JCC How do you deal with friend/family relationships across political divides? [Poll & Discussion]

Luckily my childhood best friend, who was homeschooled by a conservative mom, became a lot more liberal when she married a former pot dealer

 

Pretty much all of my extended family is pro-trump, and I simply don't get into these sorts of discussions with them. Not out of fear of damaging relationships, but just because I see no need to wade through their bull****. I have one cousin who got deep into Alex Jones in the GWB years and never looked back. I've avoided any substantial conversation with him for years.

I also lost a good friend to Alex Jones, Bohemian Grove, chemtrail horse**** over a decade ago. That was rough, and dragged on way too long, and left me with an inability to find any humor in Qanon or any associated garbage. It just makes me very, very angry.

Apart from that, though, all my longtime friends are politically and socially compatible. I don't know what I'd do if it were otherwise.

 

Print or broadcast? I've done a bit of both

 

Just avoid! Avoid! Avoid. There are people I love that I know have supported republicans in the past. I don’t ask what they think of trump they don’t ask what I think of Biden.

 

I don't quite feel like any options cover it... I think it's much closer to that I've learned that my views are not in sync with so many people that it's not worth bringing up, to some extent, because other people end up finding my views offensive. Two offhand examples: the first would be my first political defriending, when i'd responded to a comment about thanking God for the USA on the 4th of July with that I'd think those that founded the country deserve the thanks. The second was when I was asked to 'stop joking' about marriage because I'd been saying that true marriage equality would be when any consenting adult could marry any other consenting adult, removing restrictions on things like polygamy. Which I do still stand by as a sincere view, but to enough people I knew, it was considered offensive to talk about removing all marriage restrictions, I guess because they felt it undermined same-sex marriage or something.

So I'm fairly used to my views being too radical, and with that, it's hard to say how much I find views 'deeply offensive', even if I think very low of those views, because enough of my views are different enough that I just accept a fairly high level of bigotry and the like from people (example being that I think of supporting royalty as tantamount to racism, but that's common enough that I accept a lot of people hold those views. So I still think it's that, but I wouldn't say I'm 'deeply offended' by it, I just avoid dwelling on it and deal with people on the terms I can)

 

I just bite the head off a bat and then yell something about die Wertform while spewing blood everywhere.

 

yes, I think you're right that probably strict avoidance is the best policy in most cases. The thing is, for me, the Trump issue is kind of in its own category. In the case of my old friend, I knew (or assumed) that she supported Republicans generally, but to me, Trump is just such an extreme example of so many distinct types of horrible things that it becomes more difficult to compartmentalize.

 

Is this radical? I've been thinking this for years but now that I think about it I have never brought it to a conversation.

 

It's probably less-so now, but this was a discussion I was having in 2008, where in California it seemed quite popular to say "how can you not allow same-sex marriage? It's not like it'll allow these other disgusting things between consenting adults". Apparently according to gallup, the moral acceptance of polygamy is well up over the last 12 years, but in 2008, my saying that statement about what true marriage equality would be was something that people presumed couldn't be a serious view. And again, that was in California where I'd expect people to be more open minded in this regard, possibly.

 

I moved to the other side of the planet and am selective about who are my friends on facebook**.


**and hide those family members you need to. It will help your mental health.

 

My wife posted a "We voted for Biden!" photo of the two of us on FB, and sure enough, one of my Alabama cousins commented a somewhat more polite version of "I'm glad you're not doing that in our state."

 

Personally dilemma- I posted on my Instagram story over the exact picture I had used as an avatar yesterday a message saying that one side sort of tries to help the people and the other never does and that any Trump supporter on my Instagram can debate me.

There's a guy I made friends with at a school sports camp in high school. Been in touch with him off and on since then. He's always been good to me, patient with my "Ferus content" and other quirks. I was pretty much an outcast on the team then, and this guy from another school helped me out and has made me feel better.

He messaged me saying he was voting Trump but wouldn't debate because he liked me. being the sucker I am, I deleted my story post out of guilt. I have since reposted the Taylor picture with another message on my story, and hid it from this guy.

I am debating whether to block/unfollow him. I did this to another Trump supporter on my Gram who I never really knew as well as a middle school classmate on Facebook. He's been nothing but friendly but I hate what he voted for.

 

I've cut several people out of my life because of Trump. Obviously I can't do that at work.

 

I don't know what party my friends are registered as but they've made their distaste for Trump abundantly clear, so I'm sure they aren't voting for him. I would generally describe them as left in that they are pro-LGBT (I don't have any straight friends, so there's that), pro-choice, free college, universal healthcare, etc. etc. I do think they judge me for not voting for Trump or Biden (I voted for La Riva), but they're also aware that Democrat and Republican lawmakers could give a crap about them either. In the end, they are voting for the lesser of two evils, a game which I refuse to play anymore.

As far as my parents are concerned, my mother is a registered Independent. She finds the idea of a Black Republican to be hilarious (yes, she is Black) and, while not ideologically opposed to the Democrats, is also not a big fan of them either--- I believe she votes Democrat mostly anyway, as she made no bones about telling me I wasted my vote.

My father is a bit all over the map. He holds left views and right views and the conversations with him are always interesting. I feel like he plays devil's advocate on a lot of things to see where my headspace is at, and 99% of the time, I am usually ready to go to bat and debate/argue with him. We both keep the tone light for the most part, but there have been moments where I have gotten irritated, especially over the summer when he was giving his thoughts on Black Lives Matter (he's White) & how he feels that a different name would be less divisive and less exclusionary for well-meaning allies. I basically told him that anyone who is holding back on being apart of a movement, which is asking for others to recognize the humanity of Black people, because of its name can go straight to the bottom of h-e double hockey stick. He's said some other slick, anti-Black stuff in these past couple of months, which I always check him on, but soon he's just going to be told off and then blocked.

 

My mother is an Anglophile, she loves everything British. She can't stand the US, she thinks everything American is pompous. She's 78. Has walls full of books by English authors, no Americans.

But I gave her a really good history book by an American author. It had a lot of English history, but also American history. It showed that both countries had good and bad politicians. By drawing her in with something she liked, the bar was lowered to read up on what she didn't like.

Then early this week, she asked me "So how about America?". She was genuinely curious. Trump had been a forbidden topic at her house. But it seemed like now, for the first time, she saw that the US is not just people like Trump.

So I told her basically what I learn here. And about the friends I make here. That Americans are just people, like any other people. Good and bad. And she finally got it.

But here's the thing. I told her that the US is not just Trump voters, because only half the people voted last time, and less than half of those voted for Trump. The same 25% votes for populists as in other countries. And that convinced her. But I wonder what she thinks if she sees the turnout this year.

 

What history author did you have her read? Howard Zinn?

 

Barbara Tuchman - The Proud Tower.
I think she liked Tom Reed.

 

Big family of Democrats with only a few Republicans (one brother and my dad among them). With my brother we do our best to not bring it up. He once unfriended me on FB back in '12 because i shared a rude meme about Libertarians and the Tea Party but we made up. My dad though is Republican because he's a born again Christian so def do my best to avoid the topic but not always possible.

 

My dad is a Trump supporter but we don't really talk about it. He doesn't get worked up about it though.

 

Now that the election is over (well at least according to those who are in touch with reality!), I'm wondering how folks are doing with these family/friend divides now? Are things better/easier or worse?

In my case, I haven't exchanged any messages with my friend since before the election. I have lurked her Facebook page, though...lots of posts about "voting irregularities" and other expected topics (horribly sourced as usual), so no surprise there, I guess. I am planning on messaging her to wish her a happy Thanksgiving next week, though.

 

It feels just as divided here. Recently I realized my husbands family is all Republican except for him, he's usually an independent voter, but voted Biden and blue down the ballot this year. My family is also a lot of Republicans especially on mom's side, but somehow I ended up a "crazy liberal". Election day was very weird because there it was the best news in 4 years and I had no family to text and celebrate with. Just my friends and I don't really have a lot of close friends. I celebrated with my hubby and kids too, but it seemed really odd not to text my mom or sister and say "Woo Hoo!" I don't think either my mom or my sister support Trump, but they are close to people who do and it's just weird.

 

@Pensivia
You might want to set a Breitbart threshold. If she starts posting their articles, it's time for an intervention.