When there’s that potential for deep division with someone you care about, you have the choice to say nothing, or to keep changing the subject, or openly to agree to disagree on that and focus on other matters when you’re together, or to risk a constant flaming row. It all depends on how you feel about the relationship in the first place. If you care enough about the person, you might need to prepare yourself to resist the temptation to say “I told you so”, when and if they finally come to recognise the feet of clay. (We’re going through our own version of this with the Brexit issue).
I’ve recently lost a lot of respect for one of my BILs, and being a Trumper is just the cherry on the sundae. I found out he takes a number of the hokier “reality” shows seriously and he’s a bit of a woo-believer.
He’s a nice person, good to my sister and their kids, and he helps out my mom a lot, but finding out he’s such a flake has really colored my perception of him. But we don’t talk politics, so there’s that. I just don’t bother following him on FB and life goes on.
I have a friend who is a criminal “anti-social” type and has loved Trump from the get go. I’m not going to stop having him as a friend, just keep him at arms length and keep an eye on him.
Although it does not really matter as he has since gone to jail!
Most of the Trump-supporters I know are better described as Hillary-haters. I have no trouble remaining friends with them, but then neither they nor I are given to frothing at the mouth over political differences. I find people who are so wedded to their political views that they can only associate with like-minded people to be more off-putting than less judgmental or less ideological people who are far apart from me politically.
Now of course I’m not going to be comfortable around KKK-level racists who offer me plenty of refreshments and speak to me in soothing tones about racial purity, but even in that case I wouldn’t run screaming from the room. The people I fall furthest from on the political spectrum are just the people I most want to have a frank and civil discussion with.
My friendship with a full-on raging Trump supporter might be a little strained, but merely preferring Trump over Hilary doesn’t disturb me much. The Trump supporter might be disturbed by me, though, because I would feel compelled to ask at least once: “Really? Irresponsible e-mail security bothers you more than abject ignorance and authoritarianism? Please tell me about that.”
Trump supporters aren’t really a thing on this side of the Atlantic, but I do know a woman who’s strongly anti-choice. She’s much older than me and very Catholic. She’s also a really good person. I disagree with her on this (and on other things) so much that I can’t even put it into words, but I count her as a friend.
I think it’s really good for me. I’m not about to lose the head with her and go off on a furious rant about bodily autonomy, which is what I do at anti-choicers on the TV or whatever. With her, because I respect her and like her an awful lot, I listen to what she’s got to say, and I tell her what I think calmly and with zero hyperbole and taking her views into account. Neither of us is about to change the other’s mind, but it’s good to be reminded that the ‘other side’ isn’t just made up of EEEEEEVIL; that they’re people too, they’re mostly trying to do the best thing, and at least if you talk to each other like people it’s easier to stop things from getting polarised and destructive.
Basically, I think Trump is the end result of years of unnecessary and shameful polarisation and demonisation all around. And talking to people you respect and like but disagree with is one of the main ways to prevent that polarisation and demonisation.
Since I live in the Yucatan, I had never met a Trump supporter.
This summer I attended a brew fest in Wyoming. Live music and over 30 different brewers. I went to the food court, got a taco, and sat down with 4 other people at a picnic table. I was shocked. All four of them were Trump supporters, bashing Hillary. One of them said she had killed many veterans. Well, being a Doper, I asked for a “cite”. They may be still looking up that word.
Since I had never come face to face with a Trump supporter I was excited to find out what makes them want to support Trump.
We couldn’t reach any common ground. They were just spouting rhetoric that they probably heard on an AM radio station. They did not respond to any logical reasoning. I was out numbered. Had to leave and finish my taco at another table.
Wyoming is not known as a real cerebral state. So, I chocked it up to that. Good news is that Wyoming doesn’t have a lot of electoral votes to be cast.
I’m curious how many of the “Of course I can befriend a racist! I’m not close-minded!” types are imagining that this racist doesn’t hate their kind, but rather some other group.
Because if you’re white, maybe it wouldn’t bother you to have a Neo-Nazi in your social circle. Not because you’re so open-minded, but because a Neo-Nazi doesn’t have anything against you personally.
Just like for me, it might be easier for me to think that someone who is vehemently anti-white just has a different political ideology from me, and as long as we don’t talk about white people, we still have plenty of common ground to keep a friendship going.
Mind you, I don’t think I could be friends with someone who is anti-white. For one thing, I’d feel like I was betraying my white friends and family. But an anti-white person doesn’t register the same emotional disgust in me as an anti-black person, for the obvious reason. I might be able to overlook the anti-white person’s abhorrent views if they can make me ROTLMAO. But I don’t think I’d be able to relax around someone who believes I’m inferior to them.
It’s funny being in Indiana because here even Trump supporters hate Pence.
I grew up in a red state. Excluding members of the red tribe from my life is unrealistic, especially close family. I find it easy enough to be a social chameleon in conservative company. I can join in on complaining about Hillary with some Republicans, or laugh at how Trump bullied Jeb and Rubio. A lot more conservatives are skeptical of war and corporate power than you may think, so I often try to steer the conversation there instead of, say, how immigrants are ruining everything. When others know I’m a lib I often take a more meta approach to the conversation, pointing out shared or reversed talking points or how both sides have similar complaints about their establishment.
The religious hardliners are more difficult to handle, but I’ve had some friends who were super pro-life or thought evolution was a secular plot. We usually just agreed not to talk about it.
A curious thing about human beings is that when we consider and deal with them as individuals we tend to see their merit and worth. It’s when we form opinions about groups of people is when most of the trouble starts.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard “I hate [insert group], they’re nothing but [insert negative stereotypes], oh but Soandso, s/he’s as decent a person as you’ll ever meet.”
I have two close friends, A is voting for Hillary, B is voting for Trump. Interestingly enough, at the beginning of all this bullshit, A liked Trump and B liked Hillary.
My other friends and my family are about equally divided between Trump and Hillary. Although I’d say most are in the middle where I am and don’t like either of them, and hoping another option comes along before November.
Quite honestly, I don’t understand wanting to be surrounded by people who agree with me. What fun is that? How are you supposed to grow as a person if your beliefs are never challenged, or you never want to listen to another person’s point of view?
Not everybody who likes Trump is racist. They see and hear other things they like, or they hate Hillary so much that they will vote for anybody to keep her out. Just like many Hillary supports are only voting for her to keep Trump out.
I think this is one of the worst elections over. One of my friends saw an interview on TV, and while I can’t remember who it was, a foreign correspondent asked the American something along the lines of - In a country of over 300 million people and those two are the best you can come up with?
I think it’s sad that a good number of people are voting against somebody instead of for somebody in this election.
For all the people who are wringing their hands over how Trump is going to destroy this country if he gets elected - well, isn’t that what the other side was saying about Obama?
You’re essentially arguing that it’s always silly to worry about a presidential candidate’s ability to govern the country without destroying it. History and currenteventsdemonstratehowstupid this notion is.
People believe that Obama has already destroyed the country, even when there’s tons of evidence showing the complete opposite. And I’m sure there are some Syrians somewhere who think their country has turned to shit because of those stinkin’ rebels, not because they elected an evil monster for president. What this tells me is that some people are easily fooled and deluded.
But it doesn’t convince me I’m wrong for being afraid of what might happen if Trump were to take over the White House. The people who believe Obama is a secret gay Muslim Kenyan are crazy because there are FACTS disproving these things. And I don’t think I’m crazy for not wanting a foul-mouthed, intellectually weak, misogynistic, racist, giant circus peanut anywhere close to the Oval Office. I can point you to the horrible, embarrassing, and cringe-worthy things he has said and done that I have witnessed with my own eyes, without distortion from FauxNews. The typical Hillary Hater cannot do this.
Replace Wyoming with “the hood”, replace the word “state” with “place” and remove the word “electoral” and one wonders how well such a position would be respected in these here parts.
As many as perhaps two-thirds of my friends hold different political views than I do. I could be friends with a Trumper and just selectively overlook his/her views.
1943 speech by Heinrich Himmler:
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"I am now referring to the evacuation of the Jews, to the extermination of the Jewish People. This is something that is easily said: ‘The Jewish People will be exterminated’, says every party member, ‘this is very obvious, it is in our program — elimination of the Jews, extermination, a small matter.’ And then they turn up, the upstanding 80 million Germans, and each one has his decent Jew. They say the others are all swines, but this particular one is a splendid Jew."*
WAG here: as an anarchist, he’s delusional about what is possible, sociopolitically speaking; and he’s banking on a Trump administration burning the world to the ground, after which a utopia will organically rise from the ashes.