Can You Separate a Person From Their Politics?

Published by PolisPandit on December 7, 2020December 7, 2020

In the age of Donald Trump, is a person mutually exclusive from their politics?

I have made it known since 2016 how much I detest Donald Trump – even denouncing my former allegiance to the Republican Party – but this article is not about Trump or modern day Republicanism.  It is more personal.  Some of the people I admire and respect most in this world – my father, grandfather, in-laws – support a man and political party with effectively blind allegiance.  The difference in opinion has far surpassed the realm of dismissing the matter as “let’s agree to disagree” or “reasonable minds can differ.”  To me, the racist dog whistling (often via a foghorn), xenophobia, misogyny, disdain for science, overt authoritarianism, and overall immorality is unconscionable.  Forget politics.  Consider the last four years on a human level. 

I have struggled the past four years knowing that some of the people closest to me either don’t see or are willfully blind to what has transpired.  They continue – even to this day – supporting Trump and his enablers.  Despite the fact Attorney General William Barr himself, the same spineless man who barred Trump from obstruction before, stated there is no evidence of election fraud, they make excuses for Trump’s baseless and frivolous claims.  They excuse his other antics as well, as do the 70+ million who just voted for him.  Whether it’s: “He’s not a politician”; “He has his own style and it works for him”; or “He’s unconventional and real, that’s why we like him.” There’s always an excuse no matter the degree of moral depravity in the act. 

So I am left asking myself – can I separate these people I love from their politics?  Given that I oppose this new version of Republican Trumpism on a human level, can I separate the humans I care about from their cult-like political ideologies?  I question and think about the inverse of this dilemma too – can my MAGA family members love and understand me as a person when they know I so violently detest what they believe?

It Was Not Always This Way. 

Prior to 2016, my loved ones always had differences of opinion.  Oftentimes, those differences were grounded in policy disputes.  What’s the best way for Americans to obtain healthcare?  Should we have more of a hawkish or dovish approach to foreign policy?  What is the best way to regulate the financial services industry?  The debates would go for hours.  The dining room table – as in many other American homes – was a place for thoughtful and substantiated dialogue.  Everyone around the table was like an error-seeking machine, hunting for fallacies or leaps of logic.

We used to have healthy debates around political issues.  Sometimes they would end badly, with someone taking personal offense, but by-and-large, these debates helped everyone formulate their views.  My family growing up was a microcosm of what democracy demands – an informed citizenry that constantly questions authority.  After all, in democracy, those in power only have it because the people put them there, not the other way around. 

My family endured the Clintons and all their scandals – from Whitewater to Lewinski – and the Bush era of “weapons of mass destruction” and poor justifications for invading Iraq.  Obama had his own set of issues, often framed as too left-wing by the right and not left-wing enough by the left.  Over these decades of Presidents, my family members and I had innumerable policy debates and disputes. 

At a fundamental level though, it was often easy to see why someone might think differently even when I disagreed with them.  For example, I did not always see healthcare as an individual right owed by the government. After studying and debating the topic some more, however, I eventually concluded that private industry alone is not best suited to address the challenges of healthcare.  These were policy debates though.  In most cases, nobody was completely right or completely wrong.  The right answer was usually somewhere in the middle. 

Trump Changed Everything In My Family. 

It all started with birtherism.  As this Atlantic article described, “The conspiracy theories surrounding Obama’s birthplace and religion were much more than mere lies. They were ideology.”  I failed to notice and comprehend this at the time, but this conspiracy theory set the precedent for how Trump would handle everything – spreading baseless theories, even with no evidence, so people questioned his opponents and reality itself.  He did this time and again from Russia’s interference with the 2016 election to his handling of coronavirus and his reactions following his loss in the 2020 election.  In a political landscape that was already growing more polarized post-Obama, Trump doubled-down.  He put polarization and an “us v. them” mentality at the core of his campaign and Presidency.  That same ideology of division trickled down to my family.  

My dad and I have historically seen eye-to-eye when it comes to economics.  Fiscal conservatism was at the root of many of our core beliefs – straight from the Gary Becker and Milton Friedman playbook.  My mom was skilled at tempering any conversation on free market capitalism with a heavy dose of reality – reminding us of the poor, sick, and less fortunate.  Other family members like my uncle convinced me over time that those who benefit significantly from a system should pay their fair share.  My grandfather and other family members, however, generally despised increased taxation (in all forms) and were very much of the “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” mentality.  My uncle’s retort of – “what happens if you have no bootstraps?” – is still one of my favorites. 

Once Trump became the nominee and then the President, people like myself denounced the Republican Party.  Most of my family did not.  Like Trump, they doubled-down.  No longer were we engaging in thoughtful and substantiated debate.  We were arguing about reality – real v. “alternative” facts, truth v. lies, the rule of law v. totalitarianism.  The various factions of my family could no longer engage in sport-like dialogue because we were no longer even playing on the same field, let alone by the same rules of the game.  The debates were not about policy differences, but about factual issues ranging from the inconsequential (the number of people who attended Trump’s inauguration) to the significant (whether Trump extorted the Ukrainian President, abused his power and obstructed justice). 

“The conspiracy theories surrounding Obama’s birthplace and religion were much more than mere lies. They were ideology.”

When having these discussions, it is like speaking with aliens from different planets, not members of my family.  I at least try to make arguments based on facts and evidence, while the other factions base their positions on whatever Trump says is true. There is no opportunity for common ground when we cannot even agree on basic facts and truths.  It is like a bad Orwellian nightmare has gripped its hold on my family.  

Separating a Person From Their Politics.

I struggle with how to handle this new political environment. I would be lying if I said it hasn’t affected how I personally view the people who support Trump’s Republican Party.  However, can my personal views be solved by avoiding certain topics of discussion?  Should I simply ignore the political viewpoints of certain family members and focus on their redeeming qualities instead?

The cult-like adherence to Trumpism, regardless of his actions and antics, is what prevents me from separating the person from their politics.  Merriam-Webster defines a cult as “great devotion to a person, idea, object, movement, or work.”  It defines devotion as “the fact or state of being ardently dedicated and loyal.”  

Devotion to Trump reaches a level of dedication and loyalty without criticism or reason.  It is not like the policy debates we used to have around my dining room table.  It is intense tribal devotion that cannot be swayed by logic or rhetoric.  This cult-like adherence stems from the core of humanity, defining how a person views good v. evil, just v. unjust, and right v. wrong. 

While I acknowledge those realities, for the sake of my family, I would prefer to live with willful blindness to those facts, just as many of my family members might live in their allegiance to Trump.  What they support may be immoral, unethical, and dangerous to democracy, but I’ve seen good in those people my entire life.  They are my family.  Despite living in alternative realities, my family is too important to let Trump ruin it too. 

A small kernel of hope occasionally attempts to convince me that Trumpism is a phase that will pass.  Another voice warns not to be so naive.  If the Trump era has revealed anything, it’s that people have felt more at liberty to express how they really think about issues such as immigration, race, and inequality.  It is no longer just the crazy uncle at the Thanksgiving table spouting highly suggestive comments; it’s an entire cast of characters once viewed at least as sane and quasi-reasonable. 

The willful blindness approach may work within my family, but for society at large it could be catastrophic.  Democracy requires debate.  It demands individual expression.  Not silence, apathy, and ambivalence.  Without ongoing dialogue, ideas are not tested, policies are not debated, and common ground is rarely if ever found.  Divisions will exacerbate themselves and democracy will slowly and then quickly die. 

So while I may separate the person from their politics for the sake of my family, this is the antithesis of that approach that must be taken in the public square.  A person’s politics is not mutually exclusive from what makes them human.  That is even more the case in the age of Trumpism where basic fundamentals like truth and the rule of law are at stake.