[avar]

As an outsider's perspective: This aspect of American culture seems self-reinforcing.

It's not like things can't get heated when people in much of the rest of the world discuss politics.

But if the subject isn't entirely verboten, adults will have some practice in agreeing to disagree, and moving on.

With AI this particular cultural export has gone from a quaint oddity, to something that, as a practical matter, can be really annoying sometimes.

[bigstrat2003]

Will people really agree to disagree and move on, though? That certainly hasn't been my experience. Over time I have found that some people can do that. For example, my wife and I actually very rarely agree on political matters, but when we do discuss them I know that neither of us will belittle the other or walk away thinking the other is a horrible monster. But that's rare in my experience. So I only talk politics IRL with people who I know have that ability, and it takes time to feel out who can and can't be trusted to do that. Thus, I don't talk politics in mixed company.

I also think another aspect of the "no politics" rule which is important is that it attempts to preserve spaces where people can just enjoy things. People need to escape from politics and just enjoy the good things in life together. This is important for personal mental health but also social cohesion, as it's extremely difficult to have positive relationships with those you only ever argue politics with. If we don't have spaces which enforce a no politics rule, you can't ever unplug from the madness and that isn't good.

[tptacek]

I don't know, I compulsively read Wikivoyage pages and pretty much every page I read says "don't talk politics with the locals".

[defrost]

I've actually travelled a lot (ground truthing pre WGS84 map datums and geophysical exploration) and both things can be true;

* locals everywhere discuss politics between themselves, many are able to discuss politics 'reasonably' but things can and do get heated, AND

* it's good advice as a traveller to not get drawn into political discussions with locals. Listen by all means, going further can be a bad move.

I recall a radiometric survey in Nor'Western India when an underground mini nuke was detonated near our aircraft .. that got rather tense, particularly when the others were detonated and Pakistan responded.

Not a good time to discuss where the border ran.

[MrScruff]

It’s not just the US, no-one talked about politics or religion at work in the UK twenty years ago either