As the election approaches, I’ve seen versions of the following ultimatum appearing more and more all over Facebook:

“If you vote Trump, you vote against my vital interests and my rights as a human being. It implies you do not respect me or people like me and think we are lesser and/or expendable. I cannot be friends with someone who does not respect me, so if you’re going to vote for Trump, please show yourself the door.”

I think this sentiment is understandable, yet misguided and can only do harm.

Consider that every election you yourself have and will continue to vote against someone’s vital interests. No policy comes without some moral cost. We live in a country of 300 million people, all with different values and a stake in the election. Redistributing wealth, making the country more or less secular, opening or closing the borders, pushing any major cultural change or keeping everything exactly the same will all result in someone losing something precious to them and probably even dying when they otherwise wouldn’t. You tacitly threw someone under the bus last time you voted or didn’t vote. But (hopefully) you voted for the candidate you thought would throw fewer people under a gentler bus. This isn’t some consequence of the limited choices available in a two party system; it’s an inevitable result of there existing people with different interests. If you’re not willing to bite that bullet, you’re deluding yourself. 

This means that if someone voted against what you consider your vital interests, they didn’t necessarily do that because they thought you mattered less than any other person. It’s likely because, by their estimate, the net interests of the USA or wider world mattered more. Hearing that your dignity and safety is secondary to some other consideration, no matter the consideration, is probably pretty hard to hear for most people, and how hard it is increases with how much you have to lose in this election, but that doesn’t make it any less true.

The point is that saying “either you follow political position of candidate X or you don’t care about me” is an obvious false dichotomy. Voting for Trump does not imply this hypothetical friend doesn’t think you matter.

In light of that, here are a few more things to consider before threatening to cut off any Trump supporting friends:

First, no one is actually going to change their political views at the last minute because you’ve emotionally blackmailed them.

Second, if you’re worried about having to look at distressing drivel they’ve posted on social media, it is possible to filter that out without actually cutting them off in real life. Blocking content from several of my more political friends is a vital part of my staying sane.

Third, remember that for whatever reason, you were friends with that person before. I would think about what that used to mean to you before showing someone the door.

By filtering your friend group by their political views, you’re letting your tribalism do the driving. You don’t really have anything to gain, and what have to lose is someone you used to care about and who probably does care about you.

 

Contact Nick Pether at npether ‘at’ stanford.edu.