Do You End a Close Friendship Because of Politics?

This election cycle has been challenging—brutal even—because of the very real high stakes. The policies, visions of the future, and personalities of the two parties are so starkly different. National politics are being played out in the context of people’s most intimate relationships to devastating effect. Long term friendships are ending.

Unfollowing and unfriending

I’ve seen a number of TikTok and other social media posts about unfollowing or unfriending people who voted differently from those who made the posts. Some of the posts have directly said, “You are dead to me,” while others express feelings of vulnerability and betrayal. For some, “betrayal” is too tepid; those votes were forms of emotional and moral treason or terrorism.

There are all kinds of reasons to end a friendship; feeling unsafe, betrayed, or terrorized rank high on the list. Unfriending stranger “friends” or followers on social media is easy. A person on social media should be able to curate what comes into her feed. In terms of actual real-life acquaintances and friends, where those relationships have always been fraught or you maintained them only to keep the peace with other friends or family members, you are justified in ending them. Each can curate their social lives as much as their social media. This can be an important form of self-care.

What about dear friends?

But what about ending a friendship with a person who has been your “ride or die” friend, the one who has had your back for such a long time? This is a friendship rooted in a long history of shared activities, interests, and concerns. It meets the requirements that Aristotle (384-322 BCE) sets for the best kind of friendship: mutual goodwill, where each wishes well for the other’s sake because of their good, virtuous character. This is the sort of friendship that is a necessary component of a good life. You have made each other better people over the course of the friendship. You are so connected that each of you becomes a second self to the other; your friend is a part of you.

Now you find out that this person voted for someone whose values and policies are more than appalling to you. This is why your friend’s vote is a betrayal if not moral treason. Not only have they betrayed you but the moral framework you took yourself to share. What do you do? Aristotle and Cicero (106-43 BCE) both claim that while friends can make us more virtuous, the wrong sort puts our own character at risk. If they are right that our character is the most important and precious thing about us, don’t we have a duty to ourselves to excise those friends from our lives? The answer may well be yes, but both would counsel some reflection before doing it. Moreover, how you do it matters as well.

You might first ask yourself several questions:

• Was this vote out of the blue? If so, then perhaps you didn’t know your friend as well as you thought.
• If your friend has always been honest with you about her beliefs and values, what is different now from earlier elections? Did her beliefs affect your willingness to help and support her before or your willingness to be helped and supported by her?
• Can you see any value in having people in your life with whom you disagree? Can disagreement ever be fruitful and beneficial?
• Will ending this friendship help you to further other moral and political commitments?
• Can you focus on shared values or interests rather than political positions? Might there be something that functions as some common ground for rebuilding or renovating your relationship?

This last question reminds me of Alcoholics Anonymous, where the shared focus—the very reason for our presence in meetings—is to stay sober and help others achieve sobriety. In the regular courses of our lives, we would probably never meet each other, never mind spend so much time together. Yet here we are living with a shared condition and relying on each other to help keep us sober. Our personalities, personal moral beliefs, values, and political affiliations are not the bases of our caring for each other.

If you have reflected on that friendship and do decide to end it, Cicero wisely counsels us to take as much care in ending it as we had when we originally cultivated and enjoyed it. He offers several suggestions:

• Where you can, end a friendship gradually rather than abruptly. It is better to unstitch a garment than it is to rend it.
• Avoid hostility and enmity. How you end a friendship may affect your character.
• End the friendship yourself directly and clearly when you can. Don’t enlist others to do it for you. Don’t be cryptic.

Ending such a friendship may feel liberating. It may feel like a relief. It may also feel like an incredible loss, so don’t be surprised by grief. You have lost what you thought was your second self.