Should You Cut Ties With People Over Politics?

My Personal Approach

The idea that two people can disagree about politics, but still be friends and have a beer together, is true to an extent. But as many have found out the hard way, there comes a point where “live and let live” doesn’t work anymore, and one either has to find common ground or cut ties. Whether to cut ties is a difficult question to navigate and I don’t have a single definitive answer. I will talk about how I deal with it personally though.

In my case, it’s less about the opinions themselves, whether they be “political” or otherwise, and more about what they say about the person’s value structure and intelligence.

Value Structure Incompatibility

For example, supporting policies which benefit oneself at the expense of others, even when one is aware of the outcome of said policy, is revealing of one’s value structure. “I got mine. To hell with everybody else.” In this case, there’s nothing I can say to convince them to change their mind, because it’s a difference of the heart.

I assume that when someone does something to another person, they’d also do it to me. So what’s to say they wouldn’t screw me over too when it benefited them? Even if they didn’t, it wouldn’t be out of a stable and enduring concern for my well being, but from the brittle framework of their own self-interest. Everybody is selfish in their personal lives sometimes, but being in favor of selfishness at the policy level is to be in favor of systematic oppression. That reveals something so disturbing about one’s values that I’m uncomfortable associating with that person.

Intelligence Gap

The other issue for me is intelligence. People can be highly intelligent in several domains, yet still hold stupid beliefs about other things. What I’ve found is that there are certain kinds of intelligence that are indispensable for me to feel good around someone. There’s also a baseline level of general intelligence that someone needs to possess for me to be able to have a meaningful relationship with them.

One of the kinds of intelligence I demand of close friends is emotional intelligence. By that I mean awareness of one’s own emotions, awareness of the emotions of others, recognizing one’s effect on others’ emotions, the ability to communicate one’s needs and emotions in an honest adult manner, etc. If someone refers to women as “femoids” or expresses the opinion that crying is a sign of weakness, I’d bet one-hundred to one odds that they lack the qualities I just mentioned.

As far as general intelligence, having a bad memory, sucking at math, or having a learning disability are not disqualifiers in my book. But if I find out that someone voted for Donald Trump and doesn’t regret it, I’m not comfortable having a relationship with them, because their judgement of character is clearly severely compromised. I don’t know whether they’re trapped inside a well-funded misinformation bubble, they think politics is just epic memes, or something else is wrong with them. Either way, I don’t want to deal with it.

I consider myself intelligent and thoughtful, and I want to associate with other intelligent and thoughtful people. Having chauvinists, racists, holocaust deniers, flat-earthers, and Trump supporters as friends doesn’t interest me, because holding those beliefs usually indicates that either their general intelligence is too low for us to easily relate and communicate to each other, or we have very incompatible core values.

Other Approaches

That’s just me though, and my approach is not the only one. For contrast, there’s a black man named Daryl Davis who used to go around befriending members of the Ku Klux Klan. I’m not sure if he still does it, but he claims to be responsible for over two hundred people leaving the organization. Hats off to him and his massive pair of balls, but it just goes to show that different people are different, and there isn’t one right answer.

I, as an autistic person, have no interest in befriending ableists to change their way of thinking. I do however think there’s some social benefit to be had in maintaining relationships with those who possess incompatible values or lack certain important kinds of intelligence. I’m just not the right person for that.

Oftentimes, people with differing political ideologies possess similar intrinsic values. They’re just mixed up about their extrinsic values, which they can be reasoned out of. That’s why it’s probably best that dumb people hear from smart people sometimes. Anecdotally, people have turned away from religion and superstitious thinking towards a more rational worldview as a byproduct of being around me for an extended period of time. So don’t think it’s right to turn away everybody who thinks differently.

To conclude, I’ll reiterate what I said in the beginning. It’s complicated. Everybody is different. I don’t have any hard-and-fast rules to offer, just my own perspective. I hope it’s been helpful.