

I can’t agree with this more, thinking coworkers are owed your attention especially during breaks reeks of narcissism. My job doesn’t include or train me for providing therapy to old men who exclusively watch Fox News in the break room and debate which minority is to blame for the world scaring them. Which is why after trying to add reason to these conversations a few times eating lunch in your car can be a healthy option.
There’s the context of Trump riding the wave of right wing rage with his claims Obama was born in Kenya. Shortly after he paid a bunch of hourly extras to form a crowd as he descended a golden escalator to launch his 2016 campaign claiming Mexico was sending rapists, and a cadre of WWE fans, white supremacists, credulous evangelicals, and reprogrammable meatbags who tuned into Fox News decided politics was interesting again.
For most of these people if you start asking which years America was great versus not great they might admit some of the Bush years were sub-par (because of those OTHER people who hate freedom), and preach about the good ol’ days when we drank water from a hose. Where everybody treated each other right, unless you were a person of color in a sundown town. They will retcon any facts you present and claim you are cancelling them and it’s no fair remembering the past, as they have been conditioned to believe faith is a virtue. The Bible’s “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” fucked up my brain for too many years of my life. I wish it was easier to fix this, but a useful quote I remember when I break off most discussions with my dad is,