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?
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Notes -
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?
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.
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).
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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.
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