Ever since the presidential race started to heat up in 2016, there’s been a noticeable uptick in the amount of partisan squabbling, trolling, yelling and protesting amongst the nation’s citizens. With people who are in relationships, it’s no different.
In fact, in the last year or so, a company called Wakefield Research found that with couples — for those both married and unmarried — President Trump has played a part in a significant percentage of separations and breakups. In fact, some of the company’s data says that as many as 10 percent of all relationships have ended based on either attraction or antipathy toward the president.
For millennials who are in relationships, the number runs as high as 22 percent, which goes to show that political rhetoric and discourse is having an effect not just in local barrooms and company cafeterias, but on the home front, where battles over domestic issues such as employment, healthcare and financial planning increasingly draw on talking points from both left-wing and right-wing media.
Almost 33 percent of all Americans say that political arguments over President Trump and his policies have “had a negative impact on their relationships,” according to the Wakefield report. “Since Donald Trump’s election, political discourse in the U.S. has been more tense and divisive than ever… Passionately opposing points of views are not only driving wedges between strangers and even friends, but now, we’re seeing evidence that this dissent is having a detrimental impact on Americans’ marriages and relationships.”
Wakefield said that since President Trump’s election, 24 percent of Americans that are married or in relationships said they argue with their spouse or partner about politics “more than ever.” Among millennials, the number increases to 42 percent.
Interestingly, Wakefield found that Democrats were generally the more intolerant partners, preferring to not even date a person who’s a Trump supporter, while Republicans who voted for Trump tend to be more willing to give Democrats a shot.
Even Americans who were not in a relationship reported they would consider divorce if their partner didn’t agree with their politics. “Among Americans who did not vote for Trump and who are not in a relationship with a partner who voted for Trump, a third (33 percent) would consider divorce if they had a spouse who voted for Donald Trump. This number jumps to 43 percent among millennials who did not vote for Trump or have a partner who voted for him,” read the report.
While the idea of a “Trump divorce” may sound outlandish to some, lawyer Grant Moher of family law partnership Curran Moher Weiss in Fairfax, Virginia says that “in the wake of the whole Trump phenomenon, people have gotten to the point of divorce over their political divisions.” One case Moher cited was that of a Muslim man who had come to the U.S. as a child and had been married to an American woman for two decades.
Neither of them was political at all until Trump came along, and then “all of a sudden, [the woman] developed a real affinity for Trump.” She began questioning her husband’s Muslim upbringing. “She was questioning his patriotism. It was a huge rift in their marriage,” says Moher. According to the attorney, it’s gotten to the point where it’s a huge topic of discussion in divorce courts these days. Moher says that some couples have been driven to marriage counseling. “Yes, this is a real issue — you’re either with him or against him.”
And in the courts themselves — of either the divorce variety or others — defendants aren’t the only ones arguing about Trump and his policies. According to Weekly Standard contributor Mark Degirolami, the First Amendment of the Constitution “is being contorted to enable judges to protest Donald Trump’s presidency. The perennial impulse of judges to manipulate the law to achieve morally and politically desirable ends has only been exacerbated by the felt necessity to ‘resist’ Trump.”
As a result, says Degirolami, we’re seeing “fake law” — “already highly dubious” legal tests, especially those concerning free speech, being “further deformed and twisted.” Fake law “brings us judicial posturing, virtue signaling and opinionating masquerading as jurisprudence.” Before long, Degirolami claims, “as with fake news,” we’ll soon be “likely to forget what real law looks like. Soon enough, we won’t even know the difference.”
It’s also possible that couples are bringing political arguments from work home with them. Some 29 percent of workers say that since the November election, they feel they’re less productive at work, with almost 50 percent of workers witnessing political discussion turn into shouting matches or even fights.
As many as 87 percent of workers admit to reading about politics at work, with 25 percent spending as much as two hours a day on the practice. Up to 35 percent of those surveyed said they read 10 or more political postings (for millennials, the number is 18) on blogs or social media per day, and 73 percent confessed to having had discussions about politics themselves. Out of those who were surveyed, 34 percent claimed to have joined a political march or protest since the election.
Andy Ruben, the CEO of San Francisco-based Yerdle, a retail high-tech firm, says that President Trump has made it harder for his workers to focus on their jobs. “Their general feeling about the world right now is absolutely affecting their ability to show up and be productive,” he said.
Kris Duggan, the CEO of another tech company, BetterWorks, says, “This is like a whole new world of distraction. We found that for some BetterWorks employees, [reading or talking about politics] occupies three or four hours a day… People from across the political spectrum and across the country have become news junkies.”
One BetterWorks employee, Amanda Delzell, said she had never posted on social media about politics before, but all that changed with Trump’s election. Part of it was in response to what her family and coworkers had been posting, she said.
People are bringing politics out of the office because, in addition to talking to their co-workers about it, they’re talking to clients and customers, and even bosses. “That’s insanity,” says Richter. “Most career coaches, I think, would tell you to change the topic.” Some employees report anxiety and sleep loss since the election. A co-worker of Amanda Delzell’s said she would “typically be awake at 3 or 4 in the morning catching up on all these articles.” Of course, a spouse or significant other would certainly be affected by these activities.
It’s a far cry from the days of political operators James Carville and Mary Matalin, who married despite the former being an advisor to Democratic President Bill Clinton and the latter advising Republican President George W. Bush.
Of course, it’s possible that President Trump’s first two wives might be able to confirm the Trump divorce phenomenon firsthand, but unfortunately, there aren’t too many reports about whether politics was the original root of their matrimonial complaints. For now, we can hope that as Trump’s time in office progresses, these incidents will fade rather than increase in prevalence.
