FB Friends? What is your policy? Can you be friends with people who LIKE the WRONG guy?

[dogknob]

This is the question "Being Liberal" is asking on FB. Here is my answer...

I'll talk to them.

Conversations with people who agree with me all the time don't accomplish anything. Liberals tend to lose often because they get fed up and resort to playing the "you're a dipshit, I'm a genius" card. It's tempting, but ends up wasting everyone's time while achieving nothing.

Liberals also tend to lose often because after they get done playing the "you're a dipshit, I'm a genius" card, they skulk back to comfy places where everyone agrees with them, get really sad when the bad guys win, and resume watching "Mad Men" or whatever while seething with resentment and alienation.

Another reason liberals tend to lose a lot is because a lot of people who claim to be liberals are not; spouting the talking points will win you friends and get you laid, but if some social program you were impressing some chick with your outspoken support for comes to your neighborhood, threatening to lower your property value, and you suddenly turn into Douche Lib-baugh, chances are you were a conservative all along and you might be guilty of rape because you lied to get in someone's pants.

I'll talk because there's a lot to talk about, but I am much more interested in having discussions with those hip, disaffected "they're all a bunch of liars" folks. These people are truly frightening. Engaging them is difficult, frustrating, prone to iThing interruptions; I am dismissed more often than I am taken seriously, but I know the stakes and I know that every "meh" is a vote for the GOP -- one small "meh" closer to creating a country I don't want to live in.

Political discussions outside one's comfort zone are crucial now. Learn to spot fanatics quickly so they don't waste your time, because they will try to. Focus on the apathetic. Find something they genuinely care about and share what you know. If you're squishy on the particulars, we still have the Internet for now; we won't if the GOP has their way. Start there.

But for fuck's sake start.

[Fumesucker]

1. I tried it just the other day...

Even put up an OP about it..

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021217069

It would have been more fun to

[dogknob]

4. I just kicked your thread. n/t

[elleng]

2. Unfortunately,

I've recently learned that one of my high school classmates 'likes' the wrong guy. She has put together my class reunion, for end of September, with great effort, so I'm not 'unliking' her, and will probably avoid discussing politics with her at the reunion. I surely don't discuss it with her on FB.

[patrice]

3. Sharing stuff people probably would not have read otherwise & including a well chosen excerpt

posted with the link is also useful.

I always try to lead with the most catchy info in the first words of any post.

They may not click on the link and read the article, but all of those bits of info posted with the articles add up.

[dogknob]

5. That's my thing, too. I've been doing it for a long time.

Mostly people don't reply, but I have seen an increase in "I normally don't do politics, but..." threads popping up from old friends in my feed. The number of PM's I get asking questions has steadily risen. I get out-of-left-field "thank you" messages from people who have never responded to anything I post.

I had a friend of a friend send me a friend request because she'd been reading posts of mine the friend had responded to. I helped her finish a paper on insider-trading today.

Another non-responder dropped a note to tell me she'd moved her money out of BofA and into a CU.

How much time out of your day does it take to drop a link from an interesting article you read on DU into your timeline? NONE!

[rppper]

6. I have rules....

If its a family/kids/recipes/how are you post I erase anything not falling into that category...most of my friends are people I grew up with and navy buds I served with...my Texas friends know I have always been a lib...and when they or I post political things we argue back and forth, but thank god we all respect each other...we don't let it get personal for the most part, although in the past it has cost me decades old friendships....my navy friends are a different matter, at least most of the ones I directly served with...we all earned the right to have whatever opinions we spout....I'll disagree but I'll never tell them they are wrong for thinking it....I can be persuasive and I have changed minds, but I'm not about to tell anyone who put his life on the line for us what he should think....I'll just ignore them if it comes to that....

I use a lot of DU cartoons and links to btw...it helps to change their thinking...

[secondwind]

7. My best friend is a Republican. We have a couple of Teabillies in our family as well.

We sometimes discuss politics with family members, and sometimes it is fine and we can find common ground, but sometimes it can become a shouting match.

[Freddie]

8. Sometimes humor helps

I like to post funny political cartoons that make a point (I get them here at DU!) and hope maybe they'll chuckle at themselves.

Like yesterday I posted the cute one with Mitt and Ann eating on an ironing board in the basement, being served by a butler. Funny, eh? A RW friend replied with "how dare I criticize Mitt for bring rich when we have all those rich Democrats like the Kennedys and John Kerry."
I replied that of it weren't for John Kerry's fortune we wouldn't have Heinz Ketchup, the staff of life.