This has been a concern of mine for awhile now, and it’s finally happening. My only close friends are people I have grown up my whole life with. We’re all suburbanite cishet crackermen who were well-off enough to never have to struggle with potentially starving or becoming homeless; predictably, this has fostered some garbage politics, mainly trumpanzees and blue MAGA. With Cheeto Hitler removing whatever shreds of a mask of humanity the Great Satan had left, I now have my blue MAGA friends calling out my trumpanzee friends for their support of Drumpf. The trumpanzees have been silent since the inauguration, and today the group chat has been split.
It was already a terrible form of liberalism for me to have let things slide for the sake of peace and friendship with people who, if I wasn’t already close to, would throw in the cuck pit. There is still a major issue in that the most vocal of the friends I’m still in touch with are blue MAGA to the point that, if I’m to grow a spine and actually stop letting things slide, I’m worried that I’ll be smeared as fascist myself and lose the close friends I have because pushing back against great man theory takes that make Orange Satan out to be a uniquely evil force instead of recognizing the evil of the system that produced him will invariably come across as defending Trump. I’m bad at making myself go outside, let alone making friends, that I’ll have very few IRL people in my actual life.
Edit: The issue seems to have been deeper than politics, and the sides reconciled. However, the baseline seems to be “no outright evil political beliefs”, and Marxism Leninism is considered evil by most burgers.
Unfortunately, the only way to keep friendships under these conditions healthy, is for EVERYONE to understand the rules:
a) Let the disagreements slide
b) Figure out what each person’s red lines are and try not to cross them
c) Cut off politics as a subject unless everyone present is willing to follow the rules
As far as you, I’d suggest keeping in mind that adults tend to be extremely defensive when it comes to political views and ideologies. You can’t convince anyone with theory. So political discussions in that regard are useless anyway. Making people see that their boss and their landlord are vampires is the way to start converting people to the left.
For this situation, I’d suggest expressing your concerns in the chat. Something like “Guys, leave politics out of the chat. Some of us are very uncomfortable with the kind of talk that’s been going on here these past few days. We’ve been friends for X years and it’s not worth ending these friendships because of the elections”.
I definitely don’t agree. If you can’t handle a struggle session with friends, what’s the point?
Friendships are like relationships. Very rarely they are ideal, and you need to make concessions if you value them.
Sure. But imo to completely avoid ‘politics’ (impossible) is not a good idea. I cannot speak for you or OP, but with my friend groups, that would never fly with me. All my close friends know that I’ve been a very politically engaged person since I was 14 and I make no secret of this. If they are your ‘real’ friends, I would hope there would be a level of understanding between each other. If your friendship is just based on hobbies, the friendship may not be as strong as one thinks.
I get what you are saying, but still, situations differ, and I wouldn’t in good conscious recommend to a total stranger to enact a confrontation with other total strangers (to me). In my circle of friends, I have 3 or 4 friends who we’ve always disagreed politically, but we can hold a discussion because we understand each other’s boundaries, and we are not trying to convince each other. I have 2-3 other friends who are alligned with me, and I have 2-3 other friends who are apolitical, and don’t like engaging in politics that much. They are the “default position is liberal” kind of people. So we just leave them be when they are in the group. All this was mutually agreed upon.
Sure, but likewise, it doesn’t mean a friendship should be based on political alignments or that one should be jumping at the opportunity to create rifts just because they think their friendship with others is “strong/weak”. Obviously OP is uncomfortable with confronting their group, and I am assuming they know their situation much better than me, so I tried to give them the solution that is the most harmless and still can potentially fix their problem.
yeah I agree with you. OP seems to be close to a breaking point where people are losing respect for each other, i guess my point is if friends can’t be respectful among each other, it’s best not to be friends.
My social situation is almost eerily similar to OP’s, with a critical difference being that with one or two exceptions, my friends are either apolitical or center-right. Because we were friends since childhood, we have a whole range of shared interests and hobbies that have nothing to do with politics. Whenever there was political hostility between us, it was usually instigated by a couple shit-stirrers on the periphery of our friend group.
After a big row regarding Columbus Day / Indigenous Peoples Day a few years ago, the bulk of the friend group decided “no political discussion” and when it comes up by the shit-stirrers, just ignore it.
And honestly, this “no politics” rule has worked out pretty well. Admittedly this is easier to do when you have a majority who are apolitical or aren’t really all that interested in discussing politics. Long way of saying, I really like your suggestions to OP, certainly better and healthier than the suggestions about “burn it all down and leave”.