Strained or lost relationships because of politics

[neverevergiveup]

How many FReepers have lost or strained relationships with family, friends, co-workers, etc. because of your support for Trump and/or for being a conservative? Clearly, there is a lot of actual hatred out there, and it has already turned violent. The left want to remove a duly elected US President, because they don't like him. They don't care about the opinions of their fellow citizens who voted for him and support him, and they are perfectly willing to disenfranchise them - or worse. I thought having people weigh in about their experiences would help to understand how widespread this is, and how deep the split in the US is.

[fr_freak]

I have seen some odd transformations of people's beliefs over my lifetime. People I knew in the 1980s, for example, have gone from reasonable to extreme in their embracing of all things leftist. I, meanwhile, have apparently gone from being an average moderate to a right-wing extremist simply by keeping the same beliefs I have always had.

I believe that the reason for this is simple psychology. Humans are tribal creatures by nature, and most people are beta followers by nature. So, once a young person in the 1980s decided he was a democrat, he embraced every single sick and silly thing that the democrats came up with from then on. Whereas in 1988 he would have thought that the idea of gay men getting married to each other was silly, and the idea of men wearing dresses being able to use the girls' bathroom and compete in girls' sports was disgustingly ludicrous, his chosen tribe pushed those things more and more over the years until he fully accepted them, because to fail to do so was to be excommunicated from the tribe.

We've all seen how rigidly enforced fealty to political positions is among the Left. Only people with guts could think for themselves and consider leaving the Party, and, quite frankly, if they had guts they wouldn't ever have allowed themselves to become such ideological slaves in the first place.

Hollywood, with its relentless propaganda, had successfully portrayed the Left as being the strong horse, and so huge numbers of people are following them as the weak-minded sheep they are. Should that perception of the Left's strength ever change, many people will defect. I think that Trump is changing that perception, which is why he is so reviled by the Left and why they are working so hard to undermine him.

[TianaHighrider]

My friendship circle got a lot smaller many years ago when I realized the anti-life, crazy, irrational, and anti-U.S. Constitution ideas of those I was friends with. Some family too. That was long before President Trump. After, more crazies came out of the woodwork. I am a PROUD TRUMP supporter.

It is far better to not keep company with those who drag you down. Or worse.

[Gay State Conservative]

“If Hitler had a D next to his name you would vote for him.” That wound took 8 years to heal.

Yikes! At a Passover dinner it might have been wiser to substitute "Stalin" for "Hitler".

Just sayin'...

[Guenevere]

Someone I love very much, in my extended family, absolutely ‘turned’ on the rest of us (we are proTrump)

This has been going on 3 years

I’ve been praying for God to open his eyes to the truth....
...just this week, I am seeing encouragement!

[Guenevere]

Propane works too!

BOOM!

[mass55th]

I haven’t lost any relationships since due to politics, because I don’t have that many close friends to begin with. I can count them on one hand, and my family is small. I’m the last one in my immediate family left. I have my two sons who aren’t Trump supporters. One lives in Indiana, and the other lives two hours away from me in Troy, New York. We get along well, but we don’t talk politics. I have my sister-in-law (brother’s widow), my niece, her husband, and their kids who are too young to even think of politics. They’re all involved in sports...but my brother’s family are Conservatives. My Dad was a Democrat. He died in 1978. If he was alive today, he wouldn’t recognize the party, and wouldn’t be a part of it. He was born in 1904 in Holland, and came to New York State in 1913. He loved this country, and would hate to see what the Democrats have done to the U.S.A. over the years. He definitely would never have voted for Obama.

[Truthoverpower]

My wife is a liberal as is my best friend. We have fun with it. They laugh at me and I them.

In life you can’t take politics too seriously. It’s good to be informed

If we ever get to a Venezuela state. Then it serious

Otherwise liberal in sane democrat lunatics run the state out here in California and it doesn’t really affect me at all

My advice as a conservative with liberals. Ask questions

[LongWayHome]

I have had no issues with family. Even the liberal side is rational since they essentially just use the local democratic party for jobs & don’t dwell on the ideology excessively.

My work...is a whole other matter. My workplace has to be 99% left, at least. I maneuver around those issues well because I never bring up politics. When I’m occasionally asked about political issues, I just snow no real interest in one side or the other.

It seems to work cause these ideologues are so sure of themselves that they can’t imagine that anyone could disagree with them.

[Vermont Lt]

If you are losing friends because of politics you are a fool.

None of this crap impacts your daily life and certainly should not overcome the binds of family.

If you are not mature enough to change the subject or make it into a joke, or just say, “really? I do t want to talk about this.”

Shame on anyone losing a best friend over politics.

[Vermont Lt]

The other thing I find is to stay away from talking points. Most “lightly informed” folks will talk talking points but not get into any depth. I merely ask them what they mean. I usually bring it around to agreeing that “not liking” someone for for who they are is OK, if I can say the same about Obama.

Very few people are informed and almost no one is willing to listen to an opposing view and discuss it in a rational way.

You can see that here on FR. The bullying tactic is a nonstarter, even here.

[Vermont Lt]

I hear you on that one. I worked in healthcare. Union nurses. Liberal docs. And LGBTQ administrators.

I was easily out numbered 1,000 to 1.

I just keep my head down and my political views quiet. An odd comment here or there. But it’s not worth the grief.

[TigerHawk]

May it go well for you, and the one who strayed be redeemed, and brought back to the sane fold.

[cyclotic]

That was my first vote too

[Responsibility2nd]

See post 22 for an explanation of how and why politics divides close friends and family. I really believe it’s not just a matter of Republicans versus Democrats. It goes down to your very core beliefs and values.

Politics is a solid benchmark of where you stand not just politically, but socially, economically, religiously, morally and in any and all other aspects of life.

So there is no shame in losing a best friend or even a close family member due to politics. Not when their political view points put them in severe and significant opposition to your conservative way of life.

[PA Presbyterian]

I’ve lost a friend of ten years. When I told her I’d voted for Trump, not her hero, Hillary, she was infuriated. Afterward she angrily told me, that unlike me, she’d never watch Fox news, that she got her info from MSNBC and Rachel Maddow. She said about Trump right after he was elected, “I know corruption when I see it.”

She tried to bait me into political arguments such as claiming after one of the school shootings that Republicans and Trump had made it easy for the mentally ill to get guns. She was referring to Republican legislation that even the ACLU backed which lifted Obama’s overly broad definition of what constitutes mental deficiencies that warrant denying a person his or her right to own a gun. I sent her an email with a detailed discussion of the legislation from an objective news source hoping to get her to see the truth.

Since then, she’s cut off all communication with me. People like her are obsessed and most of them are completely misinformed about the issues. It’s sad to lose a friend, but it’s impossible to talk to such a person. They’re completely unreasonable.

[Sans-Culotte]

I have basically dropped my old friends from college because they are all socialist/commie/libs. I was a lib in college, too, but eventually I outgrew it. They didn't. It would not be a big deal if we were living in the 70's, and they were Kennedy/Humphrey democrats; but they are all socialists.

A lot of my co-workers are idiots liberals. I never discuss politics with them. They have Schiff for brains, which would make a discussion pointless.

[wgmalabama]

I liked propane. I am stealing it. Boom!

[Right-wing Librarian]

or “Well, Bless your heart. I’ll pray for you.” That makes’em go even more nuts. LOL.

[Right-wing Librarian]

The War Between the States wasn’t a “civil war”, but the this one surely is.

[Right-wing Librarian]

>>The left has a vested interest in breaking it all down in order to gain power. But, make no mistake, I believe it absolutely flows from Satan. It’s about rejecting God and misleading humanity into believing that they can be their own god with their own “personal truths” (hear that phrase a lot ?) and can control everything (like the weather via this ludicrous pseudo-religious “climate change” nonsense, which in itself is even more evil, since the goals of it involve eliminating more than 95% of the human population down to a few hundred million).

60 years of purging God and Christianity from our schools via a truly evil misruling by SCOTUS has helped drastically enable this cultural split.
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Good post, and so true. Thank you.