Political Memes

You touched on one of my favorite tactics - I pretend to be very clueless and very politically low-info - while they are terminally online and expecting everyone to cop to their culture war BS shorthand, I ask them to explain what they mean and ask what are they talking about.

Takes the wind right out of their sails.

They hope that you'll act like a "triggered" liberal and give them the dopamine hit they want by shrieking or howling or whatever it is that they want, maybe followed by some gamed-out "debate" that follows a track that they want to go down so they can work in some "zinger" think-piece like "the Democrat Party doesn't even know what a woman even is" (like I just saw Dan Crenshaw do on Maher's show), or that you give them the Faux Nooz nod and the wink, maybe a "I getchooo bro! finger guns" and the high five.

They get neither. Trying to explain a joke of any kind utterly ruins it, especially if it's one of their punching down kind. The hard part is me not laughing right in their face when I see the look of disappointment on their face. The easy part is keeping my cool and not letting them try to annoy me, while doing the "just asking questions" routine that they themselves love in other instances - I've been doing this kind of thing my whole life. I can do a poker face like no one's business. It was a life skill I needed early in life just for basic survival. But trying to keep from laughing at their predictable response (oh so predictable) is a lot harder.

Unfortunately, I see lots of liberals, moderates, etc....fall for the bait.