Losing Friends

To Politics

Dear Death,

My biggest dilemma is that my husband and I have been losing friends to political differences. I work hard to set up common ground, but it is hard when they have Trump Derangement Syndrome.

Most recently my husband became estranged from his best friend over this issue and that fight may have also cost me my friendship with his wife.

The trouble started when Trump won his second term. Our friend, we will call him Joe, talked about how much he hated Trump all the time. Our Christmas card last year spoke of our happiness with the work we had done to assist in Trump’s election. Joe said “I almost threw your card away” in a public group newsletter, which was hurtful.

Once Trump got in office in 2025, my husband and Joe argued and sent each other opposing articles. Joe used mainstream media - from the local newspaper to TV. We don’t even own a tv (never have). When my husband would suggest that Joe read something specific they would argue....and the arguing got hotter. Joe said that mainstream is the “real” answer and that my husband’s sources were biased. After one such debate (unfortunately by text) they called each other names and that was that. Feelings were hurt and nothing has been done to try to fix it. My husband now says “we were really too different anyway”.

I have reached out to Joe’s wife and she said she did want to have lunch with me but that hasn’t yet happened. She said she was too busy. She also told me that she felt she needed to “stand by her man”. She didn’t remove me from Facebook. Maybe there is still a chance?

Sincerely,

Red Hat Friend

Dear Red Hat Friend,

Your question comes at a timely moment. Soon it will be Thanksgiving and a lot of families will come together from across the political spectrum. Not all of them will be thankful when the topic of politics comes up over pumpkin pie.

One strategy people often try is just not to talk about it. Politics has long been on the list of taboo topics for polite conversation with acquaintances because it can get uncomfortable fast. That might work for some people.

But politics is important to you. It was on a Christmas card so where you stand is a part of your public identity. Your friends and family all know so it is likely too late to avoid the topic altogether. And furthermore, it is hard to say you are close friends with someone if you cannot even speak about the topics that matter to you most. Rather than avoiding the topic, you are going to need a new approach to have a hope of a different result. Let’s start with something that isn’t helping.

Trump Derangement Syndrome is a dismissive and belittling thing to say to or think about someone. If you say this to people, they are going to be offended. If you hold that perspective and they pick up on your attitude, they are also going to be offended. People never like feeling dismissed or belittled and this statement does both. It’s a lot like when Hillary Clinton famously called Trump supporters a “Basket of Deplorables.” It didn’t exactly win her many new friends or votes. If you want to be in community or friendship with somebody and you hold such an attitude about them, it’s unlikely to go well.

What you can do instead is try to cultivate curiosity. If a friend is angry at Trump, you can be curious about what their anger says about them. You can ask yourself questions like, what values does this person hold and what do they believe is threatening this value? If through questioning you determine that your friend values freedom or keeping children safe, can you admire these values even if you don’t see the same threats that they do?

People are different, multifaceted and have many values and perspectives but there are a couple areas that are as close to universal as it gets. Nobody likes feeling dismissed or belittled. Everyone likes feeling listened to with curiosity. It gets a little harder of course if a friend is also dismissing and belittling you and your perspective, which is quite likely. You will have to decide if it is worth it to you to take the first step in shifting that dynamic. You can still choose to not add to the fire and be curious instead. If you are lucky, they may begin to mirror your curiosity. You can always step back from this person if they cross the line into open disrespect.

Another frustrating element to the story is that Americans no longer have a world of agreed upon facts. Your husband and his ex-friend are not alone in sending articles back and forth that don’t seem to have been written in the same universe, let alone country.

Don’t attempt to make your friends believe your preferred facts or media. Ask yourself how the world would look if you believed their media. Consider if you can still relate to your friends values if not their beliefs. Nobody wants a friend or uncle to correct their facts with a red pen like a high school social studies teacher.

There is a ton of misinformation out there in the world today. Most people tend to believe the facts that already support their opinions and dismiss or minimize information that doesn’t. If you would ask someone else to change how they evaluate what news to trust, it’s only fair to get curious about your information standard as well. If your answer is that you believe the news sources that always defend your side, that won’t be a persuasive answer to anyone on the other side of the divide just as you would not respect that perspective from them.

Traditionally Americans use a few tools to have more facts and less bias in news. Some things you could look for include whether the publication employs fact checkers. Another is whether this publication runs corrections when they get a matter of fact wrong as all publications will. Another is whether they disclose conflicts of interest. These are mainstays of traditional media and it’s certainly true they aren’t perfect. Their own corrections prove that. But without some guardrails such as the above, there is nothing stopping any writer from making facts up whole cloth. Just this week a number of top right wing X accounts with millions of followers were exposed as being from Russia, Nigeria and Bangladesh. They had all been posing as US patriots. That’s the kind of wholesale fabrication that can happen with no guardrails whatsoever. I don’t know what you are reading, but you should get curious. What are the standards of reporting hygiene they use? How are they better at vetting information than the news you reject?

Many Americans today are choosing estrangement over arguing politics at Thanksgiving. That can also be a trap. If someone goes too far in curating the people in their life based on political difference, they can find themself in a social circle that tolerates no differences. Then if values or politics evolve and change, they are trapped. The circle will reject them for disagreeing. The choice will be to either follow the group-think of the circle or face ostracism from the last people they know. Having a heterogeneity of political opinions in life protects freedom of thought.

One reason people resist their curiosity is that they can’t control what conclusions the threads of their curiosity may lead them toward. Follow that path long enough and you discover that the other side sees itself defending values you also share. You may see yourself having more doubts that your side has all the answers. The world can become much more grey when before you enjoyed supporting your favorite politicians without reservation. With curiosity, you will see more of the faults and gaps of your own party. If you enjoyed a world of clear divisions between right and wrong, that can feel like a loss. There is a reason it feels easier at first to dismiss and belittle people rather than recognize that their perspective matters in a democracy even when riddled with what you believe is misinformation. Curiosity may never make you a Democrat, but you are likely to become more aware of the tradeoffs and shadow cast by the work your side does. Stepping into that more complex world can be uncomfortable. But you will have more friends. And maybe Thanksgiving Dinner will go better too.

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