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Comment by JohnFen | Hacker News Reader

> when someone asks "who did you vote for"

I find it astonishing that anyone would ask this. The only time I've ever been asked this question has been by pollsters. In my social circle, anyway, the taboo on this question is very strong.

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A friend lamented in 2016 "If I vote for X I'll lose my friends. If I vote for Y I'll upset my family."

I reminded the voter of the secret ballot and the ability to just lie.

"Tell them what you think they want to hear", was my advice

https://youtu.be/DXY_8cJlGMc

Thanks for reading!

Yeah it seems there is less of a taboo among my friends, despite a strong tilt in one political direction.

I suspect this is because most people assume everyone shares the same opinion in our state

Most people in the majority, you mean?

yes, I believe so

Well, in my group, there's no taboo on telling people your political opinions and voting behavior, only on asking (because it's nobody else's business unless you choose to make it so). So in practice, I know the political stances of most in my social circle.

It's not that shocking. It makes a really good short hand question to find out where someone is politically. You could spend ten hours discussing what the perfect immigration system looks like or you could ask who they voted for and get a baseline to go off of. The question only removes nuance if you stop right after.

I just try and imagine people having this debate in 1932 Germany.

It's a good point but the flip side is not every point in time is 1932 Germany.

How do we keep a democracy where ideas we don't agree with can still be implemented if there's a majority (assuming minority rights are protected reasonably well) while at the same time ensuring we don't end up with democracy being used as a tool to get a totalitarian regime.

For a more recent example we can look maybe at Türkiye.

Preventing ideas that are still within the boundary of a democracy from being implemented is not democracy either.

The US e.g. has a Supreme Court and a constitution. Presumably as long as that court is functional and the constitution is applied then all is good?

Unfortunately I'm not familiar enough with Germany's fall into fascism and whether there was some sort of watershed moment where it was clear that something was broken and could still have been remediated.

>The US e.g. has a Supreme Court and a constitution. Presumably as long as that court is functional and the constitution is applied then all is good?

Have we got some news for you

> Unfortunately I'm not familiar enough with Germany's fall into fascism and whether there was some sort of watershed moment where it was clear that something was broken and could still have been remediated.

Fascism is an easy sell when it's immediately preceded by the Weimar Republic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=weAopdKILLw

I sometimes grin and say "it's a secret ballot" and how they react to that can be revealing.

In my friend group it's clear as day: either you voted to kill and deport other people in the friend group or you didn't. Pretty obvious the group would like to know if you're secretly interested in their demise.

But I guess for prioritizing the happiness of the friend group, some amount of ignorance is needed if someone in the group is ultimately going to model the world on "they kill and deport or they don't" given enough information to make that declaration, and eventually a person on the other side is encountered?

I understand that some things can be more important than just having fun though, down to personal values.

"To be ignorant" sounds like a moral failing on its face, but I feel it is increasingly becoming required in some circumstances with the explosive amount of information available to subscribe to nowadays.

Keeping selfish assholes as friends is not a priority of mine.

I'm talking more about not bringing up politics to avoid giving too much information to people who will make up their own conclusions based on those facts and aren't amenable to change. And choosing not to bring up politics for the purpose of figuring out who out of the friend group is the selfish asshole.

If you’re sure you already know what other people think, I guess there’s not much point in asking them their opinions? You’re not going to listen to their answers anyway.

All you really want to know is what category to put them in.

See, this is the problem. People don’t vote for individual policies, they vote for candidates.

correct, their vote says "I'm okay with everything this candidate says they'll do."

You can't cherry pick policies from a candidate and pretend your vote is not culpable for all the harm it inflicts.

Not really. Some people love the candidates but I suspect a lot of us vote against the other side more than for a candidate.

The shamelessness with which some commenters openly display the exact aggressive tribal behavior discussed in the article should be studied.

On one hand, it feels like this question is a lot more relevant than ever. It's easier to ignore politics when each side doesn't see the other as an existential threat to their way of life.

Like it would be easy not to ask someone's religion when there isn't a 35% chance they're going to say "extremist martyr".

But I don't ask this question if I don't think I know the answer already, and I only ask it with people I think I can have a conversation with.

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