How do politics dominate every faucet of your life? My life is not affected at all when the government changes, except I pay slightly different taxes, and the news is different.

This is a privilege that not all get to enjoy.

Even if politics significantly affect you, I don't see why you can't get along with someone who's beliefs could negatively affect you, as long as they don't hold those beliefs with the goal of hurting you personally. Everyone has reasons for their political beliefs, I think those reasons are more important than the beliefs themselves - if someone is anti-immigration because they are worried about national security, I think that is a fine opinion and I could get along with that person. If they have that opinion because they dislike mexicans, I would probably not like them so much.

Agree.

I got a few downvotes around the time Trump got elected[0] because I tried to say here that maybe we should look into why people made this choice instead of being angry with them.

At that time, for days on end it felt a good chunk of users would bulk downvote everyone whos opinion was more nuanced than black and white and most voters are too dumb to understand their own good. (A good chunk of users also upvoted but since I think I write reasonable comments I hope they upvoted me because of that, not just because I seemed more aligned with them :-P )

[0] I still don't like him, and I repeatedly said so then too

There is multiple aspect that your comment brings up, but I will try limit it down to a couple.

> how can you tolerate being around them even if they try to keep that stuff quiet?

Relationships are not defined by someone's beliefs. To take a less emotional relationship, that of coworkers, its healthy if people of different religions can work together even if most religions denigrate unbelievers. Polarization and strict separation of people under different religions has a long history of violence and nations that have people of multiple religions "getting along" is usually seen as a sign of progress.

Going back to relationship within a family, it likely when there is a strong difference in political or religious believes that both parties will view the others view as laughable and ridiculous. There might be someone expressing a religious experience and the other person mentioning Flying Spaghetti Monster. Neither is ground for not having a nice Christmas dinner and reminiscing about childhood memories. Occasionally politics or religion will pop up and in my experience it is either dropped instantly or becomes part of friendly banter.

Honestly, I don’t really have any political faucets in my life. Just the regular ones: Two in each bathroom and one over the kitchen sink. Haven’t given too much thought about whether they were liberal or conservative—they just dispense water.

haha, thanks. I realised almost instantly but just too late to edit it to facets.

You suppose that some beliefs are denigrating others. I will guess you are a liberal that sees the world as 'Oppressors vs Oppressed' ?

I believe on the contrary that you can have political beliefs that are philosophical and ethical and way above some group-politics that sees some groups oppressing others.

what I'm saying is that if you believe in universal Healthcare or into the free market, it shouldn't change relationships.

I would agree, if those were the things that were dividing the average voter. However, having two daughters, friends who are LGBT, and being a man with more melanin in my skin than the average European, I find contemporary 'Social Conservatism' to be completely unacceptable. It doesn't help that social issues, along with the fact that studies are regularly finding that racial resentment and sexism, are very strong predictors for conservative voters.

I wish it was Universal Healthcare vs. Free Market, that way we could have rational discussions on most issues.

I dunno, I'm trying to square "political beliefs that are [...] above some group-politics that sees some groups oppressing others" with, well, okay, I have two close friends who are trans, and one of them lives in one of those states that's been doing the trans bathroom laws.

How am I supposed to square this ideal that politics doesn't need to involve oppressing people, when I see this one friend who's basically being told she can't legally use the bathroom that's right for her?

Like, how is that not oppressing?

You hold your tongue and value family relationships above petty squabbles.

It’s not some pious virtue. It’s just what you learn to do as a functioning adult.

And what are you supposed to do when several of your relatives do not exercise this level of restraint and insist on steering the conversation toward politics?

Turn the other cheek. Steer the conversation back towards something less contentious. If necessary, confront them... but not as a partisan. Challenge them to abstain from political discussion in favor of a happier conversation. If they really cannot be adult enough to make that choice, then it really isn't politics that is the problem, it's just a symptom.

At a certain point you're just tired of that and want to excuse yourself and go home.

why, explain vehemently just how naturally sane and correct your opposing opinion is, naturally. if they wanted the right to speak, they’d have the right politics in the first place and the really important thing is to make sure they know that

Are we talking about having a nice dinner with someone or are we talking about petulantly asserting our "rights"? Someone is well within their "rights" to not stay somewhere they are not being made welcome.