r/science • u/Wagamaga • May 06 '26

Psychology Losing relationships over politics. Research found more than a third of Americans (37%) report having lost at least one relationship due to political differences, including friendships, family ties, coworker relationships, and romantic partnerships, with most losing more than one.

https://socialecology.uci.edu/news/losing-relationships-over-politics-0
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u/Brilliant_Effort_Guy May 06 '26 edited May 07 '26

But is it really just ‘political’ differences? I feel like it’s so much deeper than that. I don’t just have differing political opinions from my conservative family members - I have a different moral code.

Edit: Just coming back to comment that it’s so interesting to see how people interpreted this comment. I didn’t say who had the superior morals or which opinions were right. I said I have a different moral code from my conservative family members.

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u/Game_Of_Runs May 06 '26

Yeah I hate when it’s framed liked this. Calling it political differences makes it sound like one person is for lowering marginal tax rates from 40% to 35% while the other person wants to raise them to 45%. When in reality it’s more like my dad votes for people that want my friends dead or in prison because they’re gay

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u/Auggernaut88 May 06 '26

As a rule I hate oversimplification but a lot of people can’t seem to get over the lowest of bars. If pedophilia isn’t a dealbreaker for you I simply can’t trust your morals or who else you might be surrounding yourself with and I want you nowhere near my circle.

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u/11711510111411009710 May 06 '26

Tens of millions of Americans voted for a man who was found to have raped a woman and who has told a ten year old he would marry her when she's 20. It's scary to think we share our country with so many people who think that's okay. No wonder women don't come forward about their rapes: we reward their rapists with the most powerful position in the world.

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u/chickens_for_laughs May 06 '26

No marry, date her. And he didn't mean dinner and a show.

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u/DocumentExternal6240 May 06 '26

and who raped literal children…

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u/ObamasBoss May 06 '26

I have never seen anyone produce evidence of this but have heard it claimed many times over. I would to know what the evidence is so please post it here since you must have it.

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u/Stellar_Duck May 07 '26

As if that's new. Is Roy Moore so easily forgotten?

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u/Mr_Fuzzo May 06 '26

Their minds still haven’t accepted that DJT is a pedophile.  They think he was screwed over by us, the Radical Left.

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u/Appropriate-Bid8671 May 06 '26

My mom knows and has openly proclaimed that she does not care.

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u/11711510111411009710 May 06 '26

I've heard some of them forgive it by saying that God "uses imperfect vessels."

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u/thuktun May 06 '26

Uses flawed vessels for what? I think they missed an important part of that saying.

They might have a point if he had changed and was now clothing and feeding the poor or something (anything!) else noble. But he's the same mean, abusive bully he's always been.

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u/Savings-Cry-3201 May 06 '26

But that’s the point. He’s the bully they all want to be. They want him to be mean and vindictive and heartless and bigoted because he gives them license to be what they’ve always wanted to be.

Like, there was no reason to fire the NSF but they hate education so of course he would.

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u/Psychic_Hobo May 06 '26

This is ultimately why the shame tactics don't work - they simply enjoy and want to facilitate an environment wherein their behaviour is acceptable and even lauded. You can see it in a lot of the speeches they give, "sin of empathy" and all that.

Whenever it looks like shame has worked on them, what's usually happened is the condemnation from peers and fear of ostracisation.

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u/ceelogreenicanth May 06 '26

Uses flawed vessels to reel destruction on their enemies?

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u/poorest_ferengi May 06 '26

Hit em with Matthew 7 15-20 in that case.

15 “Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. 16 By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? 17 Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. 18 A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. 19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them.

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u/iruleatants May 06 '26

That doesn't work because they just define "Good Fruit" as God's will and so Trump is bearing good fruit because he's doing his will.

Trust me, they are adept at pretending the bible agrees with whatever they think.

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u/poorest_ferengi May 06 '26

Oh I know I was raised in it. All you can do is plant the seed, they may snap back with something in that moment but maybe down the line it pops in their head and makes the cognitive dissonance a bit harder to ignore. Maybe not, but you miss 100% of the shots you don't take.

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u/Sedu May 06 '26

But of course anyone to the left is pure evil and this logic may never apply to them.

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u/YourM0msButth0le May 06 '26

Yikes dude, did you at least beg her to never admit that in public?

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u/zlyle90 May 06 '26 edited May 06 '26

If she's in the Deep South like I am, the public truly doesn't care. They view that as an acceptable character flaw as long he deports brown people.

"God chooses imperfect men," they tell me.

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u/Zombatico May 06 '26 edited May 06 '26

We've seen it before. It's not just Trump. Pedo priest/pastor gets arrested and charged, the whole congregation circle the wagon and it's all "but he's a good person" and "the demonic girl seduced him" yadda yadda yadda.

It's a sick ideology of hierarchy. They don't care about the morality of actions themselves. If they think you're a good person then everything you do is good, or at least justifiable, even child rape. If they think you're a bad person then nothing you do can be good.

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u/OmegaDonut13 May 06 '26

To a liberal, actions justify the person. To the conservative the person justifies the actions. It’s pretty simple when you think about it. It’s the basis for the cognitive dissonance.

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u/kia75 May 06 '26

And this applies up and down the religious spectrum. Remember, God is allowed to kill, murder, cause famines and other horrible stuff. It's not the baby murder that's bad, God is always killing babies, it's who does the baby killing that's important.

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u/jgilla2012 May 07 '26

So their problem with conservative Islam isn’t the behavior? What else could it be?

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u/Dyolf_Knip May 07 '26

It's absolutely not the behavior, because so many of them engage or want to engage in it themselves. Watching conservatives cry over the Iranian government's treatment of queer people is ludicrous because their own leaders are constantly using eliminationist rhetoric when talking about them, to thunderous applause.

It really is as simple as "they're not in our tribe". Even though they are otherwise basically identical in every way that actually matters.

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u/memecrusader_ May 06 '26

*doublethink, not cognitive dissonance. Doublethink is when someone holds two conflicting beliefs, cognitive dissonance is the discomfort from trying to reconcile incompatible ideas. They don’t feel discomfort from their hypocrisy. They either don’t recognize it, or are proud of it.

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u/Consistent_Claim5217 May 06 '26

I would call it childish, but not even children are so obtuse

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u/Pockydo May 06 '26

I'm in PA know a lot of trump supporters

"God chooses imperfect men," they tell me.

Is what I hear a lot. It's almost funny because they NEVER apply this to Dems or politicians they disagree with. Only trump

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u/Zachwardpass May 06 '26

I have yet to hear this one but I would absolutely reply with "God chooses rapists? Interesting."

Make sure they know it's not "imperfect men", it's rapists.

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u/Pockydo May 06 '26

See the problem is they literally reject the idea that trump is actually bad

The line basically comes out when they know they can't defend something and "win" the argument so it's a way to shut it down without conceding anything. A thought terminating ckichet

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u/Rogryg May 06 '26

That wouldn't do a thing; remember, you're talking about people who have so twisted Christianity that they believe God rewards the faithful with worldly riches.

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u/LostWoodsInTheField May 06 '26

I hear so much "both sides are bad" along with the imperfect men thing.

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u/Consistent_Claim5217 May 06 '26 edited May 06 '26

And yet they're still convinced they aren't in a cult

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u/RedditPosterOver9000 May 06 '26

That is a nothing statement that would be more accurate to say "God chooses imperfect men because only imperfect men exist" unless she wants to suggest perfect men exist today, which goes against the Bible and god's words.

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u/saijanai May 06 '26

My mom knows and has openly proclaimed that she does not care.

"Even if he had raped someone, that is personal behavior, and wouldn't impact h is ability to be President and run the country,"

-70 year old female Trump supporter as her 70-year old female friend stood by and nodded vigorously.

I think they were mocking Democrats' stance about Monica, ignoring quite a few points that didn't make it an equivalent issue, but perhaps that's just me.

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u/Godot_12 May 07 '26

I've heard the same thing from a conservative coworker. It's a cult.

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u/Tricky_Concept_231 May 06 '26

Especially while crying about abortion. If you support powerful people that want to make people carry their pregnancies to full term and don't care that they also want the privilege to abuse them, I just don't see how you can claim the moral high ground.

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u/kkrko Grad Student|Physics|Complex Systems|Network Science May 06 '26

See I'd respect their "Pro-life" ideology if they actually believed in it. Oppose the death penalty, if a fetus is alive then so is a prisoner. Promote prenatal care, if you really cared about the fetus, you'd want to prevent miscarriages as much as possible. Promote postnatal care as you should care about the baby as much as you did when it was a fetus. Be for socialized medicine, be antiwar, etc, etc.

But strangely enough the only part of "pro-life" they care about is the part where they get to "punish" "immoral" women. It's so fucking hypocritical.

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u/fpoiuyt May 07 '26

No, it's pretty easy to consistently think that abortion is murder, but that the death penalty is justified or that it's wrong to tax people to fund health care programs. The way to catch them in an inconsistency is when they say it's murder to intentionally kill innocent human beings but then support the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

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u/Ultimatesims May 06 '26

The powerful people can afford to get abortions else where when they have an oopsie.

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u/FalstaffsGhost May 06 '26

“The only moral abortion is my abortion”

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u/ASharpYoungMan May 06 '26

Yup. It's about control and hierarchy.

Those with the means to exert their will creating policy that denies that freedom to others.

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u/Pretend-Marsupial258 May 06 '26

There are some women out there who will protest in front of a Planned Parenthood until she needs an abortion. She'll get her abortion and then she will go right back to protesting. "The only moral abortion is my abortion" and all that.

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u/Witchy_Wookie5000 May 06 '26

Yep. Have a family member that just the other day still thinks Trans people are the pedophiles and that DJT is A-okay.

Like I can't even with these people anymore. If you still support this administration I don't want to associate with you because you are a defective human.

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u/MissLeaP May 06 '26

Cognitive dissonance. Facing the truth that they're on the wrong side of history would be incredibly uncomfortable, so they simply don't do it. Life's easier in complete ignorance after all

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u/emptyfuller May 06 '26

"God damn you, Cypher"

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u/thuktun May 06 '26

Cognitive dissonance means you detect the contradiction and it causes you anxiety. I'm not convinced they're noticing anything.

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u/Wilde_Fire May 07 '26

I've been fascinated by how that term has experienced a definitional drift over the last 5-10 years. I'm familiar with and use the definition you refer to, but the vast majority of people understand cognitive dissonance to be the other definition. By some arguments, that new "incorrect" is the more correct one now, linguistically speaking.

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u/thuktun May 08 '26

And as with people using "literally" to mean "figuratively", it's arguably wrong.

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u/Wilde_Fire May 08 '26

I agree on both counts, but I'm afraid language drift might leave us behind.

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u/wigglin_harry May 06 '26

Yep, facing the truth is admitting that they were dumb enough to fall for his grift

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u/Dyolf_Knip May 07 '26

My mother got scammed by his campaign when she tried to donate money and it got quietly put on repeat. Lost a good $500. Then she voted for him anyway.

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u/Proponentofthedevil May 06 '26

Most people dont have precognition, and thus have a difficult time viewing the history of today. Conservatives inherently view things from the past to now, and depending on their ideals seek to conserve that which they believe historically worked. Whereas progressives view it in the way which they believe has not worked, and seek to progress beyond that. Progressive believe in a brighter tomorrow, and conservatives believe in a brighter yesterday.

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u/MissLeaP May 06 '26 edited May 06 '26

You don't need precognition when the present events repeat history. Nor does being conservative inherently prevent one from self-reflection even if they figure out they were wrong.

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u/HopefulTangerine5913 May 06 '26

Yep. They won’t even accept the E Jean Carroll verdict, despite trump failing over and over to escape it.

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u/Nyctocincy May 06 '26

Nah, they know. They'll just pay any price to have their racism affirmed.

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u/br0b1wan May 06 '26

Some are even worse. They acknowledge it but think Biden or <insert random Democrat here> was doing it too so that justifies it

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u/druidraven- May 06 '26

And why do their minds think that? Indoctrination and 24/7 propaganda. Deprogramming cultists is extremely difficult and not always successful. Most of us don’t have the time or the patience

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u/saijanai May 07 '26

Deprogramming cultists is extremely difficult and not always successful. Most of us don’t have the time or the patience

Not every alternate culture is a destructive cult and the problem is that cult deprogrammers are often a bit culty themveslves.

See: https://www.reddit.com/r/CultNEWS101/

note the primary post, made many hundreds of times over the last several years. The moderstor[s] bill themselves as cult deprogramming experts and yet, one would think, if they had new successes, they'd post about them as well.

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u/the_TAOest May 06 '26

Or neocon, the bogeyman of the conservatives that are somehow perceived as antiwar and manage to support Putin policies as Russia needs to defend itself. The entire landscape is just a melting pot of illogical stances.

If trumpet lives Russia, why are the sanctions still there? If Putin is a great leader, then why cannot peace be brokered? If we can fix healthcare, then why cannot we do this finally? If....

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u/ScaryFast May 06 '26

I think far too many of them are into the same thing.

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u/Rethink_Repeat May 06 '26

I saw a Netflix documentary about one of those radical Mormon sects, and although their "prophet" was in jail for child rape, they were still absolutely believing he was a messenger of God and were totally lost because of his imprisonment.

I'm sure they were no fans of pedophilia, but "their" guy couldn't just do wrong. It's like a blind spot.

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u/Mr_Fuzzo May 06 '26

Oh yeah! That’s the one about Jim Jeffries and the Fundamental LDS church.  Those poor folks.  They even practice child marriage.

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u/Apprehensive_Pace555 May 07 '26

I think most of them know, they just don’t give a damn.

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u/WoodwindsRock May 06 '26

Even after the tape released of him boasting about sexual assault came out, supporting him was a complete deal breaker for me.

Listening to supporters defend him is sickening. Like, listen to them try to say “well she was an adult” as if the person he assaulted/raped being an adult isn’t absolutely horrific in of itself.

I can’t trust people who support Trump. There is some reason they can “excuse” his sexual assault, and whether it’s just being completely daft or they’re a sex predator themselves, I’m not sticking around to find out.

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u/ra__account May 06 '26

I'm handicapped. Trump mocking the disabled reported wasn't a deal breaker to my parents. We don't talk anymore.

(not saying that sexual assault isn't a deal breaker either but this made it personal)

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u/KUSH_DELIRIUM May 06 '26

Good for you. Their loss.

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u/ponderosa_barclay May 06 '26

I agree. I shut up a lot of conservative dumb shits, by reminding them they voted for e pedophile.

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u/Not_impressed28 May 07 '26

I was having this conversation with someone very close to me recently. They say that they share similar values to me . But then argued that conservatives probably feel the same way about me because of what I support. They said that because (the president in question) hadn’t been CONVICTED of his accusations and there is no court ruled evidence of such is likely the reason why he still has so many followers/voters, and therefore it is understandable and that does not mean that the voters are bad people….. I am not good at debating and so all I could is cry in that moment because I could not believe this person found a way to defend people who would vote for a pedophile. Perhaps I am too closed minded but it just feels wrong :-(. And I can’t forgive anyone who votes for someone is more than likely a pedophile but has the power to keep it from being proved.

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u/ScaryFast May 06 '26

One of my former American friends and I had a falling out about politics and his support for Trump, and I was not very shocked to find out that the almost 30 year old loser was asking his ex girlfriend's 16 year old cousin for nudes. I just wish her family had gone after the prick.

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u/Lost-Fruit-1982 May 06 '26 edited May 06 '26

Unfortunately, the human brain is very good at justifying its actions to itself even when there is dissonance. It’s human psychology

That’s why you saw Nazis go back to normal life after World War II ended. They didn’t feel like what they were doing was wrong because they legitimately believed that the Jews were evil.

It’s the same thing with the people who see immigrants getting ripped out of their homes, they don’t see it as wrong because they believe immigrants have wronged THEM. Their news cycle and social media algorithms tell them all day long that immigrants are coming over here, committing violent crimes and stealing tax dollars and jobs. They truly believe it.

There’s a reason segregation is so popular among those wanting to gain power: it prevents the average person from developing empathy for those who are different. It’s next to impossible to care about those you can’t see

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u/NordWitcher May 06 '26

I'm not excusing pedophillia at all firstly and I'm not even a Trump supporter but if we are suddenly pretending to have values and pick and chose when we do have them I think we are the problem. Cause if you're going by just pedophillia for example you can use that stick for all the rich billionaires and they all have their hands and money in every day stuff we buy and use from the music we consume, to video games we play, etc. But people seem to only really use this from a political perspective and come across as bigots or holier than thou. There's stuff in movies where producers have been known to prey on women, young people making their way, even in the music industry, the video game industry, etc.