Hello, my fellow middle aged white ladies from the suburbs- have you, despite scrubbing your friend feed, received a few “remember we’re friends first and we shouldn’t lose that over *politics*” messages?

This is a great time to think about what that means and how we should respond. First off, they’re telling you that losing the friendship is a consequence they think sounds scary.

Second, they’re manipulating you, a thing I don’t find desirable in my friends. You don’t actually think your friend believes a debate over funding to fill potholes is morally the same as a leader saying “I love you” to a guy wearing a concentration camp t-shirt to a coup.

So we can go with that. “I’m losing friends over a fundamental ethical disagreement about _______. Not just politics.”

Think about your wording. You’ll want to state your ethical line clearly and unambiguously. And this is stepping in to their threat.

They’re trying to scare you with a threat of lost friendship so own it. “I believe in X. I don’t want to be friends with someone who isn’t on board with this very basic moral standard.”

Calling it “politics” or “about a fight between two random guys” or whatever is a tactic. It blurs everything down and pretends that life or death matters are the same as discussing where bike lanes should go.

If you learn to see it, you can figure out when you’re just being pressured to compromise your values because someone shares cookie recipes with you on the regular.

And maybe, by being clear about it, if friend is in the red for the social circle and less in it for the outright hate fest, counteroffering the consequence of “we aren’t trading cookie recipes anymore if you’re okay with _____.” gives them motivation to get out.

And, in the event they’re reposting those memes because they want reassurance about their friendships with T supporters even though they weren’t one, you can model an alternative response.