If the rules of a group in regard to your association with a specific political party require you to unfriend yourself, then you should leave that group, no matter where you stand!

It’s irrelevant which party that may be. It’s simply not advisable to befriend anyone who feels it’s acceptable to engage in moral blackmail. I have friends of many different political persuasions.

I am friends with people who vote left and right. I count both voters of the Repubicans and voters of the Democrats among my friends. I myself have never voted for either party.

There are some people I call friends out of love and respect, even if some of them support Biden or Trump.

I love my friends, that’s why they’re my friends!

When my friends vote for parties that I disagree with, I make it clear to myself that I detest these parties based on my personal knowledge and perspective.

If a friend whom I hold in high esteem and respect votes for a party that is strange to me, it may be that I’m perhaps too biased against that party and fail to see what my friend sees. Considering my friends are good people I can assume – to a certain extent – there must be some good aspect about that party. I take it that my friends are not stupid, ignorant, deluded, or evil.

I can openly ask certain friends why they vote for a certain party and then listen without interruption and lecturing. If I can’t do that, then I change the subject. After all, we’re friends and we certainly have a lot of common interests other than politics.

I also don’t constantly hound my friends with articles, jokes, and documentaries via emails or messages promoting my positions and criticizing theirs.

Do you know people who only contact you to show you how funny and clever someone else has taken your position apart? Just ask them this: „When was the last time you called and asked how I’m doing?“

Friends are not there to be made submissive. Friends are there to share a part of life with, to laugh and cry with, and perhaps even learn something from.

It’s great when friends have a different opinion. With affection I see that an enemy doesn’t have to be an enemy, but can potentially be a friend.

Now I hear some people say, „And what about the Nazis?“ My response: I don’t know of any of my friends who vote for Nazis, none are Stalinists and none are gay-bashing Islamists. My friends are decent people.

People who make their friendships dependent on how you feel about current affairs can’t be real friends because they put their ideological preferences above their human affections. Politics is not life. Politics is only a tiny part of life.

If supposed friends only contact you to degrade your political views, if they are constantly trying to convert and teach you, if they haven’t asked you for a long time how you are, but all the more often criticize what you say about this, and list this and that transgression committed by „your party“ and if these „friends“ then also publicly announce in social networks what they think of people like you, then accommodate them!

Just unfriend yourself. Do them that last favor!

If you want to support me, Gerd Buurmann, in my work as an actor or author of „Tapfer in Nirgendwo“, you are welcome to donate any amount you choose to my PayPal account.

https://www.paypal.me/gerdbuurmann