TLDR: How do you treat 'pleasant' reactionaries?

Long story short my cousin was visiting, but couldn't make it. My family asked if I could show his friends around regardless, and of course I was happy to oblige.

I knew they were going to be sort of rich frat-bro poli-sci stereotypes from the outset, maybe a little bit ghoulish, but nevertheless I find Americans very entertaining in their ways and I'm a nice fella so I took them to some bars and some comedy.

Conversation didn't exactly flooowwwww, but what can you expect meeting someone for the first time? I can't tell if they had no opinions about anything or were embarrassed about the opinions they did have. And then I found out that they were descendants of CIA/NYPD.

I'm now going to be a joyless communist:

I just knew they were bubbling with totally oblivious reactionary ideology, but outwardly they were very pleasant and enthusiastic. We never did broach a topic that was too controversial. About the election, all they had to say was a quick sentence of 'well, most people think both sides are bad... It's a controversial topic because we're unfortunately so divided...' - just absolute platitude spoken very very seriously.

We also talked about the concussion crisis in contact sport, and again, they were just like 'yeaahhh, seems inevitable really, not a lot you can do... anyway...'

Never have I met people so un-opinionated.

When the comedy acts came on, they had a wail of a time. One comedian was a stereotypically attractive woman, and as she came on stage, while everyone applauded her onto stage, these two 25 year olds were giggling like schoolboys, prodding each other, and shouting "lets fucking go!! Lets go bro!!!". At other points in the set one of them especially would give a 'lets gooooo' to a punchline.

Very funny to watch. Americans are such a different breed. Still, they were just having a good time on holiday, and 2 of the sets were very gay and autistic, and they liked those too. And they bought me a couple of drinks as thanks for taking them. I would be lying if I said they weren't nice and friendly guys. I would place them as Democrats or perhaps libertarian.

Anyway, what do you tend to do in scenarios where you know someone would find you a disgusting godless communist if they had any idea?

What I did was just to be normal, and genial. But it is an odd position to be in. Can someone truly be considered 'nice' and 'pleasant' when they harbour staunch ideology that is inherently racist and so on? How do you reconcile that? Aren't like 90% of people like that (though some to more of an extent than others).

  • Assian_Candor [comrade/them]
    ·
    2 months ago

    Sports, movies and TV are pretty safe topics of conversation. With other parents about kids.

    • MaoTheLawn [any, any]
      hexagon
      ·
      2 months ago

      But those are such political topics! Haha, oh well, it's good to know for next time that I shouldn't dive right in.

      • LaGG_3 [he/him, comrade/them]
        ·
        2 months ago

        Americans also have no media literacy, so the discussions of sports, movies, and TV are extremely surface level and "did you watch the thing?"

        • UlyssesT
          ·
          edit-2
          21 days ago

          deleted by creator

      • Pandantic [they/them]@midwest.social
        ·
        2 months ago

        I think it’s our intense division. I live in the Midwest, and you never know which way the person in the grocery store leans, and we’re too much of cowards to actually ask or get into a conversation. Probably because we believe, if we have opposing viewpoints, a discussion won’t change anything. And also, we want to have friendly relations with the people around us, and politics turns people unfriendly.