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How is this election affecting your personal relationships?

nala

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Are you engaging in dialogue with your loved ones? Are you avoiding discussions for fear they turn into arguments? How do you tolerate friends and loved ones who claim to hate one of the candidates but keep repeating that they have no other choice? And these are people you love and respect.
 

kenny

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Re: How is this election affecting your personal relationshi

This election does not affect my relationships at all.

My SO and I rarely discuss politics, but are on the same page.
I have friends/neighbors/students whom I'm ceratin will vote Republican but politics just doesn't come up.

It may come as a surprise to PS readers, but I do have a clue about manners and discretion.
In person people could punch me. :bigsmile:
 

aljdewey

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Re: How is this election affecting your personal relationshi

No, it's not affecting my relationships - largely because I'm purposefully avoiding engaging in discussion altogether if I sense I and they are not on the same page.

There was sage advice from long ago that said never to discuss politics, money or religion.....and there's a reason that's a tried/true adage. :naughty:

Unfortunately, with modern day technology and social media, it's not as easy as 'don't talk about it" anymore. Folks feel compelled to declare their allegiances all over social media AND try to rationalize why they feel they are right in their beliefs. This has been the hardest issue for me; it's literally hard not to lose a bit of respect for those friends' judgment or critical thinking skills (or lack thereof).

I love these friends, so I've chosen to do my best to just scroll past anything that might lessen my esteem. Beyond a rare forum post here or there, I don't really comment on the situation overall, so my friends don't have to endure my rationalizations (which I'm sure they'd likely find equally baffling).

My largest worry is what happens AFTER the election. No matter who wins, the "other" side will be brought up at every single turn post-election, so I despair that this is going to go on for much longer than November.
 

kenny

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Re: How is this election affecting your personal relationshi

Oh Yeah, social media. Duh!

I'm not FB or any others.
I'm only on fora where I'm anonymous.
 

Arcadian

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Re: How is this election affecting your personal relationshi

I don't openly engage on places like facebook, linkedin, or twitter, which is where I have to be very careful considering the type of work I do. My mother and I are very close to being on the same page. My father rarely talks politics. My siblings know better...they don't engage me :lol:

My other half and I do talk about it. We sometimes agree to disagree though neither of us likes the so called top 2 choices.
 

chrono

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Re: How is this election affecting your personal relationshi

I avoid discussing politics with family members but DH and I are on the same page.
 

momhappy

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Re: How is this election affecting your personal relationshi

The biggest impact for me was happening on FB. I had some friends that were posting in-your-face, several-times-per-day political updates. Once I hit the "unfollow" button, we can remain friends and I don't have to see their politics :lol:
 

sstephensid

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Re: How is this election affecting your personal relationshi

I have definitely unfriended people on facebook. We can have differing political views, but this election is different. It has brought out a lot of racial and sexist behaviors. I can't be friends with someone who supports, "Editor’s note: Donald Trump regularly incites political violence and is a serial liar, rampant xenophobe, racist, misogynist and birther who has repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims — 1.6 billion members of an entire religion — from entering the U.S." quoted from huffington post.
 

redwood66

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Re: How is this election affecting your personal relationshi

I don't allow my personal views or someone else's to affect my relationship with them. We can agree or not agree and I still love them. I have a sense of decency and decorum with people that I also use here on PS. I do not judge or persecute someone for their beliefs online or in person. I feel that I should be able to see Deb or Monnie or Tekate or Gypsy in person and never be ashamed of something I might have said that would have been hurtful without having worked it out eventually. Its called respect. We can disagree but should never be disrespectful because we feel empowered by anonymity and a keyboard.

JMHO.

:wavey:
 

ruby59

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Re: How is this election affecting your personal relationshi

I have never used Facebook and probably never will.

My husband and I are on the same page. We are from av decidedly blue state so our two votes probably will not matter.

But we refuse to vote for the lesser of two evils.

I thought reading here and listening to the debates would change my mind. But so far, nope, I will not be voting and neither will he.
 

missy

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Re: How is this election affecting your personal relationshi

I am trying not to allow it to affect my personal relationships but as sstephensid said this election has shown me behavior and views of some people that were an unpleasant surprise so to some extent it has caused me to change the way I feel about them. I guess I would rather know than not know however.

I love and respect many people who have different political (and other) views and it is fine to differ politically etc from friends. Just supporting a candidate that I don't support doesn't make me feel differently about someone. But some people during the course of the election process have shown me another side of them while discussing issues that I just cannot and will not respect. For those people yes my feelings have changed. There are just some (lack of) values I won't respect.
 

monarch64

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Re: How is this election affecting your personal relationshi

redwood66|1476303310|4086324 said:
I don't allow my personal views or someone else's to affect my relationship with them. We can agree or not agree and I still love them. I have a sense of decency and decorum with people that I also use here on PS. I do not judge or persecute someone for their beliefs online or in person. I feel that I should be able to see Deb or Monnie or Tekate or Gypsy in person and never be ashamed of something I might have said that would have been hurtful without having worked it out eventually. Its called respect. We can disagree but should never be disrespectful because we feel empowered by anonymity and a keyboard.

JMHO.

:wavey:


Yup, this is so true. In my personal life I have many who side with the opposing party to mine. We are all still cool. My childhood best friend as well as my college roommate who was a bridesmaid in my first wedding are Trump supporters. I admit being a little shocked to see them posting their support on Facebook, but there is no way I could love them any less or lose any amount of respect for them. Just like religion. I don't care what you practice as long as it doesn't hurt anyone. In the end, I'm a humanist. What any person really wants is to know that they are respected and that they matter in society. It isn't hard to give that to people.
 

OreoRosies86

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Re: How is this election affecting your personal relationshi

I've removed a grand total of 2 people from my friends list and life.

It's ok to not want to keep friends who don't jive with your personal ethics code. If one of my friends supports sexual misconduct, racism, doesn't want gay people to have rights, etc. they have no place in my life offline or otherwise. Bye! Next!
 

lyra

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Re: How is this election affecting your personal relationshi

It shouldn't have any effect, as we're Canadians. Unfortunately, I've found that we are strongly not on the same page in this election period. My husband SAYS he doesn't support Trump, but then he seems to find ways to agree with him a lot. I have to leave the room. We have fought about it. :nono: We definitely have opposing views, but in our own country's politics, we can at least agree on some things.
 

AGBF

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Re: How is this election affecting your personal relationshi

Last year (I think) I got into an argument with the male partner of our lovely next door neighbors in Virginia. We have known them for over ten years and are quite close. Like my husband, they are conservative Republicans. When we first met them, there was some hostility between this man and me, but we worked it out. He started to tease me for my politics and I never took umbrage at it. He called me ""pinko (my nickname". I just let everything they said roll off my back. Once in a while I uttered a barbed comment in disagreement and they laughed. No serious discussions.

Then last year this man and I suddenly started to discuss Barack Obama's birth certificate. Actually, in the beginning, all three of were discussing it, but the wife left the discussion as the temperature rose. It was she who kept trying to persuade me that information had been "redacted" in Hawaii and that that was proof that the birth certificate had been tampered with. Eventually he was heated and I was actually shouting.

It ended up with my apologizing in person, then on the phone, then with a letter from Connecticut. (Not that they hadn't said it was OK. They had. Each time I apologized. But I knew it was truly not OK.) I really couldn't believe I had done that. We have been able to resume our friendship, but since I no longer live next door, it is hard to get back on the bicycle in quite the same way (so to speak).

I am extremely careful now. I thought I was careful back then, but I think with the stressors in my life I let my guard down too much with these people I was close to. With God's help (and I mean that), I will never do anything like that again.

Deb
 

Gypsy

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Re: How is this election affecting your personal relationshi

Elliot86|1476306814|4086348 said:
I've removed a grand total of 2 people from my friends list and life.

It's ok to not want to keep friends who don't jive with your personal ethics code. If one of my friends supports sexual misconduct, racism, doesn't want gay people to have rights, etc. they have no place in my life offline or otherwise. Bye! Next!

I am most inclined to agree with this and redwood.

Problem is all those who don't 'jive' are relatives. Not friends. So much harder to deal with.

I have lost all respect for several relatives though.
 

redwood66

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Re: How is this election affecting your personal relationshi

Thankfully I do not have friends or relatives that I am in contact with who are morally bankrupt. I tend to shed these types very early before any type of relationship develops.
 

telephone89

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Re: How is this election affecting your personal relationshi

Elliot86|1476306814|4086348 said:
I've removed a grand total of 2 people from my friends list and life.

It's ok to not want to keep friends who don't jive with your personal ethics code. If one of my friends supports sexual misconduct, racism, doesn't want gay people to have rights, etc. they have no place in my life offline or otherwise. Bye! Next!
I haven't deleted anyone yet, but I am very close to doing so for 1 person.

As a Canadian, it has little bearing to me on who wants to vote for who, what bothers me is when people post racist/sexist/etc bullshit on social media - they agree with it. One of the people that's been posting this pro-trump white supremacy shit has a Philipino wife and mixed race kids. But he posts all this gross stuff. Unfortunately I like her, but I think I might be cutting them both (and their kids) out because of him.

For actual personal relationships, there has been little effect, except laughing at americans over lunch hour lol (sorry guys). I honestly only know that 1 person who agrees with anything trump has to say. Even the most conservative, older, wealthy white men in my life don't get his appeal. So we generally joke about how silly it all is, discuss his latest antics and go on with our day. There is no animosity regarding it.
 

LadyMCh

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Re: How is this election affecting your personal relationshi

Gypsy|1476307111|4086351 said:
Elliot86|1476306814|4086348 said:
I've removed a grand total of 2 people from my friends list and life.

It's ok to not want to keep friends who don't jive with your personal ethics code. If one of my friends supports sexual misconduct, racism, doesn't want gay people to have rights, etc. they have no place in my life offline or otherwise. Bye! Next!

I am most inclined to agree with this and redwood.

Problem is all those who don't 'jive' are relatives. Not friends. So much harder to deal with.

I have lost all respect for several relatives though.


I'm with y'all on this one.

I can't say I'm surprised by my relatives, though. I love them, but they're the kind of people who make me question democracy sometimes! :lol: I still like/love a lot of people that I don't respect the opinions of. Heck, I have family and friends that I wouldn't trust to pick where we should go out to eat, let alone the president!

To answer OP's question: We don't live near our families, so when we talk to them, we just don't talk politics. If one of them brings it up, we simply shut it down.
 

Dancing Fire

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Re: How is this election affecting your personal relationshi

Not affecting our relationship but my brother is a radical left winger... :wacko: I don't mind a little left but he is way left... :wacko: We always get into an argument about politics when I see him... :bigsmile:
 

Tekate

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Re: How is this election affecting your personal relationshi

nala|1476298584|4086268 said:
Are you engaging in dialogue with your loved ones? Are you avoiding discussions for fear they turn into arguments? How do you tolerate friends and loved ones who claim to hate one of the candidates but keep repeating that they have no other choice? And these are people you love and respect.

Doesn't affect my relationships at all. If a family member is on the other side we don't speak of it.
 

nala

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Re: How is this election affecting your personal relationshi

missy|1476304861|4086333 said:
I am trying not to allow it to affect my personal relationships but as sstephensid said this election has shown me behavior and views of some people that were an unpleasant surprise so to some extent it has caused me to change the way I feel about them. I guess I would rather know than not know however.

I love and respect many people who have different political (and other) views and it is fine to differ politically etc from friends. Just supporting a candidate that I don't support doesn't make me feel differently about someone. But some people during the course of the election process have shown me another side of them while discussing issues that I just cannot and will not respect. For those people yes my feelings have changed. There are just some (lack of) values I won't respect.

I guess this is where I am and wanted to see how others deal with it. It's not that I don't know not to discuss politics, but many times others initiate and even if I don't engage, I can't I hear what they said. How do I respect others who imo show no sensitivity or common sense? And if I don't respect them, do I just avoid them and. For how long?

How do you respect people if you don't respect their values? Don't we all act based on our values? Speaking is an action. Making decisions is an action. The way people view others is an action. So how is it possible to separate the person from the values?
 

Tekate

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Re: How is this election affecting your personal relationshi

redwood66|1476303310|4086324 said:
I don't allow my personal views or someone else's to affect my relationship with them. We can agree or not agree and I still love them. I have a sense of decency and decorum with people that I also use here on PS. I do not judge or persecute someone for their beliefs online or in person. I feel that I should be able to see Deb or Monnie or Tekate or Gypsy in person and never be ashamed of something I might have said that would have been hurtful without having worked it out eventually. Its called respect. We can disagree but should never be disrespectful because we feel empowered by anonymity and a keyboard.

JMHO.

:wavey:

:) I feel the same Red, I have strong feelings, but I have stronger feelings and friends and people who have been there for me! look forward to hitting up a get together sometime and meeting everyone!

Peace!
 

ruby59

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Re: How is this election affecting your personal relationshi

I have friends who have opinions ranging the spectrum.

But I do not judge them, and they do not judge me - like some here do.

And our friendships are able to accommodate our differences because we know each of us is not a bad person for having them. So we would not think of writing each other off because of them.

Same with our extended families.
 

OreoRosies86

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Re: How is this election affecting your personal relationshi

I have like one weird family member who rants about abortion and thinks Obama is a Muslim. Everyone else is fine.

Friends are the family you choose, and I choose to surround myself with forward thinkers.
 

ruby59

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Re: How is this election affecting your personal relationshi

Elliot86|1476320549|4086431 said:
I have like one weird family member who rants about abortion and thinks Obama is a Muslim. Everyone else is fine.

Friends are the family you choose, and I choose to surround myself with forward thinkers.

And are you the judge and jury of who qualifies?

I prefer those who are free thinkers.
 

YadaYadaYada

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Re: How is this election affecting your personal relationshi

A friend of mine is a cop and she called me up one day and told me if I was voting for Clinton she couldn't be friends with me anymore. It was while the riots were going on so she was understandably considered for her well being.

Another person on FB posted to all her friends demanding any Trump supporters unfriend her.

At the end of the day, I don't talk about politics, have no interest really and so don't have a horse in this race so I just let people say what they will and keep it moving.
 

distracts

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Re: How is this election affecting your personal relationshi

I don't know any Republicans in real life, so it's not affecting my relationships. I know a few people who are voting third-party and we argue about it long and often, but those are usually people I argue with all the time anyway, like, socially, so that's standard.
 

Calliecake

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Re: How is this election affecting your personal relationshi

I only talk politics with a few friends and my dad. A good friend recently said she is voting for Trump. She is 50 and has never voted before so I was surprised when she started talking politics. She then proceeded to tell how good Trump will be for women. Our get together this week should be interesting. We will definitely disagree but I can't see either one of us letting it effect our friendship. We have been there for each other for way too many years to let something like politics come between us.

My dad hated Trump earlier this year but now defends him. We argue about politics all the time but it doesn't get heated often.
 

Dancing Fire

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Re: How is this election affecting your personal relationshi

CC, your dad is a smart man... :wink2:
 
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