Discussing politics on social media is the opposite of Samuel Adams.
Always a bad decision.
Just one bit of advice, and Iâm sorry if this is several years too late:
Delete your Facebook Account.
Tell your family and friends that theyâll just have to contact you another way.
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I havenât deleted my account, but I havenât been on Facebook in several weeks, and it doesnât send me notifications. I talked to a friend last night. I missed a LOT.
unfriended the bitch who told me on repeat to seek help when I disagreed with her post encouraging all of us to pray for Trump when he had COVID.
she is anti-trump, but somehow thinks it makes her a good person to pray for him and thought she needed to advise the rest of us to do the same. no way i was praying for that jackass and donât tell me to. kthx.
See, I wasnât going to pray for trump, but I wouldnât have disagreed with someone who said she was going to. I would have just ignored that post. Why start a fight with a friend over something that doesnât even matter. (I canât imagine her prayers, or yours, or mine, would make any difference.)
she said we should all do the same. i disagree with her telling me what to do. did you even read my post or just feel like arguing with me?
You were fb friends with Pelosi?
Yeah, Iâd have just ignored the âyou should do the sameâ unless it was directed at me, personally. I did read your post, and nearly asked you whether she had specifically told YOU to pray, or just had some generic Facebook thing urging everyone to pray.
Iâd also think less of her for urging everyone to pray. But not so much that I would feel the need to engage.
If she said to me, âLucy, you ought to pray for trumpâ, I would have told her I didnât plan to, though.
Of course, Iâve been off Facebook for weeks, in part to avoid that sort of thing.
so, you do you. i engage on fb. i donât particularly like this person otherwise, but sheâs my motherâs bffâs daughter, so i should play nice. the only way for me to âplay niceâ is to unfriend her so iâm not tempted to engage.
lucy, you engage plenty on here and did on the ao when you disagree with people, so donât act like youâre above all this.
Huh. I donât think Iâm Facebook friends with anyone I know through my mom, unless you count a couple of relatives. Is your mom on Facebook, too?
Iâm facebook friends with my kids, but our only mutual Facebook friends are people who are actually mutual friends.
what counts as âknowing through my momâ? i knew her bff and her kids since i was a baby. my mother is on facebook, but she is not facebook friends with her bffâs daughter. i was, now not. my sister still is.
I deleted it for good. It was gone-gone at the beginning of October. I would have to start a new account and start over now. It was a great decision.
Yeah, but here if I accidentally get into a fight, at least Iâm not fighting in front of my friends. 
And there arenât random friends-of-friends wanding into the conversation and maybe taking something wrong. And the threads (or topics) in a place like this makes it easy for people who want to avoid politics, whether in general, or at this moment, to do so. Thatâs hard on Facebook, where Facebook serves you random posts and you have little control over what you see.
I think I wrote previously about why I donât like to talk politics on Facebook, despite obviously doing so on other chat sites that are differently organized.
Iâd lose like 1/2 of my family that way, unfortunately. I almost never make political posts on Facebook, although I do respond to some.
One of my hubbyâs good friends is extreme left-wing and capable of intelligent conversations so we spar from time to time on Facebook. Polite and respectful though. Biden is way too conservative for him and way too liberal for me but we both held our noses and voted for him anyway.
And when my cousin posted âquestion for my white friends: do any of you feel that you truly have white privilegeâ I responded with a long list. Which she of course dismissed as rubbish. 
oh, that chick i unfriended also pointed out that donald trump is a father as a reason why we should pray for him when he had covid. that triggered me a bit. heâs an evil jackass, but because heâs a father and planted his seed it means he deserves prayers and life more than someone who doesnât have kids? fuck that.
Maybe should start a thread, but this one should work.
Sometimes I want to have some help on how one would respond to certain social media posts. Not that I really want to actually respond, but just to get some ideas.
Hereâs one from today:
I would personally start with âsystemic racismâ being different from âwonât vote for a minority racismâ. Thereâs still plenty of both, but the firmer is may be harder to get rid of.
Anyway, Thanks In advance for your help!
This person has a very dumb definition of racism, and very likely a dumb definition of systemic. I would start by helping him/her put some rigor around their mushy thinking in that regard.
I would respond by unfollowing this person. Iâm unlikely to change their mind, and likely to get into an unpleasant fight. And Facebook doesnât have any organization or filters, so by engaging with this person Iâm broadcasting his opinions to everyone who follows me.
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I might (depending on my mood) ask: are you interested in learning more about this? Or are you just upset? If youâd like to understand it better, I can point you to information.
Then, depending on their response, I might engage.
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