my reaction, and spoke up. “Hey people, this kind of talk is divisive.”
And everybody calmed down and changed the subject.
My cousin is younger than me, perhaps by about seven years. So maybe there’s hope for my family yet.
This seems like a stupid, or being kind, “immature” question from someone with no experience dealing with other people in the world (a typical redditor, for example). I mean, are you triggered when you see a carbon tax sticker on a gasoline pump in Ontario? How do you deal with people who refuse to remove them while pumping gasoline?
I’m in Kentucky, although this area is more mixed in general. I saw one of those degrading Kamala signs yesterday actually. It made me so angry, and a little nauseous if I’m honest. The nerve of any of these idiots talking shit after voting for that last embarrassment. I’m wondering now if he has daughters that have to look at it…
A neighbor a few houses up the street from me has a flag featuring an assault rifle and the caption “Trump 2024: The Rules Have Changed.” I still haven’t figured out what that even means, and I haven’t had an opportunity to ask him.
But yes, that’s a metaphor for what it’s like living where I live. That neighbor is not an outlier.
I live in Texas, which overall is a reddish-purple state, but due to gerrymandering and shenanigans, is pretty red politically.
Day to day, things aren’t a whole lot different, but we could definitely stand more mask wearing. I’d say it’s about 50-50 when I go out and about, but the mask-wearing doesn’t seem to track too closely with political leanings overall- Hispanic people seem to be least likely to wear masks, followed by old white people, then white men in general. Everyone else seems to have about a 2 in 3 chance of wearing masks.
But in a broader sense, the Legislature and governor are doubling down on the crazy and stupid, passing bills and issuing executive orders specifically to placate the crazy MAGA base, not to benefit the greater state populace. In fact, many of these things are actively detrimental, but to that crowd, they’re ideologically pure, so they get passed/issued, like Abbott’s dumb-assed prohibition on vaccine mandates. It’s infuriating and discouraging to say the least.
I mean, am I quite reasonably curious about MAGAts getting in non-MAGAts faces, or similar situations?
You’re welcome - FTFY 
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Or maybe how do you deal with other posters here giving actual legitmate answers?
I live on the border of eastern Washington and North Idaho (yes, it is called North Idaho, not northern Idaho - don’t ask me why). I’m in MAGA’land. I see the hats, I see the flags (Trump 2024, Fuck Biden, Gadsden, confederate, etc), I see the lifted coal rolling trucks, I see racist messages on vehicles, etc etc etc. I don’t see masks, and I’ve been made fun of for wearing them. I love the outdoors and all the cycling opportunities. This area is very slowly adding blue residents as Californians buy up everything, but it’ll take a long time to take over. My wife and I are moving away when we retire in 8 years.
I live in a red area and there are no problems aside from people not wanting to wear masks and Trump signs still up (losers.) If you don’t try to argue politics most lower/middle class people, left and right, are just trying to get through life regardless of their extreme/ignorant political thoughts.
I’m not so sure that masking itself is any indication. When masks were mandated in my state I saw almost universal compliance. Now that it’s not mandatory it’s not exactly rare but definitely way lower than 50%. Maybe 20%. Same when I was in very blue NYC last week. We do have a pretty high vaccination rate that’s about 8% higher than the national average but it no where near universal.
ID never had a mask mandate so I’ve never seen much usage (we stuck out like a sore thumb wearing them). WA did have one and there was a difference.
We have tried to avoid going to any sort of store except for right when it opens.
Thanks for the @, @nelliebly!
Northeast Wyoming, Central Trumpistan. No more MAGA hats, but plenty of bumper stickers, and many, many houses flying various new “Stolen Election” flags. Also a preponderance of Trump Truckers (thanks for that term, @JaneDoe42).
One thing about living here, that I’ve mentioned previously on the board, is that politics gets brought up ALL THE TIME, whether it has a place or not. I couldn’t get my daughter’s senior pictures done without politics being brought up. I just got my MSHA refreshed (mandatory mine safety training) and over the course of eight hours, got to hear lots of anti-transgender shit, misogynistic shit (despite there being 3 women in the refresher… or maybe because of it?), and just general “anti-liberal” and “stolen election” shit. Twenty years ago, I could actually engage and have a conversation (even if it got rather heated). After Obama got elected, though, there has been no ROOM for discussion. And after Trump? Hell, most of the time I’m afraid to open my mouth in anything other than a one-on-one setting. The last full-company meeting I attended at my employer of over 20 years saw just too much pro-Trump, anti-liberal rah rah bullshit for me, and solidified my decision to seek employment elsewhere (which ended up being in Idaho, which will likely be much the same…)
So mostly, I stay home. Pandemic was actually nice that people didn’t look at me strange for doing so; I’ve always been an introvert as it is.
Pandemic-wise, there are plenty of folks who are following the latest right-wing CT stupidity, but my family and I are fully vaccinated, and every time we’ve gone in for shots, there have been plenty of people waiting for the same, so we have that going for us. Mask-wearing by customers in any setting is right out; employees in most places are masked and MOST actually even wear them properly. There are a few that refuse, and do the whole chin-diaper thing. (Seriously, how immature is that, anyway?)
Bozeman MT checking in, a dot of blue in a big fucking sea of red. We’ve had to dramatically reduce our news input since Gianforte and his ilk were elected. Bozeman is ok, but the minute you’re beyond the city limits it’s Trump country. Saw a urinal with “Trump won!” in sharpie the other day. Pre-election there were more than a few “Trump 2020–fuck your feelings” banners. And of course we’re #2 in the nation for Covid per capita right now. It’s not good and if we hadn’t just built a house we might be looking at options (like what I don’t know).