Divorcing over Trump
Yes, it happens:
“It totally undid me that he could vote for Trump,” said McCormick, 73, who had not thought of leaving the conservative Republican before but felt “betrayed” by his support for Trump.
“I felt like I had been fooling myself,” she said. “It opened up areas between us I had not faced before. I realized how far I had gone in my life to accept things I would have never accepted when I was younger.”…
Sixteen percent said they have stopped talking to a family member or friend because of the election – up marginally from 15 percent. That edged higher, to 22 percent, among those who voted for Democrat Hillary Clinton. Overall, 13 percent of respondents said they had ended a relationship with a family member or close friend over the election, compared to 12 percent in October.
I find this incredibly sad. But not surprising.
I wonder how conservatives responded in this respect when Obama won in 2008 and 2016. There was plenty of conservative teeth-gnashing then, but I don’t recall any stories about cons dumping libs then.
huxley:
I know a conservative who left her husband over politics during the Bush years. They later got back together.
I think if my two oldest sisters knew how I voted, I would probably get the silent treatment from both at best. Both basically went batshit insane after the election, forecasting the dark descent of dictatorship and the reintroduction of Jim Crow and homosexuals being forced back underground. I wish I were exaggerating, but I am not.
This is sad. The center can not hold.
My husband and I, married 44 years, have always seen eye to eye politically. We’re both on the right and it’s been a great bond between us, but I’m horrified by Trump and he’s gleeful about him. I agree with whoever said politics is downstream of culture, and I fear that the ramping up of hostility between red and blue will end with blood in the streets.
It won’t end my marriage though. I won’t give it the satisfaction.
So? Divorce is now Trump’s fault?
mizpants,
Horrified? I am not gleeful, but I smile every time I remember hrc will never be POTUS.
I find djt’s character a tad off putting, but on a scale of 10 I give him a 6.5 so far. We will see.
I think the key to all of this is that some people think that Trump is equal to Hitler, not just as some hyperbolic metaphor but in truth, in fact. So, even if you’d been married for 50 years, if you thought your spouse had turned into a Nazi, that might be reason indeed for leaving.
The fact that Trump is not Hitler and supporting him does not mean a person has become a Nazi isn’t all that relevant to understanding the phenomenon.
I know it’s pedantic, but the couple in the article are separating, not divorcing:
I came across your blog through your Leonard Cohen posts a few months back (I’m also a big fan of his). Your writing has been eye-opening for me; it helped break me out of the “Trump is Hitler” mindset. Thanks for all the work you put into this.
As the saying goes, Trump is just a symptom that something else is wrong.
What troubles me is the friends of mine who only think about this, about Trump, it’s the first and seemingly only thing in their mind. No books, no movies, nothing but perpetually reignited indignation. This makes them insufferably boring.
It also makes them sound so stupid. I’m really wondering right now whether I want to talk to some of these people ever again.
Slightly off-topic is this, from the Washington Free Beacon on Feb. 14:
“Michael Flynn was one of the Obama administration’s fiercest critics after he was forced out of the Defense Intelligence Agency,” said Lake, who described “the political assassination of Michael Flynn” in his [Bloomberg View] column published early Tuesday.
“[Flynn] was a withering critic of Obama’s biggest foreign policy initiative, the Iran deal,” Lake said. “He also publicly accused the administration of keeping classified documents found in the Osama bin Laden raid that showed Iran’s close relationship with al Qaeda. He was a thorn in their side.”
Lake noted in his column that he does not buy fully the White House’s official spin on Flynn’s resignation.
“For a White House that has such a casual and opportunistic relationship with the truth, it’s strange that Flynn’s ‘lie’ to Pence would get him fired,” Lake wrote. “It doesn’t add up.”
*********************
The forced resignation of Flynn is a most disturbing basis for concern about Trump, his motives, his direction.
Article does not report Mr McCormick’s reaction. Is there anything to the rumor that he was seen walking around with a big smile?
We simply do not discuss politics with daughters and grand children since the election. Early on, the daughters tried to go off on us, and we told them to “stifle themselves”, before they created a chasm. Frankly, my patience with this hysteria has been exhausted. I am transitioning from irritated to angry.
It’s been over two weeks since an old friend sent me a one-sentence email about being polarized by Donald Trump and the emergence of “right wing Fascist America.”
I asked him to elaborate. I later sent him two chatty emails about some liberal tv and comedy subjects we have discussed in the past.
Still no reply.
I’ve lost a number of liberal friends.
My liberal FIL after the election is busy on Facebook telling family members that Trump = Hitler, there is no God (he is also an atheist), healthcare is a right and if we could all concentrate on the worlds problems we could solve them all. Most of the family are deeply religious and he basically tells them they are stupid for believing in a mythical character. What he thinks of as discussion quickly becomes a berating with him acting superior all the time. It is so off putting that just about all his family, including my hubs and me, are just ignoring him. I think he feeds off it when he riles up the family. I can’t at all believe that he thinks that what he is doing is going to change minds or is in any way making some kind of point.
As we say here in the South…. “Bless His Heart”
I am wondering what he is going to say when no family wants to visit at all or invite him to be around them. Once again, for someone with such a reportedly high IQ, he sure doesn’t have any common sense.
ArmyMon,
High IQ and a PhD often, but not always, means zero common sense. Those people tend to believe their feces do not stink. They are pure, they are superior, they know everything we peasants are too mud splattered and dumb to appreciate their wisdom. That is their weakness and their self created nemesis.
Who knows — maybe we’ll soon see the same thing happening with couples who both voted for Trump, but one now thinks CPAC’s inviting Milo Yiannopoulos to be the keynote speaker at its conference next week is just fine and dandy, while the other is horrified.
The Lefists will continue to have their tantrums for the next 8, yes, 8 years.
http://manningthewall.com
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUDY17Xg_Ix5kaenkryh63g
https://twitter.com/manningthewall
In one of my social work classes focusing clinical assessment & mental disorders my professor talked about the rise of anxiety disorders among children between the 50’s and 90’s. With the text the class was using it was implied that the social and historical happenings during that time period might’ve aided to the spike.
A classmate of mine wondered aloud in our discussion group if we would see another spike in anxiety disorders due to the Trump administration. If last year’s campus rants and public protests signify anything I’d say yes.
Huxley: “I’ve lost a number of liberal friends.”
Me too – only it was me who was the “traitor” since I openly did not support Obama.
But, I’ve tried to look at it this way: if they didn’t consider me a friend any more because of who I voted for then they weren’t true friends in the first place. Kind of sad; but, I think that is reality.