Don’t let politics ruin your relationships

By Jonel Juste/Contributing Writer

2016 was (and still is) a very political year. It was an election year; one of the most divisive in America. Socially, it caused a lot of collateral damage. On social media, people unfriended and unfollowed each other; some couples even broke up over politics. This country needs to heal and reconcile with itself.

Before the presidential election, I watched an instructive reportage on ABC’s Nightline. The journalist investigated several married couples who had irreconcilable political views. I noticed that, except for some few cases, most wives were Democrats and staunch Hillary Clinton supporters while their husbands were Republicans. So it appeared that men were basically supporting men and women were supporting women.

The Nightline reporter interviewed the couples on how the elections impacted their relationship. Most of the couples answered that politics did divide their home and that they had some inflamed arguments about it. Most of the time, these arguments were not really about policies but about the character of each candidate. Some wives threatened to leave their home or even the country if Donald Trump won.

Now that the election is over, and Trump has won, I wonder if those ladies actually carried out their threat. But one thing is for sure, the post-electoral grudge is still vivid. The View’s Joy Behar has even called on women to “build a wall around their vaginas” to punish their husband for voting “Trump.”

According to “Good Morning America,” the elections also divided family members such as fathers and daughters. Children and parents, they reported, even had strong arguments over their political preferences and ended up insulting each other.

This is what happened between 25 year-old Democrat, who GMA referenced as Tiana and her father, Stuart, a fervent Trump supporter. The arguments between them got so bad, GMA reports, that Tiana blocked her father several times from her social media pages.  

Among friends, these elections also caused a lot of damage. On social media, friends and followers were loggerheads, cussing each other out over their political affiliation. I even read on the Miami Herald that people unfriended each other on Facebook during the elections. Since it’s easier to be bold and mean online than in real life, some people go unfiltered and lose some friends in the process.        

The divisiveness that this election brought is understandable; to a lot of people, it was not just about policies but core values. Now that the election is over, people must realize that life goes on. It’s not really the end of the world. This country must heal and reconcile with itself. Husbands, wives, family members and friends should not lose their precious relationships because of politics. It’s not worth it.  

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Image retrieved from Flickr.