# do you have friends on an opposing political party or ideology?



## ae1905 (Jun 7, 2014)

washingtonpost.com *

Only about 1 in 10 Americans have a lot of friends of the opposing political party*

https://www.facebook.com/philip.bump
[HR][/HR] October 5 at 12:36 PM Follow @pbump








President Barack Obama and President-elect Donald Trump shake hands during a transition planning meeting in the Oval Office on Nov. 10, 2016. (Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images)

Here’s what we know about polarization in the United States.

We know that Democrats and Republicans are farther apart on key policy positions than they used to be. New research from Pew Research shows that 97 percent of Democrats are more liberal than the median Republican, and 95 percent of Republicans are more conservative than the median Democrat. In 1994, those figures were 70 and 64 percent, respectively.









We know (again from Pew) that more than 80 percent of Republicans and Democrats hold unfavorable views of members of the other party, with 44 percent of Democrats and 45 percent of Republicans holding _very_ unfavorable views of their political opponents.









We know that people tend to self-sort by the sorts of media they consume and how they interact on social media.









We know that in 16 states last year, more than a third of 2016 voters lived in a neighborhood where either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton won by more than 50 percentage points. In four, more than half of voters lived in such polarized areas.









On average, 11 percent of voters in a state lived in a precinct that voted for Clinton by a 50-point margin last year. On average, 15 percent of voters lived in one that backed Trump by that margin.

We also know, again from Pew’s new data, that most Democrats and most Republicans are primarily friends with members of their own party.

Two-thirds of Democrats (and independents who lean Democratic) say that “a lot” of their friends are also Democrats; another 18 percent say that “some” are. Among Republicans (and independents who lean Republican), 57 percent say that they have a lot of Republican friends. Another fifth say that they have some Republican friends. More than half of Republicans and Democrats also say that they have only a few or no friends from the opposite party. That includes 14 percent of Republicans and 21 percent of Democrats who report having _no_ friends who vote with the other party.









It’s hard not to see a through-line to all of this. People socialize with people who generally share their politics. They often live in neighborhoods where their neighbors voted the same way as them. They often consume media that is specific to their party. Their support for partisan views has increased, as has their antipathy to the opposing political party.








That’s one framing.

Another framing is to consider that 30 percent of Democrats and 40 percent of Republicans report having “a lot” or “some” friends of the opposite party. A third from each party reports having some or a lot of independent friends, too. More than half of Democrats and Republicans _don’t_ view members of the opposing party very unfavorably. Most voters live in neighborhoods where the 2016 vote was a bit more even. On average, a fifth of voters in each state lived in a neighborhood where Trump or Clinton won by no more than 10 percentage points.









The Pew report shows that partisanship is still increasing. It’s clear that homogeneity of relationships, neighborhoods, media and online communities probably plays some role in that. But it’s worth remembering, too, that it’s not _uniform_. We focus on the partisanship because it’s new and worsening. But it’s not something that everyone experiences.

Eighty percent of Republicans and 75 percent of Democrats have at least _one_ friend who’s a member of the other party. That’s not great — but it’s not nothing.


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## ae1905 (Jun 7, 2014)

if you have friends who hold beliefs opposed to yours, how has politics impacted your friendships?


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## Judson Joist (Oct 25, 2013)

Yes. Where I used to work, I had a friend/co-worker who was the complete opposite of me in almost every way. He was a Democratic socialist. I'm a Republican nationalist. He was good at thinking on his feet and fast-paced multi-tasking. I'm good at long-range planning and patiently organizing my environment for maximum ergonomic functionality. Would be fun for the both of us to have our neurometric architecture analyzed. He has ADD and I have an overdeveloped amygdala.


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## Snowflake Minuet (Feb 20, 2016)

I would say no. I have friendly acquaintances with other views, yes, but not any real "friends"


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## Sybow (Feb 1, 2016)

I don't think any of my friends (all 2 of them) would completely agree with my ideology or political views.


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## Jaune (Jul 11, 2013)

I don't have any friends in real life. I do have friends with opposing political party ideologies online, though. Probably more than 5.


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## Turlowe (Aug 4, 2014)

I have friends with very different political ideologies, if I'd included casual friends/acquaintances it'd be well over five. Having differing viewpoints doesn't bother me in the slightest, if anything it gives us something engaging to discuss. I have no friends who are fanatics about their belief systems, I have no time for those who are unwilling to at least consider that another point of view may be valid.


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## Inveniet (Aug 21, 2009)

Given that I live in a country with more parties than an either/or simplified version for dummies.
I'd guess I do.
I have no idea what my friends even vote, and they don't know what I vote.
If you base a friendship on politics, it says a lot about the friendship.


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## BenjiMac (Aug 7, 2017)

I have one long standing friend in particular who is big on Thatcherite conservatism.

We get into some pretty heated debate but ultimately we don't let it spoil our friendship.


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## Nephandus (May 16, 2017)

Red Magician said:


> I have no idea what my friends even vote, and they don't know what I vote.
> If you base a friendship on politics, it says a lot about the friendship.


Uhm, politics is directly related to personal values since you're deciding what you're prepared to enforce with violence, and you seem to base friendship, at least partly, on willful ignorance of these values.


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## Inveniet (Aug 21, 2009)

Nephandus said:


> Uhm, politics is directly related to personal values since you're deciding what you're prepared to enforce with violence, and you seem to base friendship, at least partly, on willful ignorance of these values.


Yeah on some level I guess you are right.
But as an INTJ Sx/Sp politics are not very much on my radar.
In the political climate I live in right now, 
who gets voted on has a marginal impact on my quality of life.
Sure if everyone voted for the most far left party or the most far right party, stuff would happen.
But, since that is a fairytale I don't really see the problem.
In my society the vote is secret, 
and it is in bad taste to try to force someone to tell their affiliation.
Sure some are open and I have been at times,
but I don't experience it as a source of huge friction.
I guess if I lived in the US of assholes, 
people would socially rape me over their artificial cointoss choice.
But I don't, so I get to say it like it is.


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## ponpiri (Apr 30, 2017)

My friends don't agree with me on every issue. 
Most of the people I've grown up with were the Fox News Evangelical "far right" type. I've dissociated with most of them.


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## Daiz (Jan 4, 2017)

Not anymore because I now avoid people of opposing views. I've become too passionate about my beliefs to stomach those who support things I find reprehensible.

I see opposing ideas on the internet and among my family so it's not like I'm living in an echo chamber. I just don't want to have to pretend to like those people.


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## Lakigigar (Jan 4, 2016)

It depends with what you mean with opposing political party ideology, but I tend to dislike nationalists, and in my friend circle, i only have left-wing people. A friend of me has a communist (me) and a neonazi (who attends meetings, and is also a football hooligan / ultra) as his two best friends, so i often meet him, but I don't like him. I don't think he even knows what he does sometimes, we are two antipoles. We even support the football teams that are rivalled to each other. I'm an infp, he's an estp. He likes hardcore music or violent movies. I like drama movies and Grimes / scatterbrained music.


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## smallhead (Mar 21, 2017)

Nephandus said:


> Uhm, politics is directly related to personal values since you're deciding what you're prepared to enforce with violence, and you seem to base friendship, at least partly, on willful ignorance of these values.


I can agree with both of you. Politics can break a friendship for the reasons you've stated, but in my experience it rarely makes one.


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## PiT (May 6, 2017)

As a Bay Area Republican, I have no choice but to make friends with people across the aisle. I usually avoid talking politics with them though, except in abstract theoretical or historical terms.


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## Zosio (Mar 17, 2015)

Pretty much everyone I know -- save for my husband -- has opposing political views. Socialism isn't exactly all-the-rage in the American South. 

I was pleasantly surprised this past week when a friend of mine actually heard me out when I explained that I was a Socialist and why, as opposed to accusing me of being "not American" and all that jazz.


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## Monadnock (May 27, 2017)

No. Why would I want to befriend people who oppose me and everything I stand for? I do have one friendship with a leftist but he's a special case because of how long I've known him (also I've distanced myself from him with time and haven't actually seen him in person in close to 4 years)

EDIT: After thinking about this a bit more, I remember that I actually can be on friendly terms with leftists whose amygdala I perceive as having the potential for growth, i.e. leftists who could transform into rightists.


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## Ratsnake (Oct 4, 2017)

Friends? What are friends?


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## incision (May 23, 2010)

My friends are politically moderate, on either side of the political divide. None support Trump, considering him a moron.


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