[sethammons]

I think this is wildly wrongheaded. The socially polite "no politics" is a critical insulator allowing normally non-socially acceptable behavior to grow.

I am convinced it is those in power not wanting an informed populace.

We are not in uninteresting times. People need to be engaging in world around them, not ignoring it.

A: "My neighbors are scared"

B: "Don't talk about that, we might get testy because I think your neighbors should be scared."

[tonyedgecombe]

I had to tell my parents to stop talking about politics because it was making me dislike them.

They weren’t informed citizens, they were just regurgitating whatever they happened to read in their newspaper that day.

If you pushed them on anything they said they didn’t really have any understanding beneath the headlines they had read.

It would be better for them if they could disengage from it but they don’t seem to want to.

There is nothing good coming out from their engagement.

[sethammons]

So no discussion happened and they were left uninformed? I talk through things with my family and share different takes and sources. Some are unhinged and called out. But usually there is lots of common ground. And sometimes changed options.

No single raindrop believes it to be blamed for the flood.

[snovymgodym]

That's great that this works for your family, but you should be careful not to project your personal experience onto others.

An actual productive political discussion where someone changes their mind afterwards is very rare.

It requires a bilateral respect for difference of opinion, a willingness to introspect and challenge one's own positions, and the emotional maturity not to take disagreement personally.

There are some people with whom you'll just never get this. If those people are your family or close friends, a mutual understanding of "we both know we disagree on this topic, so let's avoid it" can be the best you will get.

[tonyedgecombe]

Discussion did take place. There is only so much you can do though.

I’m glad it worked for you but in my case it didn’t.

Ultimately people who continually drag the conversation around to politics just aren’t very nice to be around.

[HEmanZ]

This works with some people and not with others. I’ve found once you have no epistemological common ground or rigor it becomes pointless and not worth having.

Like what do you do if every source that contradicts them about any aspect of the world is considered a lie controlled by <insert boogeyman> (billionaires, liberals, the Jews, whatever)?

I’ve found the majority of people who are really in to regurgitating politics have no interest in actually understanding reality or making political decisions or even political arguments. They are playing a tribal sport and showing the allegiance and righteousness with words. It’s closer to “my sports team is better than your sports team”. In this situation, there is no string of conversation that can convince them otherwise or land real information. The best thing to do is maintain the relationship, let them know your basic positions, and model “people who disagree with you are very normal and won’t mock you if you change your mind.”

[energy123]

The way to cause effective local change among people you know is to build meaningful relationships with psychological safety. They will figure out your political opinions with time, and they will be more subtly but durably influenced.

Jamming it into conversations with strong moral judgement attached to the opinion will make people dislike you, and it will not influence people who disagree with you. It will make them harden in their existing views because the emotional awfulness of what you are saying (implicitly accusing them of being bad people, or making them feel under threat) reinforces how correct they have been to have held those views.

[losvedir]

Sounds like you could use some time in a group that bans discussion of politics.