This election season has been rough on everyone (I live in the US if that's not obvious). I have a pretty solid core group if friends where we live now who pretty much all feel the same way politically and we've all made plans to start stepping up our activism. We're mostly all white and have talked about white privilege and how our eyes have been opened to things we had no idea were still happening in this country.
FI & I met up with another couple last night to talk about how we're all handling this. They basically told us if we don't kick every Trump supporter out of our lives, we can't continue to be friends with them. This would include my dad and about half of my extended family. I said I appreciate how strongly they feel about this and asked them to understand everyone is in a different place with the level of activism they're comfortable with. I'm not ready to stop speaking to my family. I'm disappointed as hell, but I'm trying to look for ways to educate them. FI is also in AA and he said he has friends there that he thinks are Trump supporters, but they don't really talk about it because those relationships are recovery focused. These friends told him he's being selfish putting his sobriety abovery minority groups.
They got up and left, and we sat there shocked. Is there anything we could have done differently? I'm beyond hurt to lose these friends but at the same time, they're the ones who gave an ultimatum. I was thinking things would cool down after a while (they were on vacay with a few other people during the election & got into some heated discussions), but it doesn't seem to be going that way.