Losing Friends to Politics

Art by me

Due to the public nature of blogging (and assuming anyone reads what I write lol) , sometimes I feel uncomfortable writing relatively private things/situations that deal with people I know.  But nonetheless I feel that this topic is a relatively relatable topic, so I believe it's acceptable. 

Asking someone to remove themselves from politics is like attempting to separate the art from the artist, something that should be easy in theory but pretty fucking difficult in practice. It's hard to enjoy Led Zeppelin knowing they practically ripped off all their early music, watch a Woody Allen movie without thinking about his relationship with Soon Yi. Politics informs almost everything in everyday life, an identity and ideology that is difficult to put aside. Yet is it worth to ruin perfectly good friendship over contrasting political views? 

For the sake of privacy let's call him Andy. Andy and I were really good friends for practically all of high school, with similar hobbies and complementary personalities.  Me being pretty liberal (as an Asian-American woman how could I not), my feminism and social justice quips would sometimes bleed into our conversations; actually the showed up quiet a lot. Unintentionally I began to somewhat influence Andy's political views, he would look up things about women's rights and etc on his own and report his findings in our many conversations. I was proud of my pupil. 

Then Andy got a girlfriend and began to turn the other direction. She was quietly conservative, but I didn't care because they loved each other and that's all that mattered to me. Then talking to Andy about politics became almost unbearable, especially when it came to race. He basically didn't believe that white privilege existed,  cultural appropriation is too politically correct, that people at Ferguson were incorrect to protest. Whereas before he was completely pro choice now he doesn't agree with later term abortions. Before he was okay with socialism, now he hates the idea of government run healthcare system. 

Despite this I can't really fault him for changing his political stances. It's naive to believe that all opinions, political or not, will stay the same in the transition from teenager to adult, and I'm actually quiet intrigued by his shifts in ideology. But does this make political conversations harder? Absolutely. We can't talk as in depth as before, and as a strange result I don't think we're nearly as close as we were before, for sometimes I feel as if he's much closer to apolitical friends than me. When we talk politics we're no longer on the same team anymore, fighting against evil for the greater good (cough cough Republicans). I admit I sometimes I feel guilty that my friends are pretty homogenous political wise, and that maybe I should try to talk to people outside my spectrum.

Currently Andy and I are still on pretty good terms, as long as the political discussions don't dip deeper than "Trump sucks".  And it's not like Andy and I can't agree on anything, although he'd never vote for Bernie hell would freeze over before he'd vote for Trump over Hilary. 

But if he voted for Trump I think we'd have a bigger problem.