Have you lost a friend or alienated a relative over disagreement about Trump?

mac_in_tosh

Site Champ
Posts
678
Reaction score
1,306
Recently I was doing some searches to try to reconnect with friends from school. I came across someone who I spent a lot of time with - we had the same major and would meet for dinner in the cafeteria almost every night, along with others in our group. His Facebook page, however, indicated he was a Trump guy and that dissuaded me from trying to contact him.

Just to be clear, I'm liberal and he was always conservative. We had many discussions over dinner about current affairs, disagreeing often, but it didn't affect our friendship. But conservatism is one thing and Trumpism is another, vastly different thing.

If you want smaller government, less regulation and reduced spending, we can debate that. But if you support a nasty bully, a pathological liar and incompetent fool whose handling of the virus resulted in large numbers of casualties and someone who stirred up a crowd to go to the Capitol building to disrupt a Constitutionally mandated procedure over a lie about the election being stolen, then any attempt at friendship would be futile.

Just wondering what your experience has been.
 
U

User.45

Guest
Welcome to this forum! I have very few American conservative friends, but the key to our friendship is
1) not to be social media friends and
2) avoiding the Trump topic as much as humanly possible.

I don't think I could see a friend the same way if they confessed their love for Trump.
 

Thomas Veil

Suspended
Posts
3,450
Reaction score
6,798
Welcome! Good topic.

My sister and brother-in-law kind of alienated me when, in 2016, they told me they'd applied to be delegates to the Republican National Convention. They live far away, so first of all I had no idea they'd gotten so involved in politics, but even so, by that time 45th President of the United States Donald Trump's bizarre behavior and fascist tendencies were well-known. To say I was crestfallen to hear that would be an understatement.

History repeated itself just a few weeks ago when my daughter told me she saw some of my brother's posts on Facebook which sounded like he was a Trump guy. Lo and behold it was true. I'm not on Facebook (except to check the grandchildren pictures on my wife's account), and when my brother and I get together we discuss movies and sports, not politics. So this was a surprise. I don't think I'll look at him quite the same way again.

Same goes for a few of my neighbors with whom I am friendly. When the Trump flags and signs went up and stayed up a month or more after the election, I really started thinking about some of them differently.
 

Joe

Elite Member
Posts
1,557
Reaction score
2,771
Location
Texas
I have a cousin that is married to a hardcore Trump supporter. She was never into politics before meeting this guy. Now she uploads pictures of them to social media wearing Trump shirts and hats. The husband is very controlling. So I have to remember that she is probably being controlled and brainwashed into supporting Trump so I kind of give her a pass. I believe she is being forced to support him by her controlling husband.

When I had facebook, I cleaned it up a lot after the 2016 elections. I didn't care to be "facebook friends" with a Trump supporter I met ONE time years ago at a party or something like that. I cleaned it up to people I actually wanted to keep in touch with.
 

Eric

Mama's lil stinker
Posts
11,293
Reaction score
21,743
Location
California
Instagram
Main Camera
Sony
Welcome to this forum! I have very few American conservative friends, but the key to our friendship is
1) not to be social media friends and
2) avoiding the Trump topic as much as humanly possible.

I don't think I could see a friend the same way if they confessed their love for Trump.
^ This all the way. If the friend can avoid the topic, I can just as easily and all is well, we have to have this mutual respect for each other during these times IMO. If they cannot, I simply cut it off and avoid them.

Welcome to the site, @mac_in_tosh
 
U

User.45

Guest
^ This all the way. If the friend can avoid the topic, I can just as easily and all is well, we have to have this mutual respect for each other during these times IMO. If they cannot, I simply cut it off and avoid them.

Welcome to the site, @mac_in_tosh
Yup. Actually the reason my friendship works with these people is because I have a lot of respect for them personally.
 

Eric

Mama's lil stinker
Posts
11,293
Reaction score
21,743
Location
California
Instagram
Main Camera
Sony
Yup. Actually the reason my friendship works with these people is because I have a lot of respect for them personally.
Agreed, I have a pretty close friend who is a cop and a Trump supporter, anti-BLM and the whole thing but is the nicest guy you would ever know, would literally give you the shirt off his back. Every now and then we may touch on a topic but it's always civil and in passing, I have no problems being friends with people like that.

On the flip side I had a friend of 35 years who simply can't stay away from it and is very toxic when it comes to issues of race and Trump, so much so that he could easily have been one to wear a viking hat and storm the castle. Sadly, I had to completely distance myself from him.
 

mac_in_tosh

Site Champ
Posts
678
Reaction score
1,306
Agreed, I have a pretty close friend who is a cop and a Trump supporter, anti-BLM and the whole thing but is the nicest guy you would ever know, would literally give you the shirt off his back.
Sounds like Trump is the exact opposite of your friend, as far as being a nice and generous person, so what does he see in him? How does he overlook all the corruption and illegality?
 

Scepticalscribe

Cancelled
Posts
6,644
Reaction score
9,457
Welcome, @mac_in_tosh, and good to see you here.

Standard conservatives are one thing (two of the best bosses I have had in my life, both male, were classic conservatives, and both were superb bosses, supportive, sane and outstanding mentors to me, who - knowing my views on such matters - nevertheless, gave me total academic autonomy, endless encouragement and much good advice, not all of it heeded), but supportors of Mr Trump quite another.

I'm not sure that I could remain friends with such a person; acquainteces, colleagues, yes, but friends, no.
 

Thomas Veil

Suspended
Posts
3,450
Reaction score
6,798
Oh, there’s still one guy down the street from me. This past summer he took his single-story home and actually added an entire upstairs to it. Even had a balcony off the second floor bedroom that overlooked the street. Looked so good I’d admire what this guy did with it whenever I drove past.

Then came the election. And he adorned this (quite wide, actually) balcony with an enormous, full-width sign:

TRUMP 2020.
PROMISES MADE.
PROMISES KEPT.

That sign still hangs there, assaulting the eyes of everyone who drives down the street (and probably pissing off quite a few of his neighbors as well). Now I think of that guy as one of those who never accepted the election results and never will...and who probably thinks that storming the Capitol was a peachy-keen idea. This has become, for him, a gesture of defiance.
 

Eric

Mama's lil stinker
Posts
11,293
Reaction score
21,743
Location
California
Instagram
Main Camera
Sony
Sounds like Trump is the exact opposite of your friend, as far as being a nice and generous person, so what does he see in him? How does he overlook all the corruption and illegality?
Great question, one that I've never been able to understand with some of his supporters. I think some Republicans will simply never vote for a Democrat so I I get that but how so many fell into the cult of Trump is something I'll never get. This particular friend doesn't seem to have drank the kool aid so I'll give him that.
 
U

User.45

Guest
Great question, one that I've never been able to understand with some of his supporters. I think some Republicans will simply never vote for a Democrat so I I get that but how so many fell into the cult of Trump is something I'll never get. This particular friend doesn't seem to have drank the kool aid so I'll give him that.
The thing about the republican party is they definitely not what they claim to be:
1. Personal responsibility? Only for the poor.
2. Fiscal conservatives? Only in opposition.
3. Better for the economy? The biggest lie ever. If I look at GDP data it's clear that growth and unemployment are better under Democratic presidencies. Even with my very skeptical hat, my alternative explanation is that Democrats are just more likely to be elected in a recession and that's why we see these differences. But the fact that they reverse recessions consistently is very hard for me to argue away.

I honestly think the only congruent and calculated reason to vote GOP is if you're making >>6 figures and you want those tax benefits.

edit: editorial that sums it up, but you can always find data on this from governmental sources (for the skeptical):


For the most part, however, Republican economic policy since 1980 has revolved around a single policy: large tax cuts, tilted heavily toward the affluent. There are situations in which tax cuts can lift economic growth, but they typically involve countries with very high tax rates. The United States has had fairly low tax rates for decades.

The evidence now overwhelmingly suggests that recent tax cuts have had only a modest effect on the economy. G.D.P. grew at virtually the same rate after the 2017 Trump tax cut as before it. If anything, the Clinton tax increase of 1993 has a better claim on starting a boom than any tax cut since.

One possibility is that the two parties are both responding to the interest groups that support and finance them, suggested Ms. Wanamaker, who worked in the White House Council of Economic Advisers during the Trump administration. But the Democratic-leaning groups (like labor unions and civil-rights organizations) may favor policies that lift broad-based economic growth, while Republican-leaning groups (like the wealthy) favor policies that mostly shift income toward themselves.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

fooferdoggie

Elite Member
Site Donor
Posts
4,376
Reaction score
7,728

TRUMP 2020.
PROMISES MADE.
PROMISES KEPT.
I cant find the pic but I had a pic of this barnyard in the middle of the city with goats chickens and turkeys with this sign on a fence in the barnyard. it was a perfect placement. I found it.
IMG_1582.jpg
 

mac_in_tosh

Site Champ
Posts
678
Reaction score
1,306
The thing about the republican party is they definitely not what they claim to be:
1. Personal responsibility? Only for the poor.
2. Fiscal conservatives? Only in opposition.
3. Better for the economy? The biggest lie ever. If I look at GDP data it's clear that growth and unemployment are better under Democratic presidencies. Even with my very skeptical hat, my alternative explanation is that Democrats are just more likely to be elected in a recession and that's why we see these differences. But the fact that they reverse recessions consistently is very hard for me to argue away.
How about:
4. Family values.
5. Strict constitutionalism
6. Patriotism
 
U

User.45

Guest
How about:
4. Family values.
5. Strict constitutionalism
6. Patriotism
+1 Federalism. My favorite shit is an allegedly non-trumpist MR acquaintance telling me that Trump fulfilled the equipment requests of governors (horse shit) so the the 100K unnecessary deaths compared to EU rates is due to federal inefficiency. Guy's proposed solution: decentralization. Right, we should literally spend our kids future on the military, but let's decentralize against a massive national security threat, like literally no victorious military ever did in history. It's just infuriatingly obviously stupid.
 

Edd

It’s all in the reflexes
Site Donor
Posts
2,725
Reaction score
3,307
Location
New Hampshire
An old friend of mine and his wife split the 2016 vote, she voted HRC, he voted Trump. He framed it as a protest vote because there were “no good candidates“. He told me this a few months after the election. This was over a couple of drinks, and I gave him some shit. His logic was that Trump is so unfit this will somehow lead to many cracks in the system being exposed, which is ultimately good. I call BS on this argument, but he agrees Trump sucks so I give him a pass.

We also know another couple who went Trump; they’re old friends with my wife. We see them less than once a year, and everyone avoids the topic. They live in a conservative area, so I hold little hope they’ll change.

If my dad, a Reagan conservative, were still alive I can’t be certain if he’d be a Trumper or not. If he was, I’m fairly sure it would have destroyed our relationship. I wouldn’t have been able to handle it. I think he died in 2015 but sometime before that he said that he liked Michelle Bachman. He was headed down a bad path politically.
 

mac_in_tosh

Site Champ
Posts
678
Reaction score
1,306
Great question, one that I've never been able to understand with some of his supporters. I think some Republicans will simply never vote for a Democrat so I I get that but how so many fell into the cult of Trump is something I'll never get. This particular friend doesn't seem to have drank the kool aid so I'll give him that.
But your friend is a cop, he witnessed the events of Jan. 6, that included a fellow police officer being murdered, and he still supports Trump?
 
Top Bottom
1 2