My example was from around college with a Disney adult (I know) who was adamant that Pocahontas shouldn't be counted in the Disney princess line up.
That fixation set an alarm bell in my liberal brain, but I didn't want to think it was racism at the time. But the fixation on using technicalities (not technically a princess in the western monarchy sense) like in this case was just reaching to exclude a category of people in a way that was socially acceptable.
I can see that unbending view of rules and technicalities to be a red flag. The lack of willingness to take a personal stake in a topic and couching your real thoughts in arbitrary rules has been a clear sign for me to watch out. I see it with boardgames too. The excessive rule-following clues me in to a lot of reactionary behavior.
What about the rest of you? What things turned out to be red flags like that?
Edit - Fast forward to present day and this person is no longer a friend and is big into Q, Trump, and covid denialism.
I have one coworker who I have worked with for awhile and her opinions confound me. She is WOC in her 50s, definitely watches local news and listens to drive time radio. Trans people and issues live rent free in her mind. Often complaining about pronouns, cancel culture, and LGBT representation while simultaneously declaring "I don't care if they're LGBT, why make a big deal about it?" At the same time, she boycotts the NFL because of how Colin Kaepernick was treated and is supportive of BLM. It's very confusing to hear someone go back and forth between those two views.
Wtf do we have the same coworker? Is she also weirdly antivax? Mine told me to hold a magnet up to the injection site after I got covid shot she said it would stick lmao.
In a way, I'm glad that you can relate. To her credit, she's been very good about COVID stuff. Vaxxed early on, masks at all times at work. She was in complete agreement with me that anti-Asian hate was a huge problem in the beginning of the pandemic.
It actually makes sense, many people, I'd say the majority of people have incoherent ideology and conflicting beliefs. It's pretty common, like I know quite a few very pro union chuds that simply ignore much of what the GOP has done to weaken unions. This is becoming less and less of a separation of parties though as neoliberalism's banner is being raised by both. But there was a time when being pro union was essentially a pretty left only position I'd say.
But since many people don't subscribe to a fairly structured sense of political ideology, the majority of people are just grab bags of different and conflicting beliefs. Matt Christman has said this much more eloquently than I can, and he definitely nailed it down better. Don't have anything to link but I remember him vividly discussing this on one of his vlogs in the past.
This sounds a bit like me back in my reactionary days. I held a lot of chud beliefs but I was pro-Kaepernick, maybe that's one of the reasons I was able to make the shift left though.