What are some indirect "tells" that you've picked up that tell you that someone (offline especially) is politically sus amogus?
For me the easiest tell is the up front, unprompted, and unsolicited declaration of nonpoliticalness. When someone takes the time and expends the breath to announce how nonpolitical they are, what follows is almost always a rant about how everything/everyone else is too political these days, and that of course leads into something between status quo advocacy and outright reactionary/regressive sentiments for some fabled time before those wicked politics were visible to the nonpolitical ranter.
People that are hostile to service workers. Some just want to take some ideological stand against tipping when the service worker doesn't really have a choice and needs those tips to survive in the current unjust system in a way where ideological purity gestures toward that service worker just look like being a greedy and sanctimonious asshole. The worst of such people will actually declare, shamelessly, that they believe that service workers don't deserve a living wage. The implications of that are worthy.
I may get shit for this, but I'll say it anyway: this hair and beard combo, seen on living people. I have yet to meet anyone in person with that look that wasn't a chud.
(If one of you is a comrade with that look, I am sorry in advance for the prejudice and if I ever meet you in person I will atone by buying you a drink or something.)
There's a TikTok trend right now of women asking their male partners (or others) "How often do you think of the Roman Empire?" and a significant amount of them responding "often" or "all the time".
Thinking crime has gotten worse, it's an absolute TV talking point that everyone repeats nowadays. If you try to bring up empirical evidence of crime decreasing every decade they just respond with some anecdotal bullshit they probably made up. It infuriates me and I wanna shout their face, "facts don't care about your feelings".
I approach it the other way. Just assume most people have absolutely awful political opinions. Pray they don’t believe all homeless people should be thrown into internet camps and gassed. And then if I find out they don’t believe that I bring light into a somewhat correct political leaning and then try and crack it open. Often I use landlords as the go to bad people and see if they agree r if they seem confused why I hate landlords so much then I go into detail.
I love when they pretend to take the side of the worker by pointing out that it's the restaurant who is screwing their servers by underpaying them and making them rely on tips, which is of course 100% true but you're still eating at the restaurant.
I don't like tipping culture either, so I just... don't eat at restaurants. I actually don't need food slaves to serve me.
A fash dude in person tried to get into a group I was organizing with. We went on a day there, day back roadtrip with him before we really knew him and by the end of it we cut him out completely.
Two biggest red flags were:
He had a paranoid obsession with societal collapse, kept repeating stupid shit like "we're nine missed meals from murdering each other in the streets"
Pretty much the first thing he asked was our ethnic background, and he had a bit too much of an "interest" in ethnic cultural differences and the like
It didn't take long for the full fash ideology to be on display and as soon as we dropped him off we blocked him on everything and never looked back.
Insisting that there is nothing questionable about works of science fiction/fantasy that have inherently evil races that it's morally right to exterminate and saying you're just being a sensitive snowflake if you find the concept off-putting
Bonus points if they use the Thermian argument when you point out the similarities to colonialist and fascist ideology, as if the creator didn't make a conscious choice to write the story that way
The Iron Dream pointed out how gross this concept was way back in the 70s and that really should've been the end of it
"But I need enemies that the protagonists can kill without getting into messy moral quandaries" that's what fascists, imperialists, and slavers are for
This one is going to be US-centric, but if they're vocal about how they only care about college sports specifically and aren't a fan of pro sports there's a substantial chance they're a horrible reactionary and probably worse than your average chud.
I'm interested to see how the effects of things like the NIL in college sports (players are now legally getting paid through boosters of colleges as a short summary) will impact these people's fandom (if at all) in the future. This is interesting as their "defense" has always been about how it's been a more "pure" form of the game without players getting paid which I'm fairly certain is just thinly-veiled racism.
People who worship the royals, especially if they’re not brits. Every time I’ve met one it’s always been a matter of time before they go full mask off and say something racist/sexist/homophobic/transphobic
Talks about "working families" instead of workers when complaining about government policy.
Dislikes both parties, but when pressed cites a dislike of people rather than policy or ideology.
Recently in Aus. Plans to vote no on the voice referendum at all, but especially if they say because "it will create apartheid". For who motherfucker!? (There are, admittedly, some leftists who don't want a voice because they want a treaty first but also this is dumb we need both and also to drive the coalition into the sea, specifically the part of it with the most box jellyfish)
Football is a popular working class pastime, a great way to get exercise and a great way to socialise as a player or as a fan. Literal billions enjoy football worldwide and there's nothing wrong about that.
But then there's the kind of guy who is so much into football that he makes it a defining part of his personality. These kind of guys are more likely than not to be aggressive and nasty chuds.
A while back, a friend I hadn't seen in years mentioned within 30 minutes of our reunion that Trump was an anarchist, they had a beautiful lib brain bursting to be free of it's confines
I may get shit for this, but I'll say it anyway: this hair and beard combo, seen on living people. I have yet to meet anyone in person with that look that wasn't a chud.
Ugh my hair sorta looks like this. It's messier on the top but I do like the sides pretty short, I think it works well with my head shape. I keep my beard shorter too. Hopefully it's different enough to not scare off cool people and not attract chuds.
Honestly most of the time I see a variety of ball cap on a white dude it feels like a tell. Not necessarily always a chud but I feel the ratio is in that direction. I would be curious if there is actually data on this or just a prejudice of mine.
Intense fearful gaze is another one, which is why they also love to wear sunglasses everywhere. The funniest thing chuds do is take selfies of themselves scowling with sunglasses on in their pickup truck.
Undercuts in general in white men is a huge tell. It's not 100%, but the correlation is significant. That shit's known as a "Hitler Youth" haircut for a reason.
I feel like I'm pretty good at getting a vibe that someone is shitty, but I can never pinpoint why so I don't say anything since I wouldn't want to baseless accuse someone and no one would take it seriously anyway, but I'm right a lot of the time. Then again I've interacted with people I thought were very cool because they'd posture themselves as woke and lefty but then laugh about getting someone arrested for shoplifting or they have a nazi uniform "fetish".
My worklife example is one where a coworker took issue of the family size of the person/persons we work for. A clear tell for racism.
Also the "I am apolitical".
Currently in my country anyone who defends the basic finns in discussing whether the online posts made by them years ago (full nazi shit) should be still held relevant.
My entire union (academics) that wants to find a compromise with the right wing to "avoid a crisis in worklife conditions".
idk, i try not to judge people based solely on outward cultural signifiers. i agree an aversion to politics as such usually indicates some reactionary tendencies. and obviously i don't like people who are casually cruel to strangers no matter what their avowed politics are.