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How Many Friends Have You Lost?
A new study confirms what we all already knew: open-minded liberals aren’t quite as open-minded as they’d like you to believe:
"Roughly 92 percent of conservatives said they would be friends with a liberal, and just 3 percent said that they would not have a liberal friend. Among liberals, however, almost a quarter said they would not have a conservative friend." — @conor64:https://t.co/1CnVSMssm9
— Jeffrey Goldberg (@JeffreyGoldberg) February 16, 2020
When I tweeted the story I saw a huge reaction from people, sharing their stories of losing friends and family over politics, Trump-related and not (every form of TDS has exacerbated the problem).
Find me a conservative who hasn’t lost a friend over politics. https://t.co/8DH9ViQcpG
— Bethany S. Mandel (@bethanyshondark) February 17, 2020
How many people have you lost and leading up to the election, is there any way to maintain relationships with liberal friends and family? It’s a question I get frequently, and yet, I still haven’t come up with a good answer.
Published in General
I haven’t really lost any of them. Because I secretly had them chipped and they will be found again when they least expect it… Bwahahahaha!
No, seriously. I haven’t lost a one. We just don’t talk politics.
I lost one friend, for sure. I spent a lot of time with her without discussing politics directly, but I knew she was a Bernie supporter because of Facebook. Then after the election, a friend of hers started telling me how the election made her realize how racist the country really was. I took issue with that characterization and didn’t just let it go. We were all at the same event. Anyway, our friendship never recovered. My friend definitely had TDS on Facebook, and I actually wanted to talk to her in person and understand where she was coming from. Unfortunately, she kept blowing me off until I gave up. I was pretty anti-Trump before the election, but I didn’t buy the idea that half the country were racists. The idea that so many people wanted to believe the worst about their fellow citizens made me re-evaluate a lot of what was going on.
I sometimes wonder how many acquaintances will never friends because they can tell my politics – not because of what I say, but because of what I don’t say. I don’t bring up politics, but I have gotten to the point where I don’t let it go when someone repeats a leftist talking point that she has mistaken for conventional wisdom.
Bethany,
Once it becomes clear that they can’t hack a conservative period, I don’t say or do anything but as far as I’m concerned they have already lost the status of being a friend. As my father used to say, “With a friend like that you don’t need an enemy.”
Regards,
Jim
I take your point, but I can’t go through life in a really progressive town without trying to be friendly to neighbors and fellow moms, even if I think they would dislike my politics. Yet there will always a barrier to real friendship if you have to avoid meaningful topics.
Lilly,
There are those who have enough integrity to agree to disagree and there are those who can’t let it go. If it’s one of the latter, I recommend being prepared for them disappointing you. You don’t have to do or say anything but be aware that there may be trouble and not because of anything you’ve said or done. Don’t put yourself out too far.
Regards,
Jim
I shared a philosophy class with one. So there were probably many points of disagreement. But she stopped talking to me after a disagreement about animals being morally inferior to humans. I think before that was the topic of feminism.
Another cut me off after the usual litmus test: homosexuality. It’s as if they don’t realize half of Westerners and most people worldwide still disagree with them, or that their conclusion was generally considered ridiculous until only yesterday. Bear in mind, my view is the Christian view: love the sinner, hate the sin (acting on disordered desires).
Honestly though, we were not long friends. Political correctness is always on a hippie’s mind, so one can’t interact long before serious issues come up. And the Left-Right divide is cultural and philosophical, not just political; so it extends into aesthetic differences and lifestyle preferences. You won’t meet many hippies at NASCAR, nor many Reaganites at a Green Day concert.
I have found if a discussion is narrowed to a very defined topic away from the romance and irritation of political personalities, it’s possible to avoid a shouting match with younger liberals such as nieces and nephews. I acknowledge why a proposed policy change in a particular arena could benefit both my conversation partner and me (I love a free lunch as well as anyone). I can then toss in a few possible unintended consequences of that policy without the knives coming out.
In addition, we can have some fun speculating why fringe candidates like Goodspaceguy in Washington State and Marianne Williamson are unlikely to make the finals in a particular election. But I avoid an all-out declaration of mental illness (cuz you never know where someone has a soft spot).
The historian Richard Brookhiser and his wife, psychologist Jeanne Safer did a sit-down interview with C-SPAN earlier this year around the time her book came out “I Love You, But I Hate Your Politics”. The couple are from opposite ends of the political spectrum: he’s a well -known, widely read conservative who has a regular column in National Review. She’s a staunch liberal. They have a very strong, loving marriage by all appearances. It’s at once an education in shared respect, laughter, & loving someone with opposing politics and what is tragically missing from society now: disagreement without moral condemnation. You can see the interview here: https://www.c-span.org/video/?460515-2/profile-authors-jeanne-safer-richard-brookhiser
Be polite, be professional and have a plan…
Seriously, though: being friendly is one thing, being friends is another.
Lost two close friends, and it still stings.
Maybe for some but in my case if you look at my background, career, lifestyle preferences and other characteristics I would be pegged for a Progressive (and was once a liberal Democrat) and have many friends across the political spectrum though, to your point, I’m not a Green Day fan – but I was a big fan of Nirvana. And back in the day, hippies were actually pretty apolitical.
It has however, gotten much much harder over the past decade. Things have changed. In my experience most non-Progressives remain willing to be friendly, or at least civil towards, and even to have friends with whom they don’t share all political beliefs. Progressives seem to have much shorter tempers and be much more likely to interject political tirades into conversations that aren’t political. Part of this is that 21st Century Progressives see everything as political, even small points of private life and thought. They feel both threatened by, and aggressive towards anyone’s life and beliefs that do not conform to the new, and everchanging, norms for human behavior they’ve established. The other thing that has created this poisonous atmosphere is their reflexive resorting to believing anyone not in 100% conformance with doctrine is racist, sexist, homophobic etc which eases the task of having to think. I’ve actually had acquaintances go on tirades like that about conservatives, then realize I’m standing there and quickly say, “but of course, we don’t mean you!”. Makes for kind of an out of body experience.
The interim director of the FBI’s wife’s political campaign was taking money from a Clinton slush fund while her husband was running the investigation into Hillary’s insecure private server. He lied under oath to direct attention away from the fact and got away with it.
If your “liberal” friends think it’s OK that he wasn’t prosecuted for it what does that say about their character and morals?
Politics hasn’t cost me any friendships, but it has kept me from forming new ones.
It’s not a Trump problem, mind you. It’s a wokeness problem. And it’s as much my doing as the other person’s. If three-fourths of all possible conversation topics are off-limits, what’s the point? Why invest in a relationship which is doomed from the start?
I can get along with people who disagree with me politically. Many of my acquaintances belong to the left. But these people are just that — acquaintances, not friends.
Being inherently anti-social does help in keeping your political views from being influenced by such considerations on a number of fronts.
We had a big family reunion weekend before last, where all the cousins on my dad’s side were there except two, one who has an alcoholism problem, and the other, who lives in San Francisco, and who three years ago apparently unfriended all the family members on Facebook who weren’t sufficiently down with The Cause. Since his older brother was putting on the reunion, I thought he might actually make it this time, but apparently the animus was too much (I was less prone to argue online with him than a couple of my other cousins, but my sin was to somehow not be willing to celebrate Obamacare by noting my premiums had doubled since 2013).
Most are family – can’t really lose them – just don’t talk politics with them
The damage is deep.
My mid-20’s niece went on a rant about how society expects women to do things that are unfair. I politely pointed out that society also expects men to perform roles that are unfair. (seriously, I was very careful to be polite) I mentioned things like the draft, men working dirtier and more dangerous jobs, etc. I pointed out that when she had trouble of her own, she always called her dad citing several examples of times when her dad took time off work and drove many hours to help her. This was apparently an insult to her mother. I wasn’t even disagreeing with her, about things being unfair. I just pointed out the unfairness isn’t one sided. She exploded, then her mother got mad, and finally they turned my brother against me. We haven’t spoke in over 5 years.
I have a friend who was like a brother to me. We were together all the time. Now we rarely speak. Because I am in favor of small government, he thinks I hate the environment, am a racist, am xenophobic, etc. Both of us still get together when one of us calls the other to do something, but those calls are very infrequent. We used to talk almost daily. Now we have connect less than once a month.
That said, I am blessed with a loving wife, good health, and a great family with grand kids I see most everyday. I happily live on.
I lost one in a discussion about Black Lives Matter. She “wanted to have a conversation” about police violence. I should have known better than to take the bait.
She had a whole list of “black victims” who were “murdered” by cops. I pointed out that nearly 3/4 of her list were people who were involved in the commission of violent crimes at the time they were shot. Many were armed. I stated that the police had a right and responsibility to protect themselves and the general public from such violence, even with lethal force. I suggested that if she really wants a conversation, we should start with a focus on situations like Philando Castile and other incidents that involve people not acting in the commission of a violent crime.
This was too much for her. Instead of accepting an area of common ground, she told me if I wasn’t 100% on board with preventing all police violence against blacks no matter the circumstances, we couldn’t be friends. We’ve never spoken since.
I haven’t lost any because most of my friends were conservative to begin with. On top of that, there’s not one never-Trumper among them. As for liberal friends, I haven’t lost any, but I don’t have many to begin with. The most liberal friend I have is the younger sister of one of my closest friends. In college, she became a flaming lesbian and is currently living in Boston “married” to her partner. We get along because we don’t engage in debate (unlike one of my other friends, who carries on a debate with her on Facebook). Even gave her a kiss goodbye at our high school reunion last year when my wife and I left for the evening.
OTOH, the real question for me is what circumstances would arise where I had to ditch a liberal friend?
Name calling doesn’t bother me. Heck, we called each other names growing up and still do. My guess is it would be a relentless, non-stop litany of right-wing crimes against humanity, coupled with a refusal to stop if asked. In a situation like that, I could see myself walking away.
There haven’t been any dramatic breaks with anyone -but there are several people I knew in college that I don’t talk to anymore, and a couple I do talk to, but never about politics, and one I still talk to -but only rarely about politics, and then obliquely, and only when absolutely necessary.
I don’t know these people understand that their blasts out to the world on Facebook or Twitter are read by people like me, who draw the conclusion that “if these people would really like to kill anyone with my views, I sure as heckfire am not going to inform them of my views.”
I look at it somewhat differently.
Culture, religion, and politics are necessarily intertwined. Religion defines one’s basic perception of the world, human nature, and morality. Politics builds on those beliefs and exercises ethical conclusions from those morals. Culture wraps it all together into lifestyles and group identities.
In other words, politics and culture are connected for every one of us.
But some people commit to fewer beliefs than others. They might prioritize desires and old habits over beliefs (as all people do sometimes) or might not care enough to devote sufficient thought to beliefs. Many just want to get on with life without thinking much about how best to live. Or they are just social creatures who assume the culture that raised them is generally on the right course.
But other people have broader commitments. The more one is interested in morality (religion), the more one must be interested in social choices (culture) and restrictions or liberty for those choices (politics).
So-called FiCons and SoCons are often allies on financial matters. But FiCons don’t care about half the stuff SoCons care about. Consequently, FiCons have fewer altercations with the Left. They don’t catch grief for calling a crossdressing man a man because it’s not important enough to them to publicly object.
As Bill Buckley said, the Left tends to “immanentize the eschaton” — meaning politics is the basis and focus of their morality. In that sense, you’re right. But there would be more leftists with limited interests (ala FiCons) if their leadership was not so tyrannical. There is a mix of casual and devout, specialists and generalists, on both sides.
One. It resulted in my daughter losing a friend as well.
Yup.
Good point. I’m pretty good at finding common ground, but there sure seem to be a lot more folks who need you to be 100% with them.
In fairness, one of the most cheerful and accepting people I ever met was my leftward, agnostic, Marxist philosophy professor. We disagreed frequently, but always with smiles and eagerness to discuss further. It was one of the most liberating friendships I have been blessed with.
The problem is common but not universal.
I have to date lost two friends to political disagreements, neither related to the 2016 election and its aftermath. One called me a racist for opposing the Ground Zero Mosque way back when and I was so infuriated with him- he had known me since 1987, for crying out loud- that I totally cut him off. The other was a Libertarian who just would not stop arguing about…everything. Global Warming, Gay Marriage, Defense Spending, you name it. He loved to play the contrarian and absolutely could not stand to let anyone else have the last word. So, I dropped him from my social media and cut interactions with him that had anything to do with political topics.
Now, since 2016, my relationship with both my brother and my sister-in-law have been strained, but we have not broken off all contact or cut each other out of our social media. My late brother-in-law was also a Democrat and we got into it but we loved each other enough that it was understood to be just a vehement disagreement about politics. I still miss him.
Other commentators have provided their stories to support the accuracy of the premise, but some of these stories also indicate that this is nothing new at least in their lifetimes. I like to believe that my age is inversely proportional to gullibility, and by 2016 I had about zero expectation that a “progressive” would ever deign to be friendly towards me upon any knowledge of my background. Even though our life experiences often lead us to greater confidence and resilience overall, I’m not sure any of us really learn to handle rejection without a hefty self-injection of doubt and hurt. I don’t seek these opportunities.
When I joined the military in 1983, three people I considered at the time to be among my fondest friends in college all reacted very negatively, (in fact, quite ugly), to my decision. Their ridicule was political, and it confused me as I did not see what I was doing as something political. We kept in touch for a little while, but any phone call I made or letter I sent seemed in invite abuse and I gave up. A couple of years ago I reached out to one of these guys by email as he was organizing a college class reunion. It was an email that should have prompted some conciliatory response, and it was ignored. I wonder to what extent the timing of my email with current political climate may have affected this.
The second part of your inquiry is whether there is a way to maintain good relationships with liberals. I’ve observed with a few others that sometimes these relationships seem to sustain even with substantial contention. For me if I can’t deflect the subject I’ll usually ask more gently probing questions about beliefs than try to defend a position. I think the questions do a better job of possibly sowing doubt than trying to “win.” I try to be nice to young people, especially when they’re being obnoxious as they kind of remind me of me. With that I can maintain cordiality, but I can’t say that I have made any liberal friends in the past 40 years.
I “liked” your comment, but those are tough stories and I hope you and your brother can someday reconcile.
Something’s changed. I used to have HUGE arguments with friends in college. We’d sit up late into the night at the 24-hour restaurant, hammering each other over this, then agreeing about that, then arguing over that. We had disagreements, but we genuinely enjoyed each other’s company.
What changed it all, I think, was 9/11. If you couldn’t admit that the US kinda had it coming, and Bush was a stupid cowboy, you were beneath contempt.
To be fair, a friend who was all Bush=Alfred-E-Newman before 9/11 got super-patriotic after 9/11, being an old-line liberal who loved America and was also staunchly pro-israel, and we had many interesting arguments. But time makes people revert to the trusted things they tell themselves, and now she’s an Omar supporter.
I’ve only had one friendship end for a possibly political reason. I say possibly because she never gave me a reason, just stopped communicating. I guess where I screwed up was one day when we were talking about ill-advised state regulations and one of the examples I used was from California. My friend was from California and apparently decided I was a California-basher, and that was the end of our relationship.