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.
You could post this in c/askchapo or lemmygrads question comm, for future reference. As others have said, here is fine too.
This reads to me like there was some context left out (I assume be accident), possibly communication difficulties that you weren’t aware of. I really need to think there were other things said or maybe wording that implied something you didn’t mean, or something like that, because it’s a very unnatural reaction. Perhaps there is context you weren’t even there for, and this person’s breakdown was motivated by events that you have no knowledge of. College kids are still mostly kids, at least in America.
If what you relayed is the full and accurate picture, the person you are talking to is hopelessly unstable and you did nothing wrong. In the future, to avoid stepping on landmines, it would probably be good to start with some less challenging questions to see how they respond before you give them a prompt as heavy as what you gave. A lot of people aren’t ready to be given such a challenge so abruptly, and might feel like they’ve been ambushed or “put on the spot”.
I gave pretty much all the context. We were sitting at a pub, they has a Harris pin and were very political from the get go. Very excited to share their political beliefs. So that’s what lead me to asking that question. It seemed like fair game with all the political messaging
LMAO, they’re so open about their politics until somebody disagrees with them. Classic blue maga delusion
Alright, yeah, they’re just really unstable then.