Political Apologetics

At the risk of great criticism, I'm going to combine religion and politics -- sort of.
My religious beliefs have already come under fire due to my political beliefs, so I have already had to endure some of that baloney sauce (bs). What I'm talking about here is using the same methods for talking about my religious views with people of differing beliefs in talking to people with differing political views.

I have to say that it takes great patience and I'm not sure if it will work well since politics seems to be a much more volatile subject than religion.

What I've found to work well in sharing my faith is to ask questions about their beliefs.
I don't criticize or object to their beliefs and I don't listen to respond with my own counter beliefs. I ask questions and listen. I may ask them why they believe a certain way or what the basis or source for a belief might be. I may even ask for a book or source so that I can better understand why they believe what they believe. As a rule, unless asked, I do not share my beliefs with them in an initial conversation.
I generally end an initial conversation by asking for some time to think about what they've said and permission to get back to them to discuss it further.

I don't know if that will work well discussing politics or if I'll be able to keep from pointing out a false source of information or debating the validity of the basis of their conclusions. As I said, politics seems to be more volatile. I guess we seem to agree that we can have differing religious beliefs because of the 1st Amendment, but it doesn't say anything about differing political beliefs! You can have different religious beliefs and still be American, but if you have different political beliefs you must be a traitor!

Condemning someone to eternal hell has never seemed to work well for me in expecting them to be open to listening to my religious beliefs. I don't think it works well in politics, either.
As a matter of fact, it's because we think that we are so far apart that we have nothing to discuss that we've gotten to the political polarity where we now find ourselves. A political party internally driven by extremists will no longer work with others. We are no longer fellow Americans with differing opinions on solving our problems. Political opponents are now un-American and we need to guard against them or take our country back from them.

I fear that we are nearing the point that we either begin meaningful conversations and work together for the good of all or we go all the way to the extremes and endure civil war or authoritarian rule.

In spiritual belief conversations, I generally want to know:

What do you believe?
Why do you believe it?
What if you're wrong?
and...
Can I show you another possible way?

We should also ask ourselves these questions -- about religion and about politics.

John <><