To worry people don’t care enough about politics?

[sweetvanillacream]

I met up with a couple of old friends at the weekend and was really taken aback by the conversation. I mentioned DH has been on a NHS waiting list for 2 years, friend 1 immediately blamed immigrants and friend 2 quickly agreed. I was shocked and said I completely disagree, but they brushed it off, saying they “don’t really follow politics.”

I pointed out that if Farage ever got his hands on the NHS, it would be a slippery slope to a privatised health care system. Friend 1 said “I guess that would be expensive” and friend 2 replied it would be fine because “insurance covers it.”

I’ve been thinking about it a lot over the weekend, and it’s honestly worrying me. If people like them, well educated people, who don’t consider themselves especially right or left leaning, genuinely believe immigration is the route of our issues and don’t feel concerned about losing the NHS, what does this mean for us?

Is this the new normal now? That we’ll let far-right politicians get into power while most people can’t even be bothered to skim their manifesto? It really worries me.

I’m also annoyed with myself for being so caught off guard that I couldn’t make a stronger argument. In the end, all I managed to do was plead with them to at least vote.

They do care about politics, they just don’t agree with yours and politely tried to shut a potentially contentious discussion down so you could all just have a nice time together. My heart sinks when our family politics bore shoehorns in a politically sensitive matter in to conversation in order to give us all a lecture. Very bad manners actually.

Yeah PP is correct. I follow politics, when I know a lecture discussion is coming with someone I know I won’t agree with politically, I say I don’t really follow politics and shut it down.

Also, the idea that you know how someone will vote, as there is obviously only one correct answer of how they should vote, and you are oh so shocked to find out that they are misinformed and wrong, and you must immediately tell them why they are wrong, and why you are just of course, fundamentally right, is exactly why no one wants to have this discussion.

People just dont like talking about it, it doesn't mean they're not interested but humans have lost all ability of accepting other people's views and opinions and instead prefer to insist they're wrong and argue with them until the other person believes exactly what they believe nobody is capable off healthy debate anymore

Eww ditch these friends op!!

Tbh I have tried to abandon politics. I am a leftie who grew up very poor. We will never have the change we need to fix the societal issues, as proven by the combined effort to get rid of Jeremy Corbyn.

So I dont even bother following the news really, and I certainly dont discuss it out in the wild!

You never know who supports Nigel Farage's clear attempt to destroy the NHS so that private companies can take over.

Everyone I know follows politics avidly, but it's not a great idea to get into a discussion about it with friends. Never discuss politics or religion !

Your friends could see you didn't agree with them and were trying to change the subject.

People don't have to agree with you, and can choose not to enter into a discussion.

Politics is never a good thing to discuss between friends, doesnt mean they dont care!

Politics is about disagreeing. People desire things that are dysfunctional to their lives all the time- brexit being the perfect example, but another further away from home would be the Spanish running tourists out- it’s detrimental to their economy and many livelihoods but that is less important to them then having their country “back” and stabilising the housing market for locals.

maybe your friend thinks she’d rather have a private healthcare system, that eventually wages would rise to meet the cost, that high quality employers would cover it as standard. It is possible people have legitimate reasoning for these things that on the face of it, you think are nuts.

it doesn’t mean they don’t care, it means their priorities are different to yours.

“I’m also annoyed with myself for being so caught off guard that I couldn’t make a stronger argument. In the end, all I managed to do was plead with them to at least vote.”

My guess is that you might not be meeting up with these old friends again for a while. Once they realized that you and they had political differences, they tried to defuse the situation - “oh, we don’t really follow politics” - and get off the topic. You didn’t get the hint, and ended up talking about Farage and the NHS. They tried to sound neutral/reassuring in another attempt to defuse the situation. You failed to get the hint yet again, and ended up “pleading” with them “to at least vote.”

Seeing as they both seem to politically agree with each other but disagree with you, it was considerate of them to try to de-politicize the conversation, instead of teaming up and arguing politics with you two-against-one.

I am very interested in politics, but it is hard to keep engaged when all of the parties and politicians seem so utterly useless and incapable of effecting any positive change.

You’ll have a nicer time with friends if you avoid money, politics and religion OP!

For what it’s worth the NHS is failing so many, I can’t really see how having an insurance based system could be worse. The Americans I know in the uk, who are always quoted as saying insurance health care is awful hate the NHS way of doing things…they're used to seeing the specialist they want, when they want without the gate keeping GP part. A timely treatment would surely be better, and would come as job perks for lots of peopke i imagine, lots of friends already have medical plans with their work - its in an employers interest to have them fit and healthy after all.

Agree - OP they absolutely follow politics, and they are Reform voters. They just don’t want to have an argument with you.

They don’t care if the NHS is abolished because they are young and healthy and don’t think it will affect them.

They want fewer immigrants for whatever reason (I’ve heard a range of views on this, varying from “promptly remove people whose asylum claim is rejected or who overstay their visas” to “deport black and Asian British citizens whose families have been here for generations because only white people are really English”).

It’s not lack of information, they just don’t agree with you. I’d avoid the topic in future if you want to keep them as friends. Or just see less of them.

Saying someone has waited 2 years for an op should be a statement of fact. Why that’s happened might be political but the conversation could have taken a very different turn. Once immigration is given as the reason, there’s an issue. This is what they care about and in comes Farage!

The problem with discussing politics is that it's never about gearing the other person's perspective, and I mean listening, not hearing whilst thinking about what to say next, but about trying to convince the other they are wrong.

I totally agree with you about your stance, but that doesn't mean we are right and your friends have as much right to believe what they want. In the end, we can only focus on ourselves and try to make things better as individuals. They are so many responsibilities we should take that were we to all do so, ehatever our political incline would make it much better.

I can see why some might think they were just trying to diffuse things, but I honestly don’t think that’s what was happening. Friend 2 didn’t know who Nigel Farage is, and friend 1 isn’t registered to vote (hence why I encouraged them both). To me, it seems they don’t really follow politics at all.

I wasn’t telling them to vote my way or saying they were wrong if they didn’t. I was just encouraging them to look into things for themselves. What worried me was their (what I perceived as genuine) lack of political knowledge combined with casually expressing far-right views. Is this becoming the default stance for people who consider themselves non-political?

It doesn’t feel right to me that discussing politics in real life should be off limits. Social media already traps people in echo chambers, so face to face conversations matter more than ever. And honestly it seems bonkers that I shouldn’t disagree with a friend for fear of being cut off!

I would say it’s quite unusual for an adult to not be registered to vote (as recent elections have demonstrated!) and really not a “new normal”

but I also think there is a modern obsession with echo chambers that doesn’t have any substance- not just you OP, I have loads of friends who actually immerse themselves in politics they hate- arguing with aunt Pam on Facebook or reading hateful rhetoric from the daily mail or worse-all under the guise of not living in an echo chamber.

When did this become a thing and when did the answer become immersing yourself in content you hate (and having a good argument with everyone involved along the way)? it’s entirely ineffective and I don’t really understand the point.

I find it very hard to believe your friend has not heard of Nigel Farage. I work in schools and even some junior school age children know who he is.

Your friend didn’t want to discuss it and tried to shut the conversation down.

It's almost impossible to discuss politics these days because no-one is interested in proper debate. Everyone is right and just want to convince you why you're wrong.
I never engage except with DH (who is my political opposite) and adult DC who often have an interesting angle because of their age.

I have a friend who posts very political stuff on SM and no-one ever engages. I wonder whether she assumes everyone agrees with her.

This is an interesting point! I also know people who spend hours arguing with the opposition on Facebook, but I do still think social media creates echo chambers. I hopped on my gran’s YouTube recently, and every single suggested video had Nigel Farage plastered on the thumbnail. My own Instagram feed is full of far-left viewpoints. It feels like these platforms are constantly portraying the opposition as something to be feared, and I don’t think it’s healthy to create such visceral division.

We’ve never seen this kind of deviation from the usual Labour/Conservative split. With Reform UK gaining traction, we could be looking at major change. What worries me is how many people aren’t engaged at all. If so many aren’t paying attention, these shifts could happen with hardly anyone noticing.

Do you think people don’t engage because they disagree, or they don’t engage because they are uninterested in the topic?

I would like to make clear in advance that I don’t agree with Nigel Farage on anything else.

but he is right about the NHS.

what he has said (and I apologise because I am summarising) is that the nhs doesn’t offer a universal service. Many people are going private because they don’t want to either wait for years for a hip replacement (bupa’s own ads feature a nurse who took out a loan to get a hip replacement so she could get back to work in the nhs) or the nhs doesn’t offer it (eg my DIL who has a brain tumor the wait for nhs surgery is a year).

farage thinks we should have a European style system whereby healthcare is funded primarily by employers paying towards insurance with contribrutions from employees and the state paying for people not in work.

it works in many many European countries and honestly I don’t see what people have against it.

his argument is that without that we will slide into the American system where you need individual health insurance (much more expensive than group health insurance) to access private faculties or you use the free clinics and charity hospitals.

personally I’d say we’re already partly there.

your views are not the only views. I’d also politely say I don’t discuss politics if faced with someone who was all “save our nhs”.

I don't talk a lot about politics with friends but I certainly would if they mentioned Farage. It's not someone I can agree to disagree with someone about. I don't have to agree with my friends on everything by any means, but there are limits to my pragmatism.

What worries me more than people who don't have an opinion is bigots, OP @sweetvanillacream

I worry more that people who don't actually understand what they're talking about are a bit too passionate about politics. I blame social media.

The issue is there is too much politics nowadays, or rather too much media coverage of every statement by everyone.

Change, improvements, progress, decisions, all take time. But with short soundbite social media influenced information "politics" is just a bunch of people spouting off.

I vote, in local and general elections, when I am able to, by able I mean whenever there is a ballot paper, and am more than happy to read up and make an informed decision. I don't mind an informal, informed, considered conversation, with an open mind, without argument or high emotions about politics.

What is counterproductive are slogans and overanalysis of every speech, interview or statement. I feels like they fill people's heads with hot air and no one thinks or looks any deeper.

I have huge concerns about society at the moment, but I am not going to be drawn into more division by making assumptions about if someone thinks about politics deeply enough or not. When I was a young adult no one talked about politics, life was much more fun, and this was in the hey day of New Labour. It felt positive, energetic, now look at it.