Nobody in America takes politics more personally than young liberals.
In our inaugural survey for The Argument, we sought to measure just how integral politics were to people’s lives and identities. When we asked participants whether it was ever acceptable to cut off a family member over their political views, 75% said no. When it came to the same question, but for friends, 70% also said no.
But beneath the surface-level consensus that close relationships should transcend politics lurk deep divides by both ideology and age. Young people, and especially young people who lean left, were much more likely to say it was acceptable to freeze out friends or family members. Ideological segregation is a real problem for liberalism, and every indication is that it’s getting worse.
We’ll start with the numbers.
In our survey, approximately half of the voters who self-identified as liberal said it would be acceptable to cut off family members over opposing political views. This was a stance shared by just 19% of moderates and just 11% of conservatives. The gap was almost as large when it came to whether or not it was acceptable to cut off friends.
The patterns were even starker when we broke results down by age. Among liberals under 45, 74% thought it was OK to end a friendship over politics. When it came to all other ideological groups we looked at, fewer than half agreed. But notably, young moderates and conservatives were still much more likely than older ones to say they’d end relationships over politics.
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