Family separated by politics

Has anyone had to deal with this: a rift in a family or among friends due to politics?  [This is NOT intended as a conversation on politics at all, just the sadness that can come from it]

Thoughts, advice welcome



This is becoming all to prevalent, especially in the past year.  Only advice I can offer is to try and remember what it is about family and friends that created these bonds in the first place and to try and not let those bonds be broken by the single factor of differences in politics.


Members of families can disagree about many things, including politics. Why should different political beliefs cause a rift?

I have been very political since I was 15 years old, but I have friends with whom I disagree completely. You can avoid the subject or agree to disagree.

Look at my avatar. Do you know who those two old men are who are chatting and why they are where they are?


for the most part and in the past, I agree with this. However, we’ve reached a point in history when I really have to consider anyone who supports Trump to be not such a great human being. It’s hard to imagine continuing a close bond with someone you can’t respect as a person. I have one cousin who I honestly feel differently about after seeing how she feels on FB. If I saw her, I’d be cordial to her and I still love her but I think there’s such a rift and sense of disrespect, I’ll never see her the same way. 


Me.

I have a dear friend I've known since college whom I text with often and speak as regularly as we can. She's a Latina Republican who didn't vote for Trump. I try HARD to understand her point of view and am always kind with my retorts but it is frustrating. 

My BIL is a Republican as well and also, didn't vote for Trump. He's an avid Fox News watcher and although extremely kind and "normal", his tendencies to go off the rails when it comes to helping others is always a head scratcher to me. He's a Catholic who thinks tax dollars going towards Meals on Wheels, keeping PS breakfast and lunch free for families who can't afford it is "socialism" makes my blood boil!  

LOST said:

Members of families can disagree about many things, including politics. Why should different political beliefs cause a rift?

I have been very political since I was 15 years old, but I have friends with whom I disagree completely. You can avoid the subject or agree to disagree.

Look at my avatar. Do you know who those two old men are who are chatting and why they are where they are?




LOST said:

Look at my avatar. Do you know who those two old men are who are chatting and why they are where they are?

From a Darrow biographer, in Smithsonian magazine: 

Darrow was part of that same [Populist] movement, but he never particularly cared for Bryan as a person. He thought Bryan was too religious and basically too stupid to lead a major party, and it really grated on him that Bryan got the presidential nomination three times. So their rivalry began to simmer and fester, and when Darrow had a chance to ambush Bryan in the courtroom in Dayton, Tennessee, in 1925, he took full advantage of it.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/everything-you-didnt-know-about-clarence-darrow-14990899/#Yev2HBXB5DzK8rZk.99



the "vote for Trump" part and then the continue to defend and support Trump today part is what I can't really see past right now. You can be a Republican and you can think differently but you can't support a pig of a human being and continue to defend him.



conandrob240 said:

for the most part and in the past, I agree with this. However, we’ve reached a point in history when I really have to consider anyone who supports Trump to be not such a great human being. It’s hard to imagine continuing a close bond with someone you can’t respect as a person. I have one cousin who I honestly feel differently about after seeing how she feels on FB. If I saw her, I’d be cordial to her and I still love her but I think there’s such a rift and sense of disrespect, I’ll never see her the same way. 

This is it in a nutshell   You are unable to respect someone whose views differ from yours.

This makes me sad.  Makes me want to return to the time when opinions were not expressed.


I think there is a difference between being able to respect someone who's views on the capital gains tax you disagree with and someone who thinks white supremacists are fine people. 


One is a difference of opinion regarding politics, the other is a disagreement about the basics of human decency. 


For better or worse, we live in a time like the 1860s where these differences will tear families asunder and pit sister against brother. 


That is completely the opposite of what I just said. I am perfectly open to differences. I understand the Republican position and while I disagree with it, I am fine with the fact that others disagree and see things differently. 


What’s not okay is support of just anything. For example, I don’t consider racism or discrimination an “opinion”. There are certain things you don’t to have an “opinion” about. If you have these beliefs, you are not someone I can welcome and support. I’ll think of you fondly, I’ll love you, I’ll wish you well, but you don’t have my respect or a place in my life.


What I’m not okay with is support of



snowmom said:



conandrob240 said:

for the most part and in the past, I agree with this. However, we’ve reached a point in history when I really have to consider anyone who supports Trump to be not such a great human being. It’s hard to imagine continuing a close bond with someone you can’t respect as a person. I have one cousin who I honestly feel differently about after seeing how she feels on FB. If I saw her, I’d be cordial to her and I still love her but I think there’s such a rift and sense of disrespect, I’ll never see her the same way. 

This is it in a nutshell   You are unable to respect someone whose views differ from yours.

This makes me sad.  Makes me want to return to the time when opinions were not expressed.




GoSlugs said:

I think there is a difference between being able to respect someone who's views on the capital gains tax you disagree with and someone who thinks white supremacists are fine people. 




One is a difference of opinion regarding politics, the other is a disagreement about the basics of human decency. 




For better or worse, we live in a time like the 1860s where these differences will tear families asunder and pit sister against brother. 

Your last paragraph really hits home.  Many of my family members in Ohio are Evangelicals who still support Trump.  We no longer are on speaking terms. And I don’t see how the breach can be repaired. It’s a lonely Christmas. 



GoSlugs said:

I think there is a difference between being able to respect someone who's views on the capital gains tax you disagree with and someone who thinks white supremacists are fine people. 




One is a difference of opinion regarding politics, the other is a disagreement about the basics of human decency. 




For better or worse, we live in a time like the 1860s where these differences will tear families asunder and pit sister against brother. 

I agree with this.  But supporting  some positions of a candidate does not mean that you buy everything they say, hook line and sinker.  To dispel someone from your life on the basis of an election is really sad.


wow, you completely don't get it.

Supporting Trump is not in any way connected to being a Republican . We see Trump as such an utterly vile human being, that when we meet someone who supports them, we have to really question their judgment at a most fundamental level.

It has nothing to do with "opinions". We're not disagreeing over the finer points of economic policy.

Supporting Trump is a huge step beyond that. It's just in another league. We don't understand how these supporters don't see what we see, or how they could ever choose such a monstrosity of a human being as worthy of their support.

Up until this year, I would say that family conflicts over politics were usually just rough spots that you could get by, either by ignoring or agreeing to disagree.

But not now. Supporting Trump is the red line.


snowmom said:



conandrob240 said:

for the most part and in the past, I agree with this. However, we’ve reached a point in history when I really have to consider anyone who supports Trump to be not such a great human being. It’s hard to imagine continuing a close bond with someone you can’t respect as a person. I have one cousin who I honestly feel differently about after seeing how she feels on FB. If I saw her, I’d be cordial to her and I still love her but I think there’s such a rift and sense of disrespect, I’ll never see her the same way. 

This is it in a nutshell   You are unable to respect someone whose views differ from yours.

This makes me sad.  Makes me want to return to the time when opinions were not expressed.



My brother-in-law and I have always been pretty much polar opposites politically, BUT we could always talk about it calmly, even pleasantly, and find a few things to agree about.

My nieces and nephews (BIL's and my late sister's grown children), are all over the map politically.  Some I find very sympathetic; others I could just inwardly roll my eyes at till last year.  But then started the Facebook posts (mostly "shares," not their own words):  blatant untruths (Obama is a Muslim) and nasty, snide name-calling.  At first, I ignored most of it or occasionally put in a Snopes-type rebuttal if facts were completely out of whack.  Now, I just can't look at this stuff.

It makes me very sad, because we are all over the country, and Facebook is where I kept up with what was happening in all their lives, and could add a supportive comment, or a Like, or see pix.  But I hardly ever open FB now.  I miss them, but can't cope with what they believe and what they're willing to say.  For sure their dad, Neanderthal though he was in some ways, never called names or impugned motives, and neither did I. 

I'm almost glad my sister is gone, and BIL is well into dementia, that they don't have to see and hear this stuff.  I miss the nieces and nephews I grew up with, and hope we can be closer again sometime.  (I also miss my idealistic, law-governed country, and worry about what will be passed to my young adult sons.)


Obviously no one among my family or friends agree with Trump that a person participating in a demonstration where Nazi flags are carried can be a "fine person" but there are those who would overlook that and point to Trump's "support" of Israel.



I'm still mad that my parents voted for Reagan.


I would not let someone who was willing to overlook sexual assault because of opposition to immigration anywhere near my kids.  That kind of moral flexibility would make that person a threat.


I'm reading the recently published biography of Grant. His parents were staunch abolitionists. His wife's parents, with whom they lived for a while, owned slaves.

We think we have a problem!


This is the first year that I passed on both Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve with friends. It was awful last year, so I passed on Thanksgiving and last night I didn't go and they didn't call. One of them knows my perspective on the property tax deduction and I honestly felt that if I went, I wouldn't be able to keep my mouth shut. Either they feel bad about supporting the architects of this tax plan or they don't. Either way it would be uncomfortable. I struggled with the issue for months.

 I also had to unfriend my favorite cousin on FB as he became so aggressive about his view. It's a sad state of affairs.


I've always respected the different views of people. I don't respect a person who mocks disabled people, thinks all Mexicans are rapists and thinks neo Nazis are fine people. I can't respect anyone who agrees with the aforementioned or can " overlook" such beliefs. 


I have found ways to speak to my very republican family about some things. I found that focusing on the economics is always a good way to go.  For example, they are all about deregulation of fossil fuels, given that my grandfather was a coal miner. I have learned to find examples where clean energy creates jobs. Elon Musk is always a good example, he is building cars in the US along with the huge gigafactory. Also, I point to the fact that removing offshore drilling regulations put in place after the deepwater horizon oil spill is apt to hurt the fishing industry and tourism dollars.  I talk about the number of jobs created by solar installs. I talk about the US moving forward and being on the cutting edge verse looking back at an old industry like coal. 

I point to the fact that Colin Kaepernick is a deeply religious man and spoke with Army Green Beret Nate Boyer and that they came up with taking a knee as a compromise. https://www.military.com/undertheradar/2016/09/kaepernick-meets-veteran-nate-boyer-kneels-anthem

We do not talk about trump. They don't bring him up, and I don't bring him up. I don't think they like him as a person, but like having a republican in the WH. Putting them on the spot will not get me nowhere so I don't do it.



joan_crystal said:

This is becoming all to prevalent, especially in the past year.  Only advice I can offer is to try and remember what it is about family and friends that created these bonds in the first place and to try and not let those bonds be broken by the single factor of differences in politics.

I agree with you if the ONLY differences are political BUT the current situation is NOT politics as usual.  

To support an evil acting person because there’s possibly something in it for you isn’t acceptable to me in ANYONE I would choose to associate with... 


Even though we’re in a different country, many of the issues are similar. Also we have family members living in Canada, USA and in Europe so a lot of this shift to the conservative right in politics is affecting us too. For us the rifts and ‘debates’ are about ethics. 

We see Trump and your leaders, and our leaders too, as being deeply unethical people, professing worthy fundamental Christian values and betraying them at the first whiff of personal profit. We see a lot of lazy governance, legislation for convenience not for common good and common weal. People have forgotten what ‘common wealth’ really means. So yesterday, when my brother started berating Lorde for cancelling her Israel concert, and conversation veered towards political support of Israel vs support of the vulnerable, the atmosphere was incredibly tense. We had to agree to disagree. 


Article in the New York Times about family estrangement.  Evidently, it is common and lasting.  Starts out with the holiday get together. 

Debunking Myths About Estrangement

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/20/well/family/debunking-myths-about-estrangement.html?smid=fb-share&_r=0


@snowmom, I hear you. For me it's a best friend loss, but friend of 45+years, who knows all my history, whom I have spoken to multiple times a week since we were pre-teens, even when we lived on different continents, and who is now a fan of the current regime and Milo Yioannopoulos. I just can't. It's very sad indeed. Don't know how to move forward. Just sad. 



sounds like @snowmom might be on the receiving end?


I think it is tough when you cannot discuss any topic with family.  However, we should always enter into a conversation willing to listen and learn from the other side.  No matter who you are you don't have all the answers.

We certainly should not write off family and friends due to what we may percieve as an objectionable opinion.  If its out of character then its likely that we just don't understand why they hold that opinion.  Take it from someone who almost never agrees with friends and family.  

Anyway, it is likely that these opinions do not completely define this person. Otherwise, you probably wouldn't have cared about them in the first place.

It's christmas. Let's cut our loved ones a break every now and again.





It's not a question of "opinion".

We see the devil incarnate. As vile a person we've ever seen. Not one redeemable trait. Not one.

They don't.

Because they want and choose to see a Republican, and ignore evil.

That's a problem for us.

It's like finding out someone was a "xxxxxxx". (fill in some vile criminality)

It may not completely define a person, but it points to a dark side hitherto unknown to you, which makes you fundamentally re-evaluate your relationship. Can you chummy up like before with a murderer? an embezzler? a molester?

I might possibly change my view of this if I were to hear one single Trump supporter explain to me how they can justify their support, based on what they know about him. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe there actually is a redeemable quality to this man.

I've read many explanations (WaPo and NYT have a mission to print as many as they can find.). Not one is convincing.



This is sort of like saying being a pedophile or a racist or a murderer don't completely define a person. Well, technically they probably have other characteristics, some might even be good. But the heinousness of that one part of their character doesn't allow you to respect or want to have a relationship with that person.

terp said:

I think it is tough when you cannot discuss any topic with family.  However, we should always enter into a conversation willing to listen and learn from the other side.  No matter who you are you don't have all the answers.

We certainly should not write off family and friends due to what we may percieve as an objectionable opinion.  If its out of character then its likely that we just don't understand why they hold that opinion.  Take it from someone who almost never agrees with friends and family.  

Anyway, it is likely that these opinions do not completely define this person. Otherwise, you probably wouldn't have cared about them in the first place.

It's christmas. Let's cut our loved ones a break every now and again.



In order to add a comment – you must Join this community – Click here to do so.