Refusing to Discuss Politics With Your Family Makes You A Coward
I didn’t ruin our relationship, YOU did by supporting a white supremacist
A comment on one of my articles berated me for ending friendships with people who insist, to this day, on supporting Donald Trump.
“I would never let politics or religion come between me and a friend or family member.”
Oh really?
So you’d let a white supremacist into your home who treated your children like they were sub-human?
You’d stand by and do nothing when a president calls for violence against non-white people?
I find it astonishing that not only do people insist they are right in not holding friends and family accountable for racist and oppressive views, they’ll actually berate others for doing so.
“That’s your family! How dare you refuse to talk with members of your family!”
If members of my family won’t stand beside me in defense of my children, then I’m not going to waste my time on them. Seriously, why can’t people comprehend this? This is my family. If you stand with those who would hurt my family, you’re my enemy. Don’t attack my kids.
THEY ended your relationship by supporting Trump, not you
These frustrated man-children are always the same. They start out acting tough, but the moment you push back on them they burst into tears.
It’s pathetic really.
Having worked in high school, I have some sympathy for 14-year-old boys who haven’t figured out life yet. Yeah, teenagers are going to strut around and lip off and pretend they are men. But I know from experience that it doesn’t take much of a push back to get their lips trembling. If you make one of those boys cry in front of all the girls, you’ve failed as a teacher, so you allow them their little charade.
But when you see this behavior in a thirty-year-old man, the gloves are off. They’re crying.
The problem is, once you make a grown man cry he’s going to try and get “even” by stabbing you in the back, and he’ll insist he’s justified in doing so.
It’s all fun and games to stomp around with your body armor and your combat boots and act tough, but when somebody doesn’t like it and you get punched in the face, everybody’s going to laugh at the YouTube video of you crying like a baby.
“Why aren’t we still friends!” they blubber. “You never used to be like this.”
“Because you crossed the line! YOU! Not me, it was You. Man up, take responsibility for your error, and make amends.”
But they never do.
The constant temper tantrum of Trump supporters
The only way Trump supporters know how to interact with people is through the presence of a threat.
“You better do this, or else…”
“You better not talk back to me, or else…”
They talk about how tough they are. They talk about the people they’ve beaten up. They rev their motors. It’s just noise, noise, noise.
Eventually, you get sick and tired of it and you say, “Fine… let’s see the ‘or else’.”
Only then do they start acting all confused. “Why are you changing? Why are you doing this? We had a kind of agreement and now you’re changing it, why are you changing it?”
I look back on many of my relationships with embarrassment. There are people in your life that you know are kind of losers, but you hold out hope that maybe they’ll follow your example and start to figure things out.
They’re like the sidekicks in westerns who orbit around you panting like a puppy always looking for a pat on the head. “Did I do good? Did I do good? Did I do good? Did I do good?”
You want to scream “SHUT UP!” but you know that will make them cry so you contain yourself.
They look upon a truly pathetic and fragile man like Trump and think he’s a father figure. “Maybe that guy will pat me on the head and tell me I did good? Maybe? All I have to do is put on my combat boots and body armor and stomp around pretending like I’m racist…but I’m not really racist…”
Newsflash, there’s no “pretending” to be racist. You’re either anti-racist or you’re a monster. There’s no middle ground.
Stop crossing the line
A decent person doesn’t hold every little mistake against somebody. I do believe in forgiveness. I do believe in giving people a second chance.
These Trump supporters act like I won’t give them a second chance. They think that’s unfair. They’re always bleating about how everything is unfair. They always act like victims.
That’s probably because they’ve never had to work and they’ve had everything handed to them their whole lives. Heck, I’m probably partly to blame for that because I tried to be a mentor to them even though they didn’t really deserve it.
The thing is, giving them a second chance is not up to me. It’s up to them.
For once in their miserable lives, they have to take the first step. They have to do some work. They have to flex their muscles in labor rather than self-aggrandizement.
They have to admit they were wrong.
They have to renounce Trump and all he stands for.
Then we can be friends again. There’s a way back. It’s up to them.
They won’t do it
You can’t stand on the side with the child killers and the rapists and expect me to walk beside you. You aren’t coming over to Christmas dinner. Even if you sat in a corner and said nothing, that evil would emanate out from you. It would get in people’s lungs. It would get in my children’s lungs.
Trump supporters are detestable.
It’s him or me.
You can’t cast vote after vote for oppression and expect me to bail you out of tough circumstances.
You can’t cast vote after vote against universal healthcare and expect me to help you with your medical bills.
You can’t cast vote after vote against higher wages and then expect me to lend you a penny.
These days, I ask anyone who asks a favor of me who they voted for. Heck, if you want my time for anything, I deserve to know. If you want me to give you something for free to help you with your life, I want to know that you’re not actively working against my interests.
If you’re going to try and sit there and tell me I’m wrong, I’m not interested in hearing it. Find somebody else to do you a favor.
Go up to family members and ask them who they voted for
People say that politics shouldn’t get in the way of family relationships.
Fine.
Don’t vote for Trump and we’ll still have a relationship. See how easy that is?
“No, no, no, I mean that I can vote for whomever I want and you aren’t allowed to get mad about it!”
That’s seriously what people think!
How has our society become so brainwashed that not only will they say something so fundamentally stupid, they’ll also convince themselves without question that they are right.
What happened to consequences?
What happened to responsibility?
If you do something that I find repugnant, I’m not going to want to be around you. It’s basic respect to not offend the people who you claim to love.
If your Dad and Mom would rather vote for Trump than have a relationship with you, they don’t really love you. It’s as simple as that. Cut them loose. If they can’t do something as minimal as not supporting a blatant white supremacist, racist, criminal, then they aren’t going to do any good in your life anyway.
In the end, they left you, not the other way around.
In the end, it wasn’t politics that got in the way of your relationship, it was their refusal to behave with common decency.
