Submitted by Samantha
I was at a dinner party over the weekend, and I had a conversation with a Democrat. He voted for Biden; he voted for Harris, and he hated Trump and Elon Musk. I engaged in conversation with him and here is what happened; how I handled it and what I took from it.
Started off friendly enough.
He is a retired businessman in his 70's who lived in New York his whole life.
He retired wealthy but was self-made. He is an educated man and holds a college degree.
The dinner party we were at was hosted by a mutual friend and I had already known the man from past gatherings but never talked politics with him.
We got talking about DOGE and he expressed his feelings about "Elon Musk trying to cancel social security." I assured him that was not the case.
I told him of the DOGE findings and that many social security recipients were over 150 years old.
"That is not true," he snapped at me. "It is true" I said to him. "Well, I don't believe it." He continued, "and I just don't like Trump. He's a racist."
I asked, "why is he a racist? what are you basing this on?" I bet you already know what he said.
"Good people on both sides."
Once I heard that I admittedly checked out of the conversation.
I am not going to change the mind of this man. The Liberal media has brainwashed him. No matter what I show him he will say that is a lie. So, where do we go from here? He is genuinely a nice man and family friend. I am not going to hate the man because he is uninformed. If he and I went to a magic show and afterward he believed all the tricks were really magic, I would still be his friend. That said, it terrifies me that this man gets to vote and shape policy that affects my life. There is nothing we can really do. There is going to be some percent of society that are never waking up from TDS, Trump Derangement Syndrome. There are plenty of people like that man I spoke with who are intelligent, successful people and are just totally brain rotted about politics. They are gone. Incapable of seeing reality.
I am sure that many of you have family members or friends like this. If they are generally nice people, like the man I chatted with, I think that it's important to not cut them out of your life. Politics is such a small part of who they are. They watch a few hours of news a week, if that, they are almost always older and for the most part they are nice enough. Hearing stories of people hating their grandparents for voting for Trump or voting for Harris is pretty sick. I can see cutting out some smarmy gym friend or something, but your grandparents? That is insane.
Try and be the bigger person. Be more accepting. Focus on the good things you like about them and can chat about.
If you allow politics to tribalize you, on either side, then you are throwing away who you are and the life that you would have led for one that is not your own. Focus on chatting about a fun movie you saw or thing you did this past weekend. Oh, and maybe if they call you to drive them to the voting booth you are busy that day...
