Relationship Casualties

Has your relationship circle (marriages, friendships, acquaintances, etc.) been torn apart because of politics and you don’t understand why? Let’s talk about it.

For many—hereafter just referred to as friends, politics isn’t about one or two policies a candidate may promote. It’s not about the ethnicity of the candidate. It’s not even about the political party they represent.

Politics is perceived as a statement of how the candidate feels people should be treated. When you embrace a candidate, it’s seen as your personal statement of how you think people—your friends—should be treated. Your statement of the value you have placed on them as a human being.

It’s heavy. It’s serious. It’s personal. It far exceeds the November election.

Think about everything that has been attached to the political candidate you have embraced: reports, reveals, raw video, recordings, speeches, etc. Think about everything they represent: the good, the bad and the ugly.

Now, think about your friends and their varied, devastating, and life altering experiences: sexual assault, discrimination, cheating spouses, degradation, racism, bigotry, etc. How do you think they feel when they’re on the receiving end of the fall out of the politics you support?

You may discount it as being inconsequential or even false, but for them, it’s very real and could possibly mean life or death because the fall out may be resulting in a bullseye being placed on their backs.

You join with others who agree with your politics and add your jeers and taunts. Each one is a knife to your friend’s gut.

Even if unvoiced, for your friend, it may have boiled down to one question: How can you really love them and embrace the politics that say they and people like them really don’t matter?