Believe it or not, the world doesn’t revolve around President Trump. Or Hillary Clinton. Or any other politician and pundit, for that matter. Unless, of course, you allow it to.
Every so often, a viral story will emerge in which a disgruntled friend or family member publicly disowns his loved ones over politics. Just the other day, Josh Raby, a Nashville-based writer and director, announced on Twitter that he had ended his relationship with his father over a conservative satirical website, the Babylon Bee.
Raby said he normally ignores political posts from his family, but 13 months ago, one Facebook post in particular caught his eye. It was a Babylon Bee article that shared some ironic, made-up quotes. His dad knew it was a “gag,” but his dad’s friends didn’t.
“Dozens of replies. All older, rural, low-income white folks like him. Just uniformly horrified. Every single one totally believed these quotes were real. Some were even typing prayers for our country,” Raby wrote.
An argument ensued when Raby waded into the conversation. Stop me if this sounds familiar.
I’d wager most families have had some kind of back-and-forth over politics. But what’s striking about Raby’s story is his conclusion: “My dad is 77 years old. And he’s chasing online likes at the expense of truth,” he continued. “Nearly 80 years old and so insecure that he needs the affirmation of wrong, dumb strangers more than he values his own kid. My dad is Trump.”
As my colleague Madeline Fry wrote, private rifts over politics are increasingly common. The 2016 election seems to have made them more so. But this kind of public split is something else entirely. It’s more aggressive and condescending, and it demonstrates a complete lack of empathy: If Raby cared for his father and hoped to make amends, he would not have insulted him on a public forum. Instead, he compared his father to the person he dislikes the most: Donald Trump.
Raby’s drag of his own dad is hardly the worst out there. A few years ago, filmmaker Jen Senko created an entire documentary dedicated to exposing the “vast right-wing conspiracy” fueled by a cult-like devotion to Fox News and pundits such as Rush Limbaugh. The target of her film? Her own dad. In The Brainwashing Of My Dad, Senko describes how right-wing media turned her once-loving parent into a hostile fanatic and interviews others who “lost” their loved ones to Fox News.
This kind of public sacrifice — this betrayal of those held dear to the altar of partisanship in exchange for positive media attention or even business — doesn’t just deserve scorn. It should be mourned. Indeed, it should break all of us. Raby and Senko didn’t just betray their fathers. They betrayed respect and love, friendship, and family: the very things that bind us together and make us whole. Politics is important, undoubtedly. It affects many of the things in our lives. But there’s a reason Aristotle subjected the city to the family in his tier of worthwhile communities. Family is the first polity, and it is the most important.
No political debate is worth it. Scroll past the Facebook post; mute it, if you must. Agree to disagree. Few people are persuaded in political debates, anyway.
Do not be like Raby or Senko; don’t let divisiveness consume your relationships. Conviction is good, and Raby and Senko had plenty of it. But too much is destructive. Just think: What if, in the end, you sacrificed your family, and it turns out you’re not even right?
