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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   3353 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for February 15, 2026

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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How do you handle it when people ask for your political opinions in real life?

I had a woman ask me suddenly, out of the blue, "who did you vote for in the last election?" We were having a nice conversation before that point (not like, a meet-cute instant love or antyhing, but at least it was a good conversation). I answered truthfully that I had just recently changed my address at that time, so I didn't vote, because I was dealing with a lot and it just wasn't worth the effort for me of updating my voter info on top of everything else. She instantly made an annoyed face and turned away, never to talk to me again. She was obviously a liberal- god help me if I had said I voted for Trump. But like, what are we supposed to do in these situations? Is it just impossible to talk to people with different political opinions now?

If I know what they want to hear, and I don't want the consequences of telling the truth, then I'll lie.

There are a lot of times (dating, family, maybe your best friend) where you want to be yourself and in those cases, it only makes sense to tell the truth.

Was this actually just chatting, or was there relationship possibility? If the latter, I can see the appeal of screening political incompatibility quickly. Similarly, it makes sense to ask about desire for children very quickly, and completely disengage if incompatible.

Its an interesting question that depends at least in part on what my overall objective in talking to this person is. In "preserve the relationship" mode I usually couch it to be minimally offensive to the asker and to invite them to "agree" with me on something rather than immediately sort me into the 'enemy' basket.

But when I'm feeling spicy I like to say "well I'd love to see the current Federal Government catch fire and burn down entirely" which is entirely honest as to my core feelings but doesn't actually reveal whether I agree with or don't agree with the current administration's actions.

I had the version of this happen VERY recently where the woman I'm casually interested in ask "are you a Democrat or Republican" and get very insistent I answer. I was stumped just a bit because... well why would you just assume those are the only two options on the table?

Whereas the strictly true answer is "I've been unaffiliated since High School and thus I am not registered as Republican OR Democrat", I opted to say "I voted for Trump, I voted for Desantis, and I did a straight Republican ticket in the last two elections." Somehow this wasn't quite good enough, and I guess her REAL goal was to very cleanly identify which tribe I personally identified with. Fair enough. So I then said "I watched the Turning Point halftime show, not the Bad Bunny one." (not mentioned: "watched" means I sat in a bar that had swapped channels, but I was not particularly interested in the show so I mostly zoned out while it was on.)

We're still talking, though. She's openly Republican so I guess I passed the "not a libtard" smell test.

I don't mind answering the question, but I dislike the vast majority of discussions based around tribal politics (present company excluded) so I will always try to shift the topic to something still 'controversial' but where I can't 100% predict their response ahead of time based on tribal signifiers.

I dislike the vast majority of discussions based around tribal politics (present company excluded)

I like to imagine that, at the best of times, we're one meta-level up, discussing the fact of tribal politics and why some topics or events acquire valence in the culture war while others don't. Whereas I assume most people asking you "are you a Democrat or a Republican?" just take it as read that their team is Good, the other team is Bad, and they want to know which team you're on.

Exactly.

I know full well if I answer the question straightforward that will dictate how the person treats me going forward.

Whereas if you just don't broach the topic with them then generally you can maintain amicable relations indefinitely. I had a guy who I KNOW (thanks to his Facebook posting) is a hard lefty over to my house about a month ago (party I hosted) but there was no discomfort because nobody interrogated anyone else on their positions, and I don't have a ton of political paraphernalia adorning my walls and such. This equilibrium is possible to maintain... but also easy to break.

I daresay sometimes we can even get two meta levels up, discussing the ways in which the human tribal tendency exacerbates certain social problems simply by making it impossible for solutions to get discussed or important actions agreed on. Its very useful to sometimes take a BIG step back and acknowledge we're all overdeveloped primates that barely cling to civilization thanks to having souls (from the theological standpoint) or, for those who prefer it, prefrontal cortexes and the capacity for high order language.

Is it just impossible to talk to people with different political opinions now?

No, you can filter out the ones who can't handle different political opinions by being up front about what you believe. I've got a few friends who've said we'll end up on opposite sides if there's a war, and the sense of humour there is why it works. I'm not American but I run into students and expats sometimes, they'll be sensitive if they're in a group but you can still find guys who'll look past that disagreement to make friends. You can tell a Muslim or Hindu to accept Christ or get out of the pub and most likely they'll just laugh about it.

If it goes wrong you can have fun making fun of a hysterical woman, or an angry Muslim, but you have to be willing to commit to the follow through in order to even say the first sentence and personally I've never seen any real consequences and the person crying about your political views just looks silly.

‘I voted for Trump’. If they’re liberals I have a canned rant about Biden’s ‘war on domestic terror’ being escalated against targets thé police officers in place kept warning political appointees were not white supremacists or a terror threat(and we do, in fact, have FBI memos about this).

Some real life examples:

I had my kid's daycare provider ask me who I voted for in the 2024 election. She is clearly hispanic, has an accent, and my kids come home learning spanish words. I've normally not voted or voted libertarian, but I happened to vote Trump in that election. And I responded without thinking "Trump". Her response was honest relief and "oh good, me too".

The neighborhood dads discuss politics with each other, there are a variety of political persuasions. I'd guess that it is close to an even split among conservatives and liberals among the dads. You can razz these guys a little about their beliefs, but ostracizing anyone or acting high and mighty would be a massive social faux paus. To the point that it would probably massively backfire.

My cousin's wife is an artist/painter/political activist. My cousin has worked on political campaigns and is the local head of a teachers union, very left coded obviously. During my wedding in 2016 my best man joked about how he burned his ballot. My cousin's wife was horrified.

In the 20teens I worked at a tech company. Most people were liberal. Politics would come up in the breakroom. People knew I was a libertarian. I did get in a minor argument with one co-worker on facebook. He said something about libertarians being awful for not voting for Hillary, and letting Trump win. I said something about its the democrats fault for having such an awful candidate up for election. It was a few months later that I deactivated my facebook account.

I was on the dating scene and got a date with a girl off of OKCupid. Found out during the date that she worked at some women's oriented political organization in DC. I'd already sorta outed myself as libertarian. I figured the date and my chances were tanked. I stopped caring and talked more politics, when I was done and ready to go home I invited her back to my place. She surprised me by saying yes and we hooked up. I never heard from her again.

In general, I don't like hiding my politics. I have a bad poker face, and I'm too opinionated to shut up for long. My experience has been that the consequences of revealing your politics are not that bad. Its possible some people have talked shit about me at work behind my back and I lost some opportunities because of it, I think its unlikely though. Its also fully possible that friends or family have been annoyed with me before for expressing my opinions. If there is a reason for me to not express my politics in person its that the real world doesn't have to follow the rules on TheMotte. Politeness is not required. A lack of antagonism is not required. Low effort participation is encouraged. Enforcing consensus is the name of the game. etc.

My advice to you is that just about everyone hates the 'agnostics'. The ones with no opinions who try to stay out of it all. Politics is pure tribalism. Religious affiliation is tribalism. Sports team affiliation is tribalism. A yankees fan and red socks fan will really go at each other over baseball and their respective teams, but they both don't want to even talk with the person who doesn't care for baseball. So be honest and put your opinions out there. To politic is human.

When asked who I'm voting for, I tell the joke my father in law gave me from Iran:

I'm voting for Ali Baba, he only has forty thieves.

That often gets me out of the conversation smoothly enough.

If someone is earnestly trying to figure out my politics, I'm honest about them, perhaps choosing to target issue discussions that I think offer favorable ground for my arguments, on which I can sound more intellectually sophisticated or think I can find common ground with my interlocutor, compared to ground where my arguments are weaker or less sophisticated.

Hiding the ball ("Secret ballot innit?" "I never tell anyone who I vote for" "I just moved to town so I wasn't able to register in time..." "What's voting?") is probably the worst thing you can do if your goal is to be diplomatic and get a potentially prejudiced interlocutor to like you, because you're admitting guilt about it, confirming their suspicion that Republicans/Democrats know that their choices are evil and bad and nonetheless revel in mustache-stroking evil deeds. She's likely to think your politics are worse than they are if you aren't willing to even talk about them.

You're much better off being bold and saying what you believe, it's a more attractive quality than cowardice or guilt.

...but the forty thieves were enemies of Ali Baba.

Ali Baba had zero thieves. They tried to kill him.

Let me guess, you also go around telling people Frankenstein is not the monster and Canute was making a point about how powerless kings are against the will of God?

We're all pedantic nerds here, come on.

"That's so weird that you would ask that. Why do we have a secret ballot if we're just supposed to tell everyone who we voted for?"

Is it just impossible to talk to people with different political opinions now?

Yes. With us or against us, etc. Polarization is a real phenomenon.

That's not true, I talk to people of very liberal persuasions all the time. Not about politics, of course, and they don't know that I am a vile deplorable (that's not accurate either but that's what they'd think if they knew). It's not a symmetric "polarization".

Alright, yes, of course, it's posssible to talk to people of different political opinions when you keep your own secret. I somewhat feel that that wasn't really germane to the point, though.

The asymmetry appears to be, "Wanting [or not] to talk to people who disagree with you." Worth noting that the original OP did not use the word "polarization" but explicitly mentioned "talking to people with different political opinions."

I think it is. The left doesn't have to hide their opinions to keep the peace. The right does. So the neutral and symmetric term "polarization" does not adequately describe what is going on.

I usually say something about it being a secret ballot for a reason. When I was a kid I inherited a rule from my father - you never tell anybody who you voted for, under any circumstances, full stop. I don't follow that rule religiously now, but I do still follow it most of the time. So I just say that I never talk about my vote with anyone. It's nothing to do with you - I just never tell anybody.

If someone decides to break off all contact with me because of that answer, well, we were never going to be friends anyway. Net loss of zero to me.

I think I'm going to start doing this. It's not worth the hassle.

Yeah, I feel like I agree with you in principle, but in practice that would just lead to awkward cutoffs like what happened to me in this case. I wasn't necessarly looking for a lifelong friend, just one good conversation at a party. Se la vie.

It might, but my feeling is that if a conversation has gotten to the point where someone is, in an inquisitorial manner, demanding to know who I voted for, it's already gotten awkward. When they ask "Who did you vote for?", it's already probably beyond salvaging.

I don't make it an absolute rule, though, particularly because what someone means by the question is often highly contextual. Personally I don't think I've ever had anyone ask me "who did you vote for?" (I suspect that question is more powerful in America?), but several times I have had somebody ask me a different kind of political shibboleth question, the most common being, "What do you think of gay marriage?" That's one where sometimes I will hide behind professionalism (I work in a religious field; I say something about how I need to offer care to everyone and it's not about what I think), but sometimes I do answer honestly. Usually in those latter cases it's because the context is working for an organisation that's officially progressive on social issues, but which has a lot of employees with more conservative views, and I can tell that the person is trying to look for sympathy. Often that question means that the person asking opposes it, and is nervously hoping to find an ally, or even just understanding, in me. So in that case I might lean in and say, "Okay, I'll tell you a secret. I voted no to gay marriage."

There are a few other questions like that. In general I think the key is just figuring out why the person is asking you this. If it's coming from a place of empathy or vulnerability, I'm more likely to answer.

But if it's coming from a place of inquisition - if the person is trying to discover whether I'm a wrongthinker - then I think that's not worth answering. Other people are not entitled to know my political views.

I'm in America, and don't think anyone has ever asked me point blank who I voted for. That seems very intrusive, and I would think less of them even if we agreed on who to vote for.

I was once suddenly asked shortly after the 2016 election by my gay atheist friend. I told him the truth that I didn't vote, we both knew that's not what he was really asking, but we both dropped it (we were out at dinner with two more of our mutual friends).

Yeah, in the US with the presidential system the main election people care about is the presidential electors; legislative elections take a back-seat and typically win by riding coattails in straight-party voting. In parliamentary systems I presume “which party did you vote for?” would be the more significant question. Something like “how do you feel about gay marriage?” feels less intrusive to me, I could see that coming up in a reasonable conversation. The entire point of the voting question is specifically to interrogate polling booth behavior, not political values (which is why I find it so offensive — I’ve voted for Andy Griffith, my mother, Walter White, and Rishi Sunak for various local elections, my political values don’t fit into a party).

It's very contextual, I think? In Australia you would ask "who did you vote for?", but the answer to that question would be "Labor" or "Liberals" or "Greens", not a specific person's name. I think the general understanding is that you vote for a party, not a person. Because it's a party, I also think it tends to be less revealing? One of the differences I notice in American politics is that voters emotionally associate with the person at the top of the ticket more. Voting for Trump has a stronger association with Trump as a personality. Character and personality do matter here, and I think Peter Dutton's bad personal brand and off-putting manner hurt the Coalition at the last election, but they seem to matter less. Americans, if you'll pardon the uncharitable way of putting this, are a bit more personality-cult-ish around their leaders than we are.

This isn't an interrogation so I'm happy to disclose that in my life I've voted for both major parties. In fact I've usually preferenced a minor party first - Australia has compulsory preferential voting, so I always have to list every candidate in order of preference, but in practice usually the only question that matters is whether I put Labor or Liberals higher. The answer to that is that sometimes I've put Labor higher and sometimes I've put the Liberals higher. I am not particularly consistent. I suppose in American terms that would make me an independent or a swing voter? One thing I do like about the American system is that you can split your ticket. If I had been in the US, well, it would probably depend on the state, but I could easily imagine, say, voting Harris for president but voting straight Republican in the legislature, because I think Harris was marginally less unfit for the presidency than Trump, but I oppose much of Harris' policy agenda and would like her to be constrained and ineffective in office. But it sounds like in a case like that the only thing most people would care about is the vote for president.

To my local case, I work in a religious context, so the social questions come up more. Most intitutional pressures are progressive and the church organisation we're associated with has leadership that signals very progressive, but the people who actually go to church, and the people who are likely to choose to work for a Christian organisation, tend more conservative. So there is often a gap between the messaging from above and what people think on the ground. So I interpret a lot of those questions as employees trying to suss out where I fall on the spectrum. Much as in the US, sexual morality is one of the clearest ways to sort tell which side of the aisle one falls on theologically.

Se la vie.

C'est la vie.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/se_la_v%C3%AC is correct in italian

That's vì and not vie, pal.

Well, I stand corrected.

Well, well, well.

in practice that would just lead to awkward cutoffs like what happened to me in this case

That's why you have you have to lean into the "my father taught me" and steer the conversation towards parents before the other person has time to scoff.

"my father taught me, so that's what I do" is so extremely conservative-coded you might as well say you voted Trump. That's at least my impression among PMCs.

C'est

EDIT: in French, but not in Italian. Serves me right for being a know-it-all.

No, si dice “se la vì”, senza la “e” in italiano.

Mea culpa, grazie.

How do you handle it when people ask for your political opinions in real life?

If you want to have fun, just pretend to be completely ignorant about the issue.

A: Do you stand with Upper Trashcanistan?

B: Trash... whatever, what is it? Some new restaurant or fast food place in the town?

Then watch how your interlocutor ties himself to knots desperately trying to explain the issue in five seconds.

So you just pretend like you don't know who Trump is or what the US presidential election is? how does that usually work out for you.

I remember some online poll where Americans were asked about various public figures, there were options like/dislike/no opinion/never heard about them.

Cannot find it right now (might be misremembered)

About 2% claimed to never heard about Donald Trump, the lizardman number.

If true, these are the happiest people and we all could just envy them.

The whole point of the lizardman number is that it's probably not true. People sometimes lie or misclick or troll on polls.

She instantly made an annoyed face and turned away, never to talk to me again.

Sounds like that would've happened sooner or later regardless of your answer to that one question. It might as well be "sooner".

But like, what are we supposed to do in these situations? Is it just impossible to talk to people with different political opinions now?

There's not much you can do if someone else doesn't want to talk with you. Lying and hiding your beliefs might work, but that's not much of a solution.

I was having a nice time talking to her until this one mind-killer topic came up. Guess I'll just wait until there's a democrat in the white house until I'm allowed to talk to women.

... until I'm allowed to talk to women.

That one specific woman. Try again and hope that the next one is a bit more openminded.

When colleagues have brought up politics out of the blue, generally comments about Trump, I've generally made a disgusted face and left the room. Or sometimes just ignored what they said and change the subject hamfistedly.

I've occasionally had a man try to discuss Byzantine or post USSR politics with me, and mostly I let them mansplain about it, but sometimes try to change the topic to mosaics or the history of ultramarine or Solzhenitsyn instead, and that is fine.

They just randomly bring up the Byzantines or 1990s Russia? That's... interesting. (personally I would think those subjects are way more fun to talk about than contemporary US politics, but admittedly I would't want a random person to try to lecture me about them)

Almost all of my colleagues are women. I mostly know men from Orthodox church, so they are preselected for that kind of interest.

I’ve also had a similar experience. I believe the “who did you vote for?” question is the updated progressive’s version of trying to intelligently discover your values; they believe it’s the question that you can’t dodge without revealing you’re a Trump supporter. They earnestly believe “I did not vote” is code for “I voted for Trump and I’m trying to hide it,” which explains the nasty reaction, particularly with how you tried to explain it.

That said, I’ve often wondered what would happen if you said something like “I don’t vote because there is no ethical political participation under capitalism, I work in my community to create change using syndicalist methods, and I reject the fascist-capitalist method of false representative democracy,” and whether said progressive girl would give a similar kind of disgust face, or look on you with awe. I wouldn’t lie to someone to sleep with them, but the temptation to lie to troll someone is real.

Ultimately, when someone asks this question, you’ve already lost. I think if someone is that neurotic about political persuasion, it’s unlikely they’d be a stable person to befriend anyway. There’s a long tradition of progressive women going, “I’ve been seeing this guy for months and he’s so nice and we have fun together, but I found out yesterday he voted for Trump, should I murder him or just break up with him?” They consider it tantamount to an undisclosed felony conviction, and acknowledge no legitimate or strategic reasons why someone might have voted for him. They believe voting for him is an endorsement of his personal behavior and misconduct, like anyone who voted for Trump is liable to start grabbing random women by the pussy at any moment. To them, it’s better to reject anyone who doesn’t clearly endorse the Democratic Party, because they believe Republican men are out to assault them. TDS is strong.

Someone who thinks like that seems like an awful friend and a worse partner. So I’d say she did you a favor.

To be fair, she's not wrong. If you had put a gun to my head and forced me to pick between Trump and Harris, I would have picked Trump. She seemed intelligent and fun to talk to just... completely mind-poisoned by politics. I was really hoping we could drop the subject and talk about literally anything else. But no. No compromise, no "agree to disagree," no mercy.

I don't think I could convincingly lie and pretend to be an ultra leftist. I suppose I should have just said "Harris," and then quickly changed the subject to something else. But I suppose it would only be a matter of time until I was found out.

Unfortunately lots of people are convinced that the country is falling actively into dictatorship and the question is roughly like asking if you’re a collaborator in occupied France. That’s where people’s heads are at.

The collapse of democratic legitimacy in the country is actually literally a both sides process and it wouldn’t be a problem in the counterfactual that it wasn’t, because it would fizzle.

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