Comment by rdegges
8 days ago
I'll provide an opposing viewpoint. In the last 10 years, I've lost friendships and family because people in my life have voted for candidates that stripped rights away from women, minorities, etc.
Having a vast difference between opinions is fine, but some of their decisions are fundamentally against my core beliefs and have done literal harm to many people I know.
For that reason, terminating family and friendships has been absolutely worth it for me.
Until we can live in a world where fundamental rights are protected and respected, we have no common ground, and it's pointless to tiptoe around these insanely harmful beliefs while maintaining a facade of friendship.
I think essentially tolerating other peoples opinions and trying to understand where they are coming from is more useful than applying purity tests to your friends and family.
I’m pretty sure that they weren’t voting for those candidates for the express purpose of stripping away those rights and there were other policies and values that they were voting for.
I’ll be honest that I’m Jewish and certain posts about Palestine where friends or non Jewish family have specifically expressed values that I find anti-myself I have completely cut out of my life. (not all beliefs about pro Palestine are anti-semetic, but most are) But I believe that most views at the party level are just different priorities or different view points and tolerance is necessary, because they are not directly in conflict.
> I’m pretty sure that they weren’t voting for those candidates for the express purpose of stripping away those rights and there were other policies and values that they were voting for.
I thought the GOP was pretty clear throughout the election cycle, from President to local office, that their desired world can only come to be through a drastic restructuring of the Constitutional status quo ante.
I don’t know that “I only voted for (e.g.) tax cuts, everything else is collateral damage and I’m not culpable for it,” is a defensible moral stance.
> I’m pretty sure that they weren’t voting for those candidates for the express purpose of stripping away those rights and there were other policies and values that they were voting for.
Voting for a party explicitly demonstrates at least acceptance of if not outright support for its platform. You don't get to absolve yourself of support for kicking puppies because the FooBar party also includes a modest tax cut in its policy agenda that you really want.
It doesn't matter if the opposing party advocates for raising taxes or even eating kittens.
That's true even if realistically, there are no other parties capable of winning. You can support a third party, abstain out of protest, or even begin a grass-roots campaign to start yet another party. You can even try changing the FooBar party from within, so long as you don't vote for them until sufficient change has occurred.
Voting for a party explicitly demonstrates at least acceptance of if not outright support for its platform. You don't get to absolve yourself of support for kicking puppies because the FooBar party also includes a modest tax cut in its policy agenda that you really want.
Virtually no independent thinker is going to support either major party's platform, for the simple reason that both parties have a collection of inconsistent policies that are an incoherent ideological mishmash. Therefore you do not so much vote FOR a party as you instead hold your nose and vote AGAINST the other one.
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I disagree, but I think moral purity is a less ethical way of living than practical action - best exemplified by the story of the Good Samaritan.
Similarly to “silence is complicity.” Refusing to oppose a party by choosing the other is indicating acceptance of what they will do.
This is a fundamental difference with how people on the (American) left and people on the right view politics. Those on the right frequently vote based on a single or a few issues, ignoring the rest of the platform that may be unpalatable. While those on the left frequently view voting as an endorsement of the whole person. Any unwanted policy tends to be a turn off. It's why you say "you don't get to absolve yourself of support for kicking puppies" while the right does just that. You would be better served understanding the values and motivations of your opposition rather than projecting your values onto them and judging them based on a strawman.
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I totally get where you're coming from. But regardless of their reason for voting for a candidate, if the net effect is that 150m+ women lost rights and other horrible outcomes, it's the same as endorsing it.
It's not though.
Looking at exit pool demographics might help if you're struggling to have any empathy for a Trump voter. They are largely working class and undereducated and astonishingly diverse for a republican candidate in recent memory.
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First you try to argue tolerance and understanding, and then you say that "most pro-Palestine views are antisemitic" and that you cut off all contact with people who hold those views. Your hypocrisy is astounding and you should be embarrassed.
What I was suggesting was to be tolerant of more general views like choosing a political party or candidate and large complicated things, and reserve intolerance for actual directed hatred.
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But.. You're going against your own principles here, you can't say that purity test bad and then have a purity test yourself.
Your purity tests are bad. Their purity tests are righteous.
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> than applying purity tests to your friends and family
It's more about watching people pivot towards unquestionable evil. "Empathy is a sin" is such a deep, dark line in the sand. I'm not going to just stand there and watch you cross it.
I think there is value in trying to understand the other "tribe". If for nothing else, then for practical reasons in figuring out how to defeat the other tribe at the next encounter.
I also think especially in today's political environment, political beliefs at least partially reflect an individual's core values. In some cases I may not want to associate with people that have fundamentally opposing core values to my own. For example this guy's interviews with his parents: https://www.tiktok.com/@thenecessaryconversation
> I’m pretty sure that they weren’t voting for those candidates for the express purpose of stripping away those rights and there were other policies and values that they were voting for
I don't know, man. If they're really your friends, those should be non-negotiable.
Didn't these friends and family essentially apply purity tests to us?
I've cut off my aunt who still claims the 2020 election was stolen. The data I worked with to support fragile communities was removed/altered in the transition (CDC Social Vulnerability Index). I've already lost my job in the federal purge. I have a [former] coworker who was born intersexed that cannot be legally recognized by the government. I'll likely lose my right to marry due to my aunt's beliefs. My boyfriend will likely lose access to lifesaving medication with cuts to funding. My grandma is paying for hospice care with social security and claiming Trump is fixing the country. I'm renewing my passport; several friends have already left the country.
> I’m pretty sure that they weren’t voting for those candidates for the express purpose of stripping away those rights and there were other policies and values that they were voting for.
Well, Alabama outlawed abortion except for life of the mother. A federal judge had to rule that the state can't prosecute doctors and reproductive health organizations for helping patients travel out of the state to obtain abortions. The Project 2025 plan is for the Republican controlled Congress to at some point pass the most restrictive federal abortion law they can get away with.
That is stripping away the rights of women to choose. There are many religious conservatives who support this.
That's one possible framing. But from their perspective, they are defending the lives of innocents from those who wish to do them harm. If one accepts their framing of the issue, that's a righteous cause indeed. Why is your framing accurate, and theirs inaccurate?
You're doing what so many people do in the abortion debate, and begging the question. You can't simply sidestep deep differences of opinion on moral issues by declaring your position to be right and theirs wrong. It's wilful ignorance of a whole lot of nuance that exists on this topic, nuance that must be engaged with if one wishes to be effective in having a discussion.
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> I’m pretty sure that they weren’t voting for those candidates for the express purpose of stripping away those rights and there were other policies and values that they were voting for.
I'm sure there were people who voted for the Republican party in the last USA election for purely economic reasons. However, "anti-woke" policies were absolutely the most important issue for a lot of people. Just this week the attorney general in my state posted an "April Fool's Day Joke" where the "joke" was him standing next to a LGBT flag.
Most views on Palestine are just different priorities or different viewpoints too. You can equally say that not all support for Trump is rooted in misogyny and xenophobia, but most is. Perhaps you should not recommend that other people engage in such tolerance when you won’t.
> I think essentially tolerating other peoples opinions and trying to understand where they are coming from is more useful than applying purity tests to your friends and family.
Most of the time this is just being an enabler, who excuses, makes up rationales and blames "the other side" for not being nice enough to extremists. Especially when we talk with about fascist close groups. People who say this achieve only limitations on the opposition to extremists. They rarely or never manage to move extremist into the center.
> I’m pretty sure that they weren’t voting for those candidates for the express purpose of stripping away those rights and there were other policies and values that they were voting for.
Why are you so sure? There are plenty of conservatives who openly talk about it. It is not being tolerant when you decide that no one is allowed to do that observation. You are not being neutral here, you are biasing the discussion toward the extremism when you do it.
> I’m pretty sure that they weren’t voting for those candidates for the express purpose of stripping away those rights and there were other policies and values that they were voting for.
In some markets, about one third of the entire Trump campaign advertising was fear-mongering about how dangerous LGBTQ people are. They wouldn't have spent so much on this if they didn't think it was a uniquely important to their constituents.
I think you're unequivocally wrong if you don't think that Conservatives in the US are above voting for a single issue.
I don't know enough about the Palestine/Israel conflict to be able to make an informed opinion on it, so I won't comment on that.
> I don't know enough about the Palestine/Israel conflict to be able to make an informed opinion on it, so I won't comment on that.
Wise, given the guilt & political climate. But, see also:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_except_Palestine
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> I’m pretty sure that they weren’t voting for those candidates for the express purpose of stripping away those rights and there were other policies and values that they were voting for.
Sure. But this is that age-old meme: You know those people (most people?) in 1930s Germany who supported the Nazi party but they perhaps weren't really for annexations and genocide. You know what they call those people? Nazis.
People who voted for Trump are responsible for the fate of Ukraine, the demise of Nato, the fallout with Canada and Mexico, the inevitable inflation and economic turmoil of tariffs etc. And that's of course even if they only voted for Trump because they hold "traditional republican values", or because of single issues like gun rights, migration or taxes.
> tolerance is necessary
Tolerance stops at intolerance. You can never tolerate intolerance. Apart from that, politics also relies on a few fundamental things like the reliance on facts and experts, and respect for the rule of law. Obviously you can't ever tolerate "politics" which starts to tamper with either of these. Luckily I can keep a tribe which consists of people who agree with this, which can vote for any party in my parliament, and is 98% of the population. I'd hate to be in the US though where the tribes cut down the middle of the population.
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I actually agree, I don't think people should merely dismiss differences on issues that strike at core values -- I think it's okay to cut friends/family off on huge differences in values. I have actually done this to both left and right-leaning friends.
But what I'm arguing is that most people do not actually come to these values by way of thinking, but rather by blindly adopting them en masse from their chosen tribe.
And when they choose not to be open to the possibility they might be wrong, then they have a religion, not a intellectually-driven view.
This is okay if acknowledged imo, as per this sentence in the piece:
"If someone is self-aware enough to consciously acknowledge their choice to remain in the bubble, that’s totally fair. I respect it like I’d respect anyone who chooses to participate in a more traditional religion. My issue is when this view is falsely passed off as an intellectually-driven one."
I can appreciate comparing these immovable political stances to a "religion".
One thing I've noticed, as people get more entrenched in their viewpoint, is that they stop accepting the possibility that they're wrong, and this flawed thinking starts to extend to the wildest corners of their position.
"Well, if I'm right about the person, the person is right about everything too. And anyone who disagrees with me is therefore wrong about EVERYTHING."
It's a very shallow viewpoint, and some people just refuse to accept that they're wrong sometimes.
One way people keep themselves in bubbles is by dismissing counter opinions as being tribal or trendy. Some opinions may appear that way because the people that have them seem similar. But it could also be due to them having similar backgrounds that led them to those opinions. For example, most doctors believe in vaccines, but that's not group think, it's based in evidence that they have studied. From the outside, it might seem like group think.
correct, but then those individuals could explain those views
popularity is not the same as tribal, tribal implies a blind following -- when individuals cannot explain why they believe something
My method to discern between beliefs with intellectual backing and those from the community is by presenting them with some bizarro counterargument. If they copy/paste specific phrases and keywords, it's from the community. If they engage with the argument and refute it, then they have given them proper thought.
> For example, most doctors believe in vaccines, but that's not group think, it's based in evidence that they have studied. From the outside, it might seem like group think.
I'm willing to bet that in most cases, that is groupthink. It's hard to tell, because the conclusion is identical to one based on evidence, so you can't infer from the opinion whether it's groupthink or not.
Sometimes you can tell by how someone holds a belief. Defensiveness, unwillingness to consider ways in which their chosen belief is not 100% wholly good, or shouting someone down are evidence of groupthink. For example: if someone brings up that in the past some inactive virus vaccines contained live viruses and a doctor claims that it never happened and could never happen, that's either groupthink or just a doctor sick of arguing with uninformed patients who has given up bothering with explaining the intellectual basis of his beliefs.
My personal suspicion is that the 1% don't exist, that everyone's opinions and beliefs are a mishmash of tribalism and intellectual conclusions, it's just that the balance is very different in different people. I try very hard to make my stances intellectually based and evidence-driven, yet I continually discover that more and more of my deeply held policy positions aren't as clear cut and the real world is more nuanced than I thought.
It's not like nuance is a binary thing (by definition!)
Ah, for some reason, this is the comment that reminded me specifically of Nietzche's Master-Slave Morality[1].
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master%E2%80%93slave_morality
If you remove yourself from a group, how will they change their minds without a dissenting opinion? I had to do it myself eventually, for my own sanity, but I believe this is still a real problem I am no longer addressing among my loved ones.
In my case, my goal isn't to change anyone's mind. It's to preserve sanity -- I can't in good faith "pretend" to get along and have normal conversations when people are actively engaging in behavior that directly harms myself and others.
Could you give an example of behavior that "directly" harmed yourself or others which caused you to sever ties?
Politics is almost always indirect, usually with multiple levels of indirection.
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So, basically, you believe that everyone who doesn't strictly adhere to your own ideologies is insane.
You're pretty much the exact kind of person that the article talks about.
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Elsewhere in this thread I've said that you can have non-judgemental, solicitous conversations with anyone, just to learn how they feel or think about something.
But I agree with parent that it's perfectly justifiable to draw lines that limit potential relationships. You're not obligated to welcome everyone or tolerate views in others that have unbearable consequences for yourself. Vote with your feet.
I'm jealous of you. I've got a limited number of family members and friends and find it difficult to get more of either. I don't think I'm in a position to burn them on politics so I'll just have to take them as they are.
Wow. This is well put. Thanks. I wonder how those so quick to write others off will reflect on it at the end of life.
+1. I had to cut a lot of people out of my life after seeing the Democrats' response to October 7th. I cannot be friends with anybody who votes for candidates that support exterminating Jews.
+1. I'm cutting people out of my life who think it's justified to harass families on the street or write Nazi symbols on their property because they happen to be riding in a particular brand of car. Fascism/Nazism should not be tolerated.
I agree that’s why Musk should driven out of society
Maybe try understanding that expecting everyone to hold their nose and vote for the dog shit alternative "opposition" candidates provided is not a good litmus test for friendship either.
And I say this with all sincerity: I'm also disappointed in my friends continually voting for Democratic candidates after Obama, as it's clear the DNC will do nothing as long as they can rely on these votes. They put up losing and awful candidates while supposedly our democracy depends on it.
If I were to cut them off as friends for being part of the problem, that sounds unreasonable right?
Why does it sound unreasonable? If it's problem that affects you deeply enough, if you sincerely believe that they're a core part of that problem, then I don't see why the person you replied to would be opposed to it.
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The question then becomes how to convert a member of a tribe to ones own correct tribe. It's a very tough question to answer.
It's like spycraft during the cold war. A double agent must pass as being in both tribes for the good of their country. They literally isolate themselves from their homelands tribe to embed themselves in another. They are forever changed. They can't go back. In other words: to change another changes oneself too. It weakens ones own group identity.
Almost all people would never want to risk their identity to change another person for the good of their group. It's very risky and very painful.
Another way that the article suggests is to let people change themselves.
Lol. "Liberal" people create an echo chamber by eliminate opposing opinions and then are surprised that people elect far-right candidates.
> Until we can live in a world where fundamental rights are protected and respected
It wasn't hiding from uncomfortable things, opinions and people, that created the world where you can even think about women or minority rights, or even know how to write to express your opnions. So this approach will not create the world you described.
indeed. This kind of attitude is contrary to what is needed to produce the sort of world desired.
The conceptualization of what fundamental even means is very much subjective, so posing such a condition to dialogue is, in principle, the negation of possibility of improvement on either side.
this is the core kernel of what a tribe even is in my opinion: pose a subjective condition, divide people based on it.
The subtle art of not giving a f** had a great chapter on the importance of deciding your values, that is, what's important to you. The parent advice clearly stated what's important: living in a world where fundamental rights are protected and respected.
Clearly defined values are fine until we get more specific though. What values? Whose responsibility? And what's holding is back from achieving what we want even if our party is in charge? Is it a matter of excluding people who disagree with us? More money? Or is the utopian vision we're attempting not presently achievable?
So is an agreement on fundamental rights for everyone what you want to live your life on? Or do you have other priorities in the meantime where you can agree with people on more immediate matters?
How does having less friends actually benefit you though? It just seems dumb, because presumably you were friends for some reason.
I don't see how cutting them out creates a positive. It's like "Javy thinks men can become women", now I have one less person to play disc golf with.
What's the point of that? People can have different opinions, it's not their only character trait.
I don't have friends for the sake of "having friends". I choose the people I want to hang out with because I enjoy their company and like/respect them. Being around them makes me happy.
Similarly, people I dislike (rude or mean people, for example) make me unhappy when I'm around them. Cutting them out of my life is a net benefit there too, because I'm happier without them.
It seems to me that when some of your friends want to imprison, institutionalize, or straight-up murder some of your other friends, not taking a side and standing up for the latter group of friends is being a shitty friend.
And maybe "How does this benefit me?" isn't the right question to be asking in this situation.
"Moderates" always like to speak in vague terms as if it's not literal murder being proposed by one side. I literally know a guy who is accumulating firearms, has bumper stickers that say "kill your local pedophile", and thinks all trans people are pedophiles. This is not a person I am going to be friends with just because we play the same kind of guitar music.
> how does having less friends benefit you?
Quality over quantity for a start.
> people can have different opinions
Not every opinion deserves the same level of tolerance, respect or acceptance. If someone I know starts goose-stepping I’m not going to write it off a “just a difference in opinion.”
The other comment I made here was flagged, though it very clearly doesn't have anything in violation of the rules. It's clear that people here are using flagging to try to censor opinions they don't like.
I haven't talked to my grandmother since Trump won the first time in 2016.
It wasn't just that she voted for him, but the fact that she actively supported all of his policies around immigration, including mass deportations that would have included my wife (who was on DACA at the time). She has also said some extremely disturbing stuff about what should happen to gay people that I don't even know that I can post without breaking some form of TOS, which would be horrible already, but slightly worse to me because my sister is gay.
It's easy to say "just be neutral and don't talk about politics around her", but there are some issues with that.
First, you don't know my grandmother; no matter how much I try and avoid any political subject she will keep bringing it up. She will divert a conversation about my job as a software engineer to somehow a rant about how Mexicans are stealing American jobs (this actually happened). I could just roll my eyes and bite my tongue, but this brings me to my next point:
Second, neutrality isn't neutral. I don't really know who started this myth that somehow avoiding the subject is "not taking a side", it's just a lazy way to endorse the status quo. If I keep trying to be amicable with people who actively want my wife to be deported, then that's sort of signaling to my wife that I don't give a shit about what happens to her. I don't want to signal that, because it's not true. At that point, my only option is to either stop talking to my grandmother or talk to her and constantly push back she says something racist or horrible, which isn't productive.
Before you give me shit over this, all of you do this. You all draw the line somewhere. You probably all draw it at different points than I do, but you absolutely do draw the line. If your best friend suddenly joined the Klan and became the Grand Wizard, you probably wouldn't continue being friends with them, even if you could avoid talking politics, because that would signal that you're ok with their racism. You also probably wouldn't be friends with Jeffrey Dahmer even if you could avoid the whole "killing and eating people" topic.
As it stands, I don't really feel bad for cutting her off. I absolutely do not make a concession for age on this. If you're going to live as a grownup in 2025 then it's not wrong to judge someone by 2025 standards. I don't give a fuck what the world was like when you grew up, you have to live in the world as it is now.
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Whataboutism is outsider tribe X also does thing B therefore B is not to be argued about.
Instead maybe consider that it's thinking in tribes that's the issue at root.
Personally I think it's impossible to stop being in a tribe. One should, if free, only be able to choose the tribe to join. We can't choose not to join a tribe. Most people either are not free to choose or not willing to consider that they can choose. Freedom to choose a tribe is very scary.
Looking at how other countries do politics might help. For example did you know that conspiracy and paranoia is a characteristic strategy used in American politics? It's not used as much in other parts of the world.
It's incredibly difficult for a person to see themselves as being paranoid or to believe in a conspiracy theory. But paranoid people who believe in conspiracy theories make great tribe members. It is literally a way to make people think of things as "us vs them"
Priceless! Maybe you should move to the UK. Might be a job opening on the Guardian newspaper where you'd be welcomed with open arms. They think much the same about the British Conservatives and as for the new Reform Party - I guess they are beyond contempt.
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> The only people I have seen preaching moderation and apolitical discussion are those who voted for a particular candidate and either regret it and are too proud to admit it or are in peak cognitive dissonance.
Hello. I preach moderation and apolitical discussion. You were vague about what "particular candidate" you meant, but if you meant Trump I didn't vote for him. In fact I did not cast a vote for any presidential candidate this year because none of them was someone I wanted in office. So, you now have seen at least one person who does not match your description.
I preach moderation and apolitical discussion because the toxicity of political discussion is tearing our country in two. It is the single biggest threat our society faces today. If we cannot learn to resolve our differences (which starts with genuine attempts to reach each other even when others' actions seem reprehensible to us), this country will die. People do not, as a rule, choose evil. They are often mistaken about what is good, or disagree with each other on the best way to achieve good ends. But to round that off as "they are evil" is intellectually lazy and toxic to a civilized society.
> You cannot not discuss politics when the political scene that dictates your daily life is governed by objectively evil people and subjectively less evil people on the other side of the aisle.
If people were objectively evil, they would be considered evil by all. The fact that this has not happened is by itself proof that these people are not objectively evil, and that their evil is a matter of subjective views. If you wish to change others' views, the first step must be to recognize this so that you can formulate a plan of persuasion. Blasting people as "objectively evil" feels good, but accomplishes nothing.
> I preach moderation and apolitical discussion because the toxicity of political discussion is tearing our country in two. It is the single biggest threat our society faces today. If we cannot learn to resolve our differences
No, MAGA led by Trump, assisted by the Heritage Foundation and the tech billionaire Yarvin disciples are the biggest threat, because they have power and are in the process of implementing an autocratic takeover. It's crazy to me how many moderate, apolitical people don't see this. But I was that way a few months ago and started paying attention.
> They are often mistaken about what is good, or disagree with each other on the best way to achieve good ends.
I don't think there is any agreement to be had anymore. They don't care about the Constitution, they just want a king/CEO to force things through. What can you say about a president talking about a third term, making Canada a 51st state, claiming Greenland will 100% join the US, saying allies have been ripping us off, deporting people without due process because they had suspicious looking tattoos, calling for impeachment of judges because they ruled against Trump. Refusing to pay agencies what Congress already approved. Forcing big law agencies into making deals.
Rand Paul gave a speech tonight about how the president doesn't have the power to tax the American people, which is what tariffs are. MAGA is out to win the culture and political war. Permanently. Wake up.
agreed actually, I'm not preaching moderation or apolitical-ness, I'm arguing for merely acknowledging when a view is reason-based vs tribal in nature
see my reply to rdegges
Have they eaten two plates of food and enjoyed two drinks and then announced, “I’m a proud republican and support Trump 1000%?” Because that’s what we’re getting and we’re banning neighbors and friends we’ve had for 25 years over it.