Strained Friendships During The Trump Era

I've said this probably a million times. Even though I'm liberal, I used to have close conservative friends.

In the past 20 years, as the times got more polarized, I gradually lose most of those friendships as the Republican Party moved farther to the extreme Right.

I heard similar stories from fellow progressives, political moderates, and even apolitical people. They all had stories of losing a close friend or painful strains with a family member over their growing extreme right wing politics.

Donald Trump's election in 2016 was a breaking point for many of those relationships. I hate Trump, but I don't hate Trump supporters. It proved too painful to stay in those friendships though.

My friendships with anti-Trump conservatives grew closer as we bonded while griping about Trump. Eventually most of those ant-Trump conservatives left the Republican Party.

I'm sure this scenario is being replayed all over the world where individuals know a friend or family member who gets caught up in extremist authoritarian movements.

During this second Trump term, I worry about losing more friends as individuals capitulate when Trump threatens their jobs, their benefits and pensions to get them to conform. I worry about threats to my own freedoms and the freedoms of those closest to me.

I personally don't think that our current political situation is a conflict between the Left and the Right. I think our political conflicts are more about those on the Right and the Left who believe in democracy and those on the extreme Right and the Left who believe in authoritarianism.

"'Dude, I'm Done': When Politics Tears Families And Friendships Apart" by Tovia Smith for NPR
https://www.npr.org/2020/10/27/928209548/dude-i-m-done-when-politics-te…

"Bridging gaps: Bipartisan friendships in era of polarization" an editorial by the Daily Targum
https://www.dailytargum.com/article/4ecb3883-f344-4f8d-8102-bef4389d5bd8

"Opinion: Friendships Can’t Survive Polarized Morals" by Emma Thompson for The Daily Utah Chronicle
https://dailyutahchronicle.com/2024/11/30/opinion-friendships-cant-surv…

"Empathy, respect for one another critical to ease political polarization, Stanford sociologist says. The key to bridging the broad ideological division in the United States is for both sides to work on understanding the core values that the other holds dear." by Robb Willer for the Stanford Report
https://news.stanford.edu/stories/2017/01/empathy-respect-critical-ease…