I feel as though for me, someone’s politics do not really have much of an impact on my ability to be friends with them. I’m a pretty right-leaning gal but my flatmate is a big Green voter and we get on very well.
I’m a 20yo British Chinese woman and some of my more liberal friends and acquaintances at uni have expressed a lot of surprise and ill-will upon finding out that I lean conservative; I’ve even had a couple friends drop me for my positions on certain issues like the Israel-Palestine conflict.
That being said, I also know many people who don’t think politics gets in the way of their relationships. For instance, one of my friends (leftist) has a girlfriend of 2 years who is solidly centre-right and they seem to have a great relationship.
So I was just curious about how y’all feel about this: do differing politics impede your relationships or not?
50 comments
Depends on the politics, but there are definitely some things that would make me instantly drop someone as a friend (for instance if they discriminate against LGBTQ people).
You’ve answered your own question in your post. It depends on the people. How integral their political positions are to their identity, and how objective they see morality to be.
We find it’s better not to talk politics at all. That said, all my friends know I’m a socialist ‘eat the rich’ ‘the gays exist’ person and it’s up to them if that somehow offends their sensibilities, but normally we’re alright because I wouldn’t be finding many right wingers in my millennial age group anyway.
Well, I would say I know many people who are here as refugees and some I’d consider my friend. If someone wants to deport my friends or advocate violence against them, I can’t be friends with him. Even though he might be fine with it…
I won’t be firiends with a fucking fascist or with any sort of authoritarian. I have no problem with someone who, lets say, has a different opinion on conscription than I do.
It’s pretty simple. If your politics advocate for something that would have me and mine subjugated or cut off from social services or legal rights that you have, we’re not gonna be friends. Why would I be friends with someone who thinks that we’re worth fewer services and rights than they are. It comes down to how harmful to others your policies are.
I’d say it depends a lot on the person, how close your relationship is, and also how ‘extreme’ the positions are.
I have ‘lost’ friends over political issues before, though I am still close to several people who have quite different views from me.
I consider myself as on the left.My partner is more radically left than me.But we have ‘conservative’ friends too.
Very far right people,no.No-one who is overtly racist, homophobic or anti-Muslim,at least not openly!
In my case, different opinions are not a problem, as long as there is respect. The basis of friendship is respect, and for me, opinions are an integral part of personality, so respecting a person means respecting their opinions as well.
Hard to be friends or chummy with someone who actively wishes your life was harder. A sizeable chunk of people don’t have the privilege to _not_ care about what other people root for and ignore it all while getting to know them.
That very much depands how different is our politics. Someone having slightly more liberal economic view? Ok. Someone believing that LGBT are not people but ideology? Sorry, we cannot be friends.
Yes, of course, conservatives are fine.
This excludes parties of the extreme right like German AfD, but this was always the case.
I live in Italy as a foreigner, I’m leftist and voted “Livre” in the last elections and one of my best friends here is a voter of fratello d’Italia. We disagree on a lot, but also agree on a surprising amount of things. I always find it nice to debate things with him as it makes you see other points of view. I don’t think living in an eco chamber is good for you long term
Most of my friends have somewhat similar political views to me. Some details might differ but we don’t hold like diametrically opposed views. But we’re not friends because of similar political views, we have similar political views because we are friends.
I consider myself a pretty political and outspoken person but I found that I have a hard time associating with people who wear their politics on their sleeves and treat their ideological leanings as a personality trait. Politics usually come up when I am already on fairly good terms with someone and I noticed that I tend to lose touch with people who have really different political views from me even before we actually discuss those views.
No problem at all to have friends with differing political views, in my opinion. I’m a centre-right liberal myself and an active municipal politician. The father of my goddaughter is an active politician for the left party (reformed communists). We get along splendidly. For example.
I would, however, not be able to be friends with someone whose values regarding, say, lgbtqia issues were vastly different from mine. Although I don’t see how I’d become friends with one of those to begin with as I’m very openly gay. But in general, people harbouring hate towards other people would be a big no-no for me.
I have friends of various political interests. Though I do tend to steer very far away from the extreme people that are in all political corners. Despite having different opinions in politics, I see no reason why 2 (or more) mentally mature people can’t find a common ground and still have a friendship based on other things that they have in common (unless they’re in the extremes – but thats where the mental maturity comes in).
I’m solidly on the left, but I have several friends who vote right. One friend votes for the populist right, another is active in local politics for the conservative party. Several others are more right leaning than left. I’d say it’s probably a 50/50 split. Politics has basically no impact on whether we’re friends or not.
It can be hard, and often the best solution is to avoid talking about politics, but yes. In my circle we’ve all noticed that as we get older it’s harder to make new friends so we don’t mind. For example, I’m an atheist leftist while my closest friend calls herself a libertarian and is an evangelical Christian. Other friends are quite centrist, haven’t voted in years because they don’t trust politicians, are Ayn Rand enthusiasts, or believe any conspiracy theory and actively start debates because they feel their view is the only correct one (that friendship might end at some point). We’re also all immigrants from very different countries, so I guess that might have made us a bit more tolerant of each other’s views.
I personally don’t find it an issue, but I also rarely talk about politics outside of a few select people and find myself in a strange position of having views that are left to some and conservative to others.
That said. UK is a politically divided country right now. Anything to do with Brexit, who you vote and views on the Middle East are very partisan positions. British social identity right now can be heavily reliant on political views. Knowing the British affinity for careful moderation, though, I don’t think it’ll be for forever.
Nope. As Someone with hard left political/economical/social view having friends with right wing views would hurt my mental selfbeing and would be simply bad.
As long as they don’t talk about nothing else than their political views all the time, I don’t care tbh. Quite the contrary: I find it pretty boring to only be around people with the same views as me – what’s there to really talk about after all, if we all agree about everything?
Cutting people off for their views will only accomplish one thing: pushing them further towards the outer fringes.
It basically has zero impact in my friend circle, and in practical terms I can’t imagine it ever being an issue.
I lean right on most issues, and I have friends who are self-styled socialists, as well as those who are Trump supporters (despite not being American), and indeed those who aren’t even interested in politics at all. Those beliefs do not define them, and neither do they underpin any of the vast majority of our daily interactions – so I don’t see why it would ever be an issue.
I suppose if someone were a literal Nazi or Communist or something (random examples) it’d probably be too difficult to start a friendship with them, as those types tend to be absolutely fanatical about what they believe.
To a certain degree, and it’s more about tolerance/intolerance than left/right. That said, I don’t know all the specific ideologies of my friends.
I doubt there can be a blanket answer. There’s a myriad of factors at play, from the politics in question, to the depth of the friendship, to how effectively those people can communicate, to the political climate around them…
Also, mind you, [it’s often the small differences in politics that wreck friendships](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissism_of_small_differences).
I dont have friends with differing views on politics. I doubt you can have close friends that have differing views if those views are important to you and them.
As long as people don’t treat political parties as sports teams and are willing to concede on some points to find convergence (if possible), there’s no reason to be uncivilized or even break friendship because of that.
But if a person’s position is way too extreme, conversation might be nigh impossible if such person is too adamant in defending their position
UK and conservative is a bit difficult currently, there’s decent reason to say that “different politics” is the same as “different morals and values” and if there’s support or tolerance of genocide, then that might matter a lot.
I have people with very different politics around me and we get along decently, because they come with values and a willingness to improve life for the many and on that we can agree. They manage to not be monsters on important areas.
The politics can be irrelevant, but voting tory should matter.
The problem is that the right wing has shifted from being “conservative” to a hate-filled culture war.
It used to be easy to be friends with people who were “right leaning” when your only difference of opinion was related to taxes, or other economic policy, but when the “the difference of opinion” is about whether entire groups of people deserve to exist or not, it’s a lot harder to stay friends.
The issue is that right wing parties have moved much farther to the right in recent years, and even if you are not a hateful bigot, by continuing to vote right wing, you are supporting those parties as they shift to the right. Yesterday’s “right leaning” is today’s “centrist.”
Conservatives are regarded as ‘scum’ by most young educated Brits, which is why you are encountering hostility. The reasons are various but without diving too deep into the politics, many young people feel the Conservatives (rightly or wrongly) are to blame for their perceived decreased chances to succeed in society.
I am very politically minded, but also very centre-liberal, there are certain issues I will not see eye-to-eye on with others (discrimination, restriction of freedom of speech, anti-Europe/isolationism) but if I know that someone leans that way, I just avoid the conversation.
That said, it is very hard for me to become ‘friends’ with people I know have very differing views of society to me. That isn’t just with conservatism/right leaning though, it is also true of the socialist/left leaning folks who think everything is better if it is operated by the state.
I’ve not found it limiting, the truth is I already have a nice network of friends, but I could imagine that if I had this current attitude at University I’d be considered quite the ostrich.
I mean-You’re British, and you’ve answered the question so yes. I’m in the UK too, and although most of my friends and family are centre-left or left leaning I absolutely do have a couple of close friends who are Tories, and quite right wing ones too!
They wouldn’t help many strangers out and don’t care about people they don’t know but they are fantastic friends.
I can be friends with anyone who doesn’t discriminate people based on unchangeable personal characteristics, regardless of their political views. I had friends who are expropriate all businesses, abolish money etc. hardcore communists. I had friends who were abolish government, let money run things etc. hardcore capitalists. None of the friendships ended because of politics.
I’m socially center-left, economically center-right. Basically a social democrat. Also B&W mixed straight male.
When it comes to making friends across the political spectrum, I can much easier make friends with right-wingers than left-wingers, even at the extremes, possibly because hard right-wingers seem to have a theoretical “one of the good ones” exception. Hard left-wingers do not have such an exception in my experience.
The problem lies in the nature of ideology itself, which is always divisive, promoting conflict and violence. The 20th century was a century of wars resulting in the deaths of many millions. The world cannot afford the outdated ideologies of left/right politics or any other ideologies which replace them. Culture your own values and promote those by example, not by trying to impose them forcibly on the rest of the entire world’s population.
Differing politics mostly do not effect my relationships. Pretty much nobody I know in real life is as far to the left as I am, but that hasn’t stopped me from being friends with centrists or right wingers. As long as you can have a conversation with eachother about politics without getting hostile and you aren’t talking about politics all the damn time it’s usually fine.
The only group I just can’t seem to get along with at all are FVD supporters. It always devolves into conspiracies about COVID (still), Russia, LGBT+ people etc. and I just do not feel a need to deal with that on a regular basis.
As long as they don’t keep preaching about it all the time, no problem. But if their identity is built on politics, bye.
For right leaning people is no problem to hang out with socially progressive people, because they never try to restrict you in any way. They don’t want to forbid you from marrying whomever you want or to go to church, etc.
The opposite is not true.
Absolutely. We agree to disagree like grown adults and to be frank I absolutely enjoy debating with my friends we argue and counter argue and we pick appart each others points.
It’s great you should try it !
One of my best friends has a political completely different opinion than me. We have, from time to time, a good political discussion – all in good spirit. And sometimes, when doing other stuff, throw a fun comment about it.
But else it hasn’t any influence on our relationship.
I’m so sad to see where the US is going. There has never been any progress in demonised the other part.
You get friends because you relate to them and you share common values. If your political views are completely different, your values are different, and you’re incompatible. People with different political views have never made good friends, this is not a recent thing.
It depends. Are they trying to convert me to their political beliefs? Then no. I would also not want to befriend anyone who supports Russia, the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany or any Islamic terrorist organization. And I find sjws to be annoying in general.
Other than that I would not mind having friends with different political views.
Im from Poland and im gay (if somebody dont know lgbt topic in Poland is still kinda „hot”) and for sure i can say i would never pick a „friend” who think that for example im „ideology” or who think that i dont deserved the rights to marry my boyfriend
I think the issue is that there was a time where right and left politics actually meant tangible issues. Today right and left politics have become a simple case of which group believes in humanity of others who don’t look like you, and which one thinks they should be wiped off the face of the earth or their immediate vicinity.
So you may find others who are at the risk of the system and losing their livelihood, family, basic rights, necessities, belongings, and will get traumatised cause of your vote compounding civic issues, they have the agency and freedom to not want to be friends. In major events, like Israel occupying Palestine, or India and East and West Pakistan’s partition, or the European Holocaust, it was long time friends who ratted out neighbours for being “different” as of another faith, being left wing, being part of the resistance and so on. They were perfectly nice people who just outed them as “doing my duty” and got them killed at the hands of militia and police.
There’s even stories of where survivors of the Holocaust returned to their villages and their homes after ages, and found the same neighbour or long term friend back then; who ratted them out waving at them like nothing happened. People learn from history, and if someone thinks that your vote, or your beliefs will not just reduce the quality of their life or any other human’s, incarcerate or harm them, but straight up unalive them in a crucial and dangerous situation, why would they want to be friends.
It depends on what you count as differing politics and what each side associates with that ‘label’.
So for example if where you grew up you saw conservatives referring to Asian people by racial slurs and want you all deported, you personally might not take kindly to someone ‘coming out’ as a conservative. That isn’t really a ‘difference of opinion’ but will be taken as more of a hostile position against yourself.
Important to note we tend to make and keep friends who share our values, experiences, etc. If suddenly you found out that a friend of yours was the above type of conservative that advocated for deporting all non-white people… you may suddenly reevaluate that friendship. That’s the same sort of process your friends will be going through.
It depends. A lot of my friends are unionists, and I’m not going to fall out with them over a difference of opinion there.
Your average tory is fine, an out-and-out fascist isn’t.
Now, if all a person can talk about is politics and there’s no other substance to the relationship then I probably wouldn’t be friends with them, even if I agreed with their politics.
I’m a history student and my friends and I spend a lot of time in the metal and punk scene, so given my environment it’s only natural that I’d take a stance and draw the line somewhere.
It’s not that I couldn’t be friends with people of opposite opinions – I’ve had some with *questionable* views, to say the least – it’s just that it would seriously hurt my integrity and I don’t feel that’s worth it when I have a community of like-minded people.
That being said, we only share the broad strokes: I’m a marxist while my friends are anarchists, social democrats or just left-leaning with no affiliations, but we share the values of equal rights, bodily autonomy, anti-fascism, etc.
It depends on what are those differing politics. If it’s something, idk, economy-related? As long as the other person isn’t being pushy/weird about it, I don’t give a fuck. If the difference is in, say, whether certain groups of people should have basic human rights, we cannot be friends. It’s really that simple
This obviously depends on the individual and the differing politics.
As for myself: Yes, differing politics do impede my relationships. It depends on what the politics are and/or whether they want their opinions forced upon people. To give some “modern” examples that people can maybe easily relate to, instead of the more “esoteric” examples like taxes (lol):
If you believe in God and think it should be an important part of everyone’s lives, but don’t want to force people to participate in your religion, you support secularism, I don’t care.
If you think gay sex is immoral and gay people will go to hell, but don’t want to ban gay relationships or ban the portrayal of gay people from media or whatever, I don’t care.
If you think Palestine shouldn’t be an independent country and Palestinians should be integrated into Israel, Israel is right for waging war against Gaza, I don’t care.
If you think Russia has legitimate claims to Ukraine, we shouldn’t accept Ukrainian refugees, etc. I don’t care.
If you want to force people to participate in your religion (or have the religious institution a part of the government), if you want to make gay relationships and portrayal of LGBT people illegal, if you support war crimes on Palestinians, if you support Russian aggression against Ukraine, if you want to deport Ukrainian refugees, want to stop the movement of refugees, go fuck yourself. We’re not going to be friends.
Yes, as long as they are within the acceptable spectrum.
Which means not far-right, pro-Lepen/AfD/PVV etc., not pro-Russia, not homophobic (“woke agenda, LGBT ideology”). You get the point.
If they are liberal or centre left or green or centre right is not a problem.
Politics are tied to morals and I need my friends to be on the same page as me on certain topics.
I grew up conservative but now I’m very much a leftist and as much as I get why right leaning people think the way they do and I don’t believe them to be bad people we’re culturally and ethically so different that anything other than surface level friendship doesn’t seem possible
Editing to add about the culturally different thing: I live in the basque region of Spain and that may add to the segregation we have. When I meet right leaning people my age they listen to different music, go to different bars, have completely different interests and hobbies. It’s just wild. I’ve just started an office job with people who obviously lean that way and even if they are nice I feel like we have literally nothing in common to talk about
Absolutely, I have pretty strong political oppinions, but it does not impact on my relationships at all.
It’s like religion, I don’t go around expection others to share my beliefs or trying to convert them.
It’s a matter of being respectful and open minded, when political topics are beiong discussed.
*( After all I may be the person with an incorrect position on a topic )*
I used to have a best friend who was pretty far left while I lean right and he broke the friendship over that. My group of friends who I see regularly don’t care though. Some are left wingers, some even further right. We’ve just stopped talking about politics because it would make conversations toxic sometimes.
My girlfriend leans centrum but on some topics left. We talk about politics but always in a healthy way.
You can have differing opinions, just don’t make politics your personality
Every party to the right of the social democrats denies my right to exist as a trans person, wanting to make my access to medical care even harder than it already is. And supporting a party that wants me to suffer is a pretty hard thing to ignore in friends.
So no, I won’t be friends with conservatives.
I’m friends with plenty of people I strongly disagree with on politics. The line is where someone threatens my (or my other friends’) ability to exist in society.