Bonnie Coughlin, 65, says her relationship with her sister, father and some cousins has deteriorated.
Los Angeles:
When lifelong Democrat Mayra Gomez told her 21-year-old son five months ago that she was voting for Donald Trump in Tuesday’s presidential election, he kicked her out of his life.
“He specifically told me, ‘You are no longer my mother, because you vote for Trump,'” Gomez, 41, a personal care worker in Milwaukee, told Reuters. Their last conversation was so bitter that she isn’t sure they can reconcile, even if Trump loses his reelection bid.
“The damage is done. In people’s minds, Trump is a monster. It’s sad. There are people who don’t talk to me anymore, and I’m not sure that will change,” said Gomez, who is a fan of Trump’s crackdown on illegals. immigrants and management of the economy.
Gomez isn’t the only one who believes the bitter divisions within families and friends over Trump’s tumultuous presidency will be difficult, if not impossible, to mend, even after he leaves.
In interviews with 10 voters – five Trump supporters and five supporting Democratic candidates Joe Biden – few saw the shattered personal relationships caused by Trump’s tenure completely healed, and most believed them destroyed forever. .
Throughout his nearly four-year presidency, Trump aroused strong emotions among supporters and opponents. Many of his supporters admire his moves to overhaul immigration, his appointment as Conservative judges, his willingness to throw convention aside and his harsh rhetoric, which they call outspokenness.
Democrats and other critics see the former real estate developer and reality TV personality as a threat to American democracy, a serial liar and a racist who mismanaged the novel coronavirus pandemic that has killed more than 230,000 people in the United States. United States so far. Trump rejects such qualifiers as “fake news”.
Now, with Trump trailing Biden in the opinion polls, people are starting to wonder if the fractures caused by one of the most polarizing presidencies in U.S. history could be healed if Trump loses the election.
“Unfortunately, I don’t think national healing is as easy as changing your president,” said Jaime Saal, psychotherapist at the Rochester Center for Behavioral Medicine in Rochester Hills, Michigan.
“It takes time and effort, and it takes both sides – no pun intended – to be ready to let go and move on,” she said.
Saal said the tensions in people’s personal relationships have increased given the political, health and social dynamics facing the United States. Most often, she sees clients who have political divisions with siblings, parents or in-laws, as opposed to spouses.
NEIGHBOR VS NEIGHBOR
Trump’s election in 2016 divided families, torn friendships, and turned neighbor against neighbor. Many have taken to Facebook and Twitter to post unrestrained posts denigrating both Trump and his many critics, while the president’s own free-wheeling tweets have also inflamed tensions.
A September report from the non-partisan Pew Research Center found that nearly 80% of Trump and Biden supporters said they had few or no friends who supported the other candidate.
A study by polling organization Gallup in January found that Trump’s third year in office set a new record for party polarization. While 89% of Republicans approved of Trump’s performance in office in 2019, only 7% of Democrats thought he was doing a good job.
Gayle McCormick, 77, who split from husband William, 81, after voting for Trump in 2016, said: “I think Trump’s legacy is going to take a long time to recover.”
The two still spend time together, although she is now based in Vancouver, him in Alaska. Two of her grandchildren are no longer talking to her because of her support for Democrat Hillary Clinton four years ago. She has also distanced herself from other relatives and friends who are Trump supporters.
She is not sure that these divisions with friends and family will ever resolve, as each believes the other has a totally alien value system.
Democratic voter Rosanna Guadagno, 49, said her brother had disowned her after refusing to support Trump four years ago. Last year, her mother suffered a stroke, but her brother – who lived in the same California city as his mother – did not let her know when their mother died six months later. She learned the news after three days in an email from her sister-in-law.
“I was left out of anything to do with his death, and it was devastating,” said Guadagno, a social psychologist who works at Stanford University in California.
Whoever wins the election, Guadagno is pessimistic about being able to reconcile with her brother, even though she says she still loves him.
UNCERTAIN POST-TRUMP WORLD
Sarah Guth, 39, a Spanish performer from Denver, Colorado, said she had excluded from her life several friends supporting Trump. She couldn’t come to terms with their support for issues like the separation of immigrant children from parents on the southern border, or for Trump himself after being caught on tape bragging about groping women.
She also stopped talking to her dad voting for Trump for several months after the 2016 election. The two now speak, but avoid politics.
Guth says some of his friends cannot accept his support for a candidate – Joe Biden – who is pro-choice on the abortion issue.
“We had such fundamental disagreements on such fundamental things. It showed both sides that we really have nothing in common. I don’t think that will change in the post-Trump era.”
Strong Trump supporter Dave Wallace, 65, a retired oil industry sales manager in West Chester, Pa., Is more optimistic about families in conflict in a post-Trump world.
Wallace says his support for Trump has caused tension with his son and stepdaughter.
“The hatred for Trump among Democrats is just unbelievable to me,” Wallace said. “I think it’s just Trump, the way he makes people feel. I think the angst will lessen when we get back to being a normal politician who doesn’t piss people off.”
Jay J. Van Bavel, professor of psychology and neural science at New York University, said this “political bigotry” has become not only tribal, but moral.
“Because Trump has been one of the most polarizing figures in American history around fundamental values and issues, people are unwilling to compromise and it’s not something you can do away with. “said Van Bavel.
Jacquelyn Hammond, 47, a bartender in Asheville, North Carolina, no longer speaks to his mother, Carol, who supports Trump, and also discourages her son from speaking to him.
She said she would like to heal the relationship, but thinks it will be difficult even if Trump loses the election.
“Trump is like the catalyst for an earthquake that has just divided two continents of thought. Once the Earth divides in this way, there is no turning back. It is a marked moment in our history. where people had to jump from side to side. And depending on which side you choose, that’s going to be the trajectory for the rest of your life, “she says.
Hammond said she first realized her relationship with her mother was in trouble shortly after the 2016 election when she stood up for Clinton as she drove with her mother.
“She stopped the car and told me not to disrespect her policy. And if I don’t want to respect her policy, I can get out of the car.”
Bonnie Coughlin, 65, has voted a majority Republican her entire life, except in 2016 when she backed a third-party candidate. This time, she’s all for Biden, even organizing a small rally for him on the side of a freeway near Gilbertsville, Pa.
Raised in a Republican and religiously conservative Missouri family, she says her relationships with her sister, father and some cousins - all staunch Trump supporters – have deteriorated.
Coughlin says she still loves them, but “I look at them differently. It’s because they willingly kissed someone who is so heartless and shows no empathy towards anyone under any circumstances.”
She added, “And if Biden wins, I don’t think they’ll go quietly overnight and accept it.”
(Except for the title, this story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is posted from a syndicated feed.)
