My coworkers have no problem discussing Donald trump and republicans. They laugh about our president a lot. Yet when I bring up the Chinese government, silence could be heard.
Those are quite different things.
My point is that "discussing politics (A)", where people bring their best arguments to the table and have a friendly intellectual discussion is very different from "discussing politics (B)", where people bond over hating the outgroup of the other political tribe.
And I did this because OP seemed to naively think that since his coworkers do (B), they would also be happy to do (A) with him. Trying to give him a clue before he hurt himself.