America has been a divided nation for nearly a decade and the 2024 election did nothing to heal the political rift between Americans. It’s an unfortunate reality in which people are making relationship decisions based on politics at a rate that would have seemed unthinkable in the past.
After Election Day, social media was full of folks on the left boasting about cutting off friends and family members while encouraging others to do the same, which could lead to a pernicious result if something does not change.
There are plenty of figures on the left and right to blame for the polarization we are seeing in today’s political landscape. But it is folks on the hard left that are currently pushing for more divisions – especially among young ones.
The question is: What if this is not an organic or accidental occurrence, but an actual campaign to further divide the country?
During an appearance with MSNBC’s Joy Reid, whose claim to fame is stoking racial divisions, psychiatrist Dr. Amanda Calhoun urged Democratic voters to cut off family members who voted for President-elect Donald Trump.
“I think there's a societal norm that if somebody is your family that they are entitled to your time. And I think the answer is absolutely not,” she told Reid.
“So if you're going through a situation where you have family members; where you have close friends you know have voted in ways that are against you ... against your livelihood ... it's completely fine to not be around those people, and to tell them why.
You say 'I have a problem with the way you way you voted, because it went against my very livelihood and I'm not going to be around you this holiday. I need to take some space to heal.'”
You don’t realize what you saved yourselves from by electing Trump
— Technocrat 🥷 (@itechnosmith) November 9, 2024
Yale psychiatrist and mental health expert Dr. Amanda Calhoun advises MSNBC viewers to cut ties with family members who voted for Trump and to avoid seeing them during the holidays.
pic.twitter.com/mp7TyaNHl6
Many left-leaning individuals took to social media, filming themselves explaining why they decided to cut off family members over politics while encouraging other users to do the same.
This numbskull told her parents that she is cutting them out of her and her kids lives simply because they voted for Trump.
— 🇺🇸 Pismo 🇺🇸 (@Pismo_B) November 12, 2024
“Take me out of the will.”
“I never want you hear from you again.”
Will she regret her decision? pic.twitter.com/S8Ft4zkUi9
Libs telling you to cut off family members over Trump vote pic.twitter.com/K3P2ZFbLpt
— B L A K E L E Y™℠©® LLC (@_iamblakeley) November 14, 2024
In fact, the election is even affecting at least a few marriages. One individual wrote a post on social media, dumbfounded that his wife filed for divorce because he voted for Trump.
"I voted for Trump, my wife sent me divorce papers. What do I do? I didn't even know it was possible to be served divorce papers this quickly,” he wrote.
He further added that he is “shocked I married somebody willing to throw away our entire life over politics” and that “Last week we were happy, today we’re getting divorced.”
It’s worth noting that in situations like this, there could have been other underlying issues that contributed to the end of the marriage. But the fact that politics even played a role is disturbing – especially for couples that have been together for years.
This isn’t exactly new. I remember the same trend cropping up after the 2016 election. The more I saw what was happening, the more I concluded that this appears to be a vast psyop aimed at fomenting more division.
Yes, it might sound like I’m wearing a tinfoil hat. But it’s hard for me to believe this shift is 100 percent organic.
The fact of the matter is that there are forces in America that want us to be divided instead of united. They are willing to go so far as to encourage people to end relationships with friends, family, and even spouses because of how people voted.
This, combined with the incendiary rhetoric that has come to define American political discourse, makes it easy to see what the play is here. The key question to ask is: Who benefits?
The people who gain the most from a divided America are the elites and those running the government. While Americans are at each other’s throats, these people expand the size and scope of the state and make it ever more intrusive in our lives. They manipulate the government in a way that benefits them at our expense.
When the powers that be can pit Blacks against Whites, straight against LGBTQ, women against men, Democrats against Republicans, we remain a nation that is not only divided, but usefully distracted.
Unfortunately, I don’t see a way out of this – at least not anytime soon. With the deluge of division coming from politicians, media figures, digital influencers, and other opinion molders, it is becoming increasingly difficult to peek behind the curtain at our true enemies. If something doesn’t happen soon, this might only change in the event of a cataclysmic occurrence. I don’t have the answers on this one – but I fervently hope someone does.