Friendships and Trump

[YourBrickTiger]

Hi, just writing this out of sadness mostly, not looking to apportion blame. I'm very close to being cut off by a very close friend due to our different politic beliefs, which up until now through 10 years of friendship we have just left in the background. I had posted something about Renee Good and how I felt what had happened to her was murder. My friend who saw it sent me a video of a different viewpoint - from ICE's viewpoint. Unfortunately I misinterpreted it that she wanted to have a conversation about it, as all she said was 'you may want to watch this'. I said that I thought we were heading for a world war and that Trump was responsible. I said I didn't understand how a Christian (which she is) could justify the murder but think that what Charlie Kirk preached was ok.

FYI I'm Irish and she is from Texas and a republican. I have stayed with her before and we have always been there for each other. I thought it was just a debate but I woke up this morning to a long email from her outlining how hurt she is at what I said. I would never hurt her I just hate what is happening out there and I believe Trump is dangerous.

Has anyone else had this experience? I have told her how much she means to me and that I am sorry I crossed a line.

You either both agree not to discuss politics and ignore what the other posts, or the friendship will end.

That has to be two way though. She can't expect you to keep schtum, whilst she continues to go on about how wonderful Trump is.

z

I have friends who are very left and some very right
We all get along and banter and discuss
You have to accept that people have the right to hold a different opinion to you - or you just live in a narrow echo chamber where you all just pat each other on the back and nod sagely

If there is a war it will be Putin who starts it

Yeah I agree. It's like we always knew it was there. But I disagree with one thing and the friendship is threatened. She quoted the Bible to me and then said 'I can't wear my MAGA hat in public in certain areas'. That's fine, work away I won't say anything again but I would certainly be heartbroken to lose a friendship over it.

It sounds like you escalated in this situation, but realise it and have held out the olive branch.

It sounds like she genuinely values your friendship and cares enough to write and to be candid. And you care enough too to want to rescue things.

I hope you work it out.

Absolutely. I didn't mean for it to go as far as it did. I just got frustrated but have apologised as there maybe are things I need to learn about her side of things? I don't know it's very confusing. I think Renee was murdered but now I'm wondering do I need to question that too?

Only with Americans. Not a slight on them at all but they take politics much more personally than we do. I have friends with very, very different political beliefs in the UK and we're quite happy to either debate with eachother, disagree about it and still be friends in the end, or just not talk about politics at all.

With my American friends it's much more... Pick a side and anyone on the other side is the enemy and an awful, terrible person. I've got American friends who've cut off their whole family due to political leanings. Not saying British people don't do that of course, but politics being a huge part of your personal identity seems to be a more US mindset.

She actually told me I had put her life in danger because I reposted the video where the Nazis are going door to door looking for people - it was a video that surfaced after ICE shot Renee. So she has taken it that I was calling her a Nazi - a term I feel sick even using and would never just throw it out there at anyone. I have explained to her that I'm obviously not a US citizen and am open to learning her perspective but knowing in my heart I will never ever support Trump I'm scared she's written me off because I have a different viewpoint.

It sounds to me like you are doing the right things. I think the key is to remember is that that she really doesn't see it as murder, in just the same way as you (perhaps, I don't know you) really don't see abortion as murder.

So if you say to her "I can't see how a Christian can support this murder [ICE]" it sounds to her like you are deliberately leaping over the absolute crux question for the purposes of making a personal attack. Just like if she said "I can't see how a mother can support this murder [abortion]", you would feel she had deliberately leapt over the key bit for the purposes of making a personal attack.

Was the ICE case murder? I can only give my own view, from facts that might also be unreliable: to me it looked like murder and I'm not a lawyer, but I think there's enough room that reasonable people can differ.

That room comes from these facts (if all true): murder is a legal term, so legalities are absolutely central to this; the ICE guy was hospitalised with internal bleeding, i.e. was hit by the SUV; the ICE guy had previously told her to get out of the car, and she instead reversed and then drove in his direction. I highly doubt she intended to kill him. But the fact is that she'd been told (in effect) to put down a deadly weapon, and instead had discharged it at him, grazing him in a way that could, had it been slightly different, have been extremely serious. In such circumstances the law (at least in England, which obviously this wasn't) gives extremely wide latitude to people to act in self-defence, and does not expect them to be fully rational or proportionate as they might be in the cold light of day, un-attacked. Now this guy was trained so maybe different standards apply to him.

As I say, my guess is if I saw the whole evidence base and were on the jury, I'd vote to convict. But I also don't think that only a monster would acquit. Nor that someone who empathises with the man hit by a car while doing his job is lacking in empathy, they just empathise with a different party based on their different reading.

Thank you. A few other things, just when you mentioned abortion, she asked me what I didn't agree with with regards to Charlie Kirk's policies - I said that for one I thought it was awful that he would make his 10 year old give birth if she was raped and ended up pregnant. She is TEN. My friend said she utterly disagrees with abortion, which is fair enough, normally I do too.

She then went on to say that there was nothing wrong with his stance on not wanting a black woman to fly a plane as that is simply 'filling a quota'.

And then she said that she agreed with the Bible that women should submit to men (FUK THAT Had enough of that in my lifetime).

But I tried to take the high road and apologise for any upset, although it did feel a little like I am just not permitted to disagree. I don't believe for a minute that that officer suffered internal bleeding, but I didn't say that. At the end of it all she is more important to me than causing more upset. I just hope she can forgive me.

So what was your meaning in posting this and likening this to Nazis and the holocaust?
agree with those that say don’t talk politics with friends.
you have your belief she has her, and they don’t match sadly.

You could respond saying you

'Disagree strongly with you on this subject, but at no point was I trying to be hurtful.

You have different viewpoints on it and I was up for a healthy debate on the subject. Not to try and disrespect your views or force you to agree with me.

I think it's best if we avoid talking politics as we have so many other things in common and we should be able to put these differences aside in what is a strong and enjoyable and valuable friendship.'

I think you need to accept that on many of these issues she (assuming sincere) really does believe that to do other than she would is to choose to do evil.

Are you the sort of person who would choose to do evil? (I'm assuming not).

So in some of these cases you are asking her really re-adjust her whole belief system to accommodate specific cases that, to her, will look like you are cherry-picking to paint her in the worst possible light.

Anyway, I don't think I'd agree with her on many things (maybe some). But I can entirely see how her belief system springs from some more fundamental beliefs about what is actually true (e.g. about morality springing from god's word). If you believed those things, you'd presumably come to similar conclusions.

And we only partly choose what to believe to be true. It's not a preference we can just switch, or which (at least not in a straightforward way) gives away whether we are a good person or not.

I realise it sounds like I'm falling over myself to justify her beliefs, most of which I don't share. But I hope helpful as you seemed to want help in seeing things from her perspective.

I reposted a video that said that what ICE were doing is similar to what the Nazis did on the streets. Please do not go there with me about the Holocaust. I have been to Auschwitz and despise anything related to Nazism and what they did to those people. It was a video, maybe I shouldn't have reposted it but I'm not going to be sucked in to another debate. My concern is making things right with my friend. So do we all have to have the same beliefs now? Can't be friends with anyone who hasn't?

Yes thank you. I'm not a devout Christian so many of her views come from the Bible so I'm trying to understand that. I didn't know that Charlie Kirk's beliefs came from the Bible so I've told her that. I've tried to explain that from my tiny island it looks like Trump is trying to take over the world and people are frightened. Damn, it all just comes from her sending me the alternate video without a real explanation. She just said 'this might change your mind'. So I thought the debate was open.

I think one can definitely have friends who have different beliefs, but usually to make that work you can't go around linking to the most personal aspects of someone's character (well, only if you are both "high decouplers" who enjoy that kind of thing. I've had many fun and deeply sincere conversations with people who will tell me they think I'm evil for x, y, z, and who are happy for me to tell them similar back for a, b, c reason. But such people are quite unusual I think).

It feels like both of you are very quick to personalise things, which you'll need to both try not to do. I admire you for trying to depersonalise and build bridges.

I am pretty far left, and some of the best pub chats I have had re politics is with people on the right. Especially Thatcherites and US pre Trump Republicans.

But Trumpsters.... nah.

Trumpism seems to have no fixed ideology. It keeps changing depending on what happened this week. All my US friends I kept in touch with on social media are gone.

Either they stopped contacting me, or me them.

In feel next time I’m in your neck of the woods we should get a beer!

Well, morality matters. I’m struggling to see how I would want to stay friends with someone who think is it’s ok to say black women should not fly planes, basically.

I also can’t see myself wanting to be friends with someone supporting the sort of demented warmongering we are seeing, which threatens all of us and our children.

I would also find it very unattractive that your friend has adopted a ‘victim’ position in such a weaponised way.

You sound rather unsure of yourself OP when it comes to expressing your opinions - is there a side of you which feels you are not allowed to disagree with people? Do you feel unsure of your views? Is there any view anyone could express that would make you think - right, I’ll give this person a miss?

I think the real issue here is that your friend has gone in a direction of which you disapprove very strongly. The question is whether, when someone has views you find abhorrent, it is possible - or acceptable- to try to overlook them. For me, it would not be. I would feel sorry for a friend who expressed these views - I’d think she’d been badly taken in, conned by a liar - but I just would not want to keep the friendship going. I’d think she lacked both intelligence & moral principle.

Though I think I would actually struggle to have a meaningful friendship with someone who was genuinely, vehemently anti-abortion.

I would totally respect someone saying THEY would never have one, but to try and mandate or control other women's sexual organs is a bit too much for me.

I think I would struggle to maintain a close friendship with someone who had such wildly different views to me. Politics is important, it touches everything. I can't imagine I would have much in common with someone who thought Trump was a decent person, or that Charlie Kirk should be listened to - even British Christians I know don't believe that. You can be generally anti-abortion but still not believe a 10 year old should be forced to carry to term.

Religion is a hugely different beast in the US though, and there is a tribal element for some whereby if you are very fervently Christian, you are also a Republican. No matter what shape the Republican party takes at that moment. I think in the UK we all tend to drift a bit more - someone might identify as left-wing but votes Labour/Green/Lib Dem depending on their manifesto, the candidate, recent events etc. They might even vote Tory if a particular policy is very important to them. Things are more fluid, and are not linked to anything else (except maybe class, but I feel like even that link has reduced significantly in my lifetime).

Unfortunately the disruptive effect of Trump's presidency will continue to cause problems globally, as well as individually.

I've known her for 10 years and have stayed with her in America. I knew she voted for Trump but it wasn't my place to talk about it in her home or in the USA when I'm from Ireland. And she is a lovely lovely person, kind and very supportive.

However, parts of her email have shaken me. She also said that because the video I posted likend ICE to Nazis (it was old footage of Nazis going door to door asking for papers), that I have likened her to a Nazi and 'put her life in danger'. That was hurtful.

PS is it ok to think Trump IS wrong and a danger or is that just an opinion? To the poster who asked, yes I am afraid to totally disagree with her because I care for her very much and I'm not a US citizen so I'm afraid I've got it wrong here or crossed a line when maybe I don't even understand fully. But I do struggle to understand how a man who gives the middle finger to someone who disagrees with him can be any kind of a suitable president.

Not if Trump invades Greenland…