I hope this is relevant for this community, because I don’t know where else to post this. I’m honestly scared to post it anywhere else.
I live in Eastern Europe. I’m a university student, and recently, we got an American exchange student. They’re a very outspoken liberal.
A few days ago, we took them out with a few mates out for beers (they’re under 21, so they didn’t drink, even though you can here if you’re at least 18) to break the ice and make them feel comfortable. We got talking and because I’ve never been to the US, I asked them what I thought was an innocuous question. For some context, I’ve been a communist for a very long time, and joined the communist party the day I turned 18.
I basically asked them: Why would I vote for Harris? How would that improve the situation in the US and abroad? I’m not too familiar with her, but her politics don’t seem too appealing, especially her support for Israel and her incarceration background.
That made them launch into a screaming rant about how I’m a conservative for doubting her abilities and deserve to be jailed for wanting to infringe on the rights of women. There were a few more insults targeted at me for asking that question, I didn’t really understand them. The entire time, I was not even saying anything, I was honestly too shocked to react, but they just kept screaming until they got up and stormed out in a rage after calling me a Trump supporter, misogynist, and a fascist. My mates were equally confused. We tried to figure it out, but everyone is equally stumped.
I’ve been thinking about that entire situation for a couple days, and I’m so confused about their reaction. They even refuse to speak to me now.
What have I done wrong? Can someone please explain? ☹️ I really don’t understand what happened. We have liberals here of course, but even the worst ones never behave like this.
In addition to the other responses, we don’t have much nuance in our political conversations. Partially because we hear the same thing repeatedly but also because other views don’t break into our bubble that often. It ends up framing everything much more like a script to be followed. If you’re challenging the “left-wing” candidate, you must be doing so from the stance of someone who supports the right-wing candidate. That’s the script. And very often, those roles come with baggage (eg, ‘trump supporter’, ‘misogynist’, etc.). So because you have put yourself in one of those roles/boxes, the script in their mind is being followed, and you’ve taken on that baggage.
You can see this in our media discussions as well. Who likes what movies, franchises, why, etc. Many people are unaware that they are acting this prescriptively, so we often talk past each other and rarely act in as good of faith as we think we are engaging in. Neo-liberalism is built on flexible word choices, slogans, and terms without meaning. This results in a lot of reverse terminology, empty words, and a clinging of identity and labels around more solid terms. The latter has the effect of simplifying people and positions into boxes that result in script-like behavior due to regurgitating known responses and interactions with people in that label over there. The implication that you might not fit that label demands an immediate and intense examination of the subject matter in a few seconds or risk not appearing smart/moral/etc. So not only is that a threat to their image, but it’s a lot of internal pressure in a short time—hince the response you got from them was very reflexive and combative.