This thread could go into either IMHO or Politics:
We all know the axiom: “There are two topics to avoid: Politics and religion.”
Recently, there was someone who complained on PostSecret about PostSecret becoming politicized and requested that Frank Warren (the founder of PS) keep politics out of things. In response, the near-unanimous backlash of many other followers was, “Anytime you see someone asking to keep politics out of something, it’s always a conservative or Republican. They are privileged enough to be able to ignore politics.”
Regardless of whether that’s true or not (that conservatives are more averse to seeing things politicized than liberals,) in which situations is it appropriate to complain and keep politics out of something?
Kaepernick and other players kneeling during NFL games led to backlash, “keep politics out of sports.” (although many of the complainers didn’t seem to consider flag pageantry, flyovers, salute to troops to be political)
In most workplaces, politics and religion are frowned upon (unless you’re in a workplace that leans so heavily right or heavily left that there’s almost no disagreement from dissenters)
Or put another way: What sort of things ought to be considered a safe haven from politics?
For example, ‘Who do you want to win the Super Bowl?’ I would say Kansas City because I want to see Goliath Tom Brady lose. If it’s basketball, I always want to see LeBron James lose.
That’s keeping politics out of two guys who have been surrounded by politics.
Notice that several forums here direct that politics be kept out. You can hardly claim that the mods are right wing or conservative. We just want those forums kept free of politics. Not that the admonition always works.
I vote for doctors’ waiting rooms. A couple of weeks ago, waiting for my wife to get out of an appointment, another patient tried to strike up a conversation with me. Turned out what she really wanted to tell me was that all news channels had been blocked and that a friend of hers, “a patriot,” had told her that Trump was just about to invoke the Insurrection Act. I told her I had no interest in hearing anything further and the receptionist agreed with me. She left the office muttering angrily to herself.
Seeing as the US is apparently now divided into a group of people whose politics are utterly despicable to me and a group of people whose politics are the same as mine hence I already know what they’re going to say, I pretty much never want to hear anyone talk about politics any more. When it comes up in a situation which has nothing to do with politics (say, growing beans, or how to troubleshoot that brake light problem), I am not shy about saying No Politics Please. Either side.
I successfully kept both politics and religion out of my classrooms (for 25 years), which was no easy task because the discussions in those classes often turned into therapy sessions.
The “No Politics, Seriously” was needed, as it was a polytechnic college that drew from urban and rural areas. It just took constant reminders: “Okay, Malcom XXL, tone it down. And hey, Sporty Trump, you started it. Both of you back off.”
I concur. It’s my job to talk to managers at work who are considering H1B visa sponsorship for an employee and it’s been impossible to keep politics out of the discussion. For the last few years I’ve had to bring up the Trump administration’s efforts to make immigration more difficult, for the last year I’ve had to tell managers that things might change after the election, and now I’m waiting to see what those changes might be. I felt incredibly awkward bringing up the Trump administration so much. Thankfully visas are a very, very tiny part of my workload.
As a general rule, I don’t expect people to discuss politics at work unless it’s about an issue that affects work. I think it’s okay for social clubs to have a rules restricting political discussion. If it’s my bowling night I want to bowl not talk about gun control or the new half cent tax to support local museums.
I think it’s pretty difficult to decide what is political these days. Is vaccination political? Gay rights? Recycling? Police brutality?
What with climate change, we can’t even talk about the weather at family gatherings anymore, because someone will make some crack about global warming, And of course I notice it more when it’s the conservative wing using a remark about the weather to suggest we don’t have climate change–but in all honesty, it happens in the other direction too. People don’t see it as being political, they see it as interesting and accurate.
When I’ve participated in tabletop gaming sometimes we’ve had to remind people not to chatter about political stuff because it can really derail things and waste time. It’s not even the threat that an argument could break out which is another possibility, but we’re there to have fun not gripe about real world stuff.
It’s especially annoying when you understand that weather isn’t climate and an unusually warm day in January or a cool day in July means nothing. I pull up the historic high and lows for that day and often the record was set back in the 19th century