Tolerant. Accepting. Inclusive. Diverse. Familiar buzzwords those on the left love to invoke when talking about themselves.
But a new survey by the conservative American Enterprise Institute shows those traits are rare indeed when it comes to having and maintaining friendships with people from the other side of the political spectrum.
AEI’s study looked at friendship by polling roughly 2,000 Americans as the pandemic wanes. It does not look good.
The survey found “Americans report having fewer close friendships than they once did, talking to their friends less often, and relying less on their friends for personal support.”
Besides COVID-19, the report identified three main reasons why Americans’ social lives are suffering. They marry later and are more mobile than past generations, meaning they don’t put down roots. They spend more time with children than with friends. And they work longer hours and travel more for work.
But the role of politics offered an interesting outcome – and undermines all those platitudes liberals love to tell each other, and the world, about themselves.
AEI reported that 55 percent of Americans discuss politics with friends less than “a few” times a month. On that issue Democrats and Republicans align.
The two sides also keep friends who agree with them at about the same rate: 82 percent of Democrats have “a lot” or “some:” friends who are Democrats, while that ratio is 80 percent among Republicans who stick with Republicans.
It’s crossing the aisle that tells the story.
AEI notes, “Republicans have more bipartisan friendships than Democrats do. A majority (53 percent) of Republicans say they have at least some friends who are Democrats. In contrast, less than one-third (32 percent) of Democrats say they have at least some Republican friends.”
Going further, AEI reports that despite the polarization we see around us just 15 percent of Americans have lost friends because of political disagreements.
But guess who it happens to more often?
“Ending friendships over political disagreements occurs more among liberal and Democratic-leaning Americans,” the survey found.
“Democrats are twice as likely as Republicans are to report having ended a friendship over a political disagreement (20 percent vs. 10 percent). Political liberals are also far more likely than conservatives are to say they are no longer friends with someone due to political differences (28 percent vs. 10 percent, respectively).”
Moreover, “No group is more likely to end a friendship over politics than liberal women are; 33 percent say they stopped being friends with someone because of their politics,” researchers found.
And one key reason: former President Donald Trump.
Twenty-two percent of Americans say they have quit friendships over Trump – although it’s unclear if those who end those friendships support or detest Trump.
Commenting on the findings, Professor Samuel Abrams, a visiting scholar at AEI, noted that among “extreme” identifiers, 22 percent of conservatives indicate that they have stopped a friendship because of politics. That’s slightly higher than the national average.
On the other hand, Abrams said, “a whopping 45 percent of extreme liberal identifiers have ended a friendship over politics — twice the figure of their conservative counterparts.”
“While those on both extremes make up just under ten percent of the overall sample,” Abrams noted, “extremely liberal Americans and their actions have made cancel culture a household name.”
But remember, they are the tolerant ones who include everyone in the quest to show diversity is our strength – not.
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