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Originally Posted by flamesfever
A lot of anger is misplaced, and perhaps the reason for your friends behavior is all about other things going on in his life.
I have long standing friends who are "Fox News Enthusiasts" and "Trumpians", and friends who have been staunch Environmentalists and have run for the Green Party. If they insist on talking politics, I try to see things through their eyes and appreciate where they are coming from, before countering. I see good and bad in both extremes.
However, I think with all that has been going on over the past few years, politics has started to occupy more of people's minds, and obviously become very polarized. I think a lot of it has to do with social media, the biased press, financial pressures, and the feeling of being powerless. Combine this with other problems in life, and things can get emotional pretty easy... although usually not to the extent of your friend.
You are right that if you are older, the harder it is to make new friends...close ones anyway. It seems the older you get, the more you have to work to keep the friends you have.
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Social media and Trump are the culprits here in my mind. Trump just because he is so decisive that he ups the outrage. With social media you are rewarded by engagements. You are rewarded for being outlandish and then algorithmically led to read more extreme viewpoints that you start to feel are the norm.
If people can keep an open mind than in person small politically talks can be helpful just to hear someone else's point of view. The person who wants tighter immigration isn't necessarily a racist and the person who wants socialized pharmacare isn't necessarily a raging communist. Having the conversation with an actual human being in person instead of an online rage machine can help humanize the opposition.