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).

  • D61 [any]
    ·
    2 months ago

    Its the kids? I dunno, most people can't choose their parents and if its just a short visit with them I wouldn't put them on the spot.

    If there were more interactions, I'd probably keep an ear open during conversations that drifted into domestic/international politics and see if maybe their pappa's brought any of their work home.

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

      I wasn't trying to put them on the spot, I just wanted to know what they thought of things. No matter what they said I think I would've gone 'ah, yeah, yeah, true that's understandable, for sure'.

      Yeah, you can't choose your parents, but they seemed to say their dad's positions with their chest, rather than with a --- 'cop, yeah, I know right...'

      • D61 [any]
        ·
        2 months ago

        Yeah, you can't choose your parents, but they seemed to say their dad's positions with their chest, rather than with a --- 'cop, yeah, I know right...'

        With more time, I'd probably try to lead conversations into what they think their parents think about current NYPD/CIA operations. Like... "wasn't there a recent shooting on the subway system by NYPD cops that left one bystander braindead... all because somebody jumped a turn style?" Then try to work backwards through historical misdeeds.

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

          I think that could've been a bit blunt - I'd start with the CIA and the nice non-political topic geopolitics and assassinations.