Trump, White Lotus, and the Politics of Friendship
Trump’s expanded voter base didn’t just show up to the polls, it shows up in our friend groups, too.
When The White Lotus featured a conversation about politics between friends in this week’s episode, it hit a nerve. The scene illuminated the fraught role politics plays in our friendships. And while this discussion was amongst (likely) millennial characters, I’d argue that politics in friendships can be even more complicated for Gen Z — a generation that’s both deeply ideological and has never known a world without Trump as a constant in our lives.
The scene that struck a chord
For those of you who don’t watch The White Lotus (and if you do but haven’t seen this week’s episode yet, don’t worry this isn’t really a spoiler)... in the latest episode, childhood friends Kate, Jaclyn, and Laurie are at dinner on vacation in Thailand. A conversation about Kate’s Texas church quickly veers into politics, with her friends’ skeptical body language and pointed questions revealing a growing ideological divide. Even though Kate never explicitly says she voted for Trump, the tension is palpable.
The fictional scene felt strikingly realistic. If Trump made inroads across voting blocs and geographies, it means he also made inroads in many friend groups. New political allegiances have certainly complicated platonic relationships – including among young people. And while we’ve spent a lot of time discussing the rightward movement of young men, the reality is that Trump improved his standing with young women too, especially young white women, who split 49% / 49% for Trump and former Vice President Kamala Harris in November. In such a divided political landscape, disagreements among friends are inevitable.
We’ve talked about the politics of dating. But what about the politics of friendship?
For the past decade, Trump has dominated the news cycle, showing up on TVs in restaurants, bars, campus common areas, and airport gates, as well as on our phones where news alerts about him ping throughout the day. But even more so, he’s as perpetually online as the rest of us, showing up with his own content (and that of his allies) flooding our feeds. All that’s to say: it’s been hard for Gen Z, who grew up forging friendships in this environment, to avoid conversations about politics with friends.
Last fall, I wrote a piece for Glamour about ‘Generation Dissatisfied,’ which opened with a story from Keighan Nangle, who had a falling out with her sorority sisters at the University of Alabama over politics (Nangle is now the executive assistant to White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt). Like many young women in the Glamour piece, Nangle’s political views alienated her from her friend group. Beyond party affiliations, major issues like the Israel Hamas war have upended friendships, too. As I wrote at the time, the social shaming hurled by those on the left and the right is kicked up a notch by the pressure of social media and a culture that places weight on saying the right thing, even when many aren’t sure what to say at all.
How this manifests irl
Fast forward to today with Trump giving first address to Congress of his second term. Inspired by The White Lotus scene, I polled my Instagram followers to ask if they’ve had a similar conversation with friends. 78% said yes.
Responses from all across the country underscored that these tensions exist nationwide. I asked those respondents how political discussions complicated their friendships.
Here’s what they said:
“During election season I distanced from friend who wouldn’t vote”
“Yess it’s hard for me to understand why people I went to HS with like Andrew Tate”
“Being Jewish is political & some pro Hamas friends are no longer friends”
“Being black and conservative, people especially always say ‘wait what?’”
One 19-year old college student in D.C. shared how politics ended her closest friendship:
“Almost a year ago I met a girl online before starting college & she became my best friend. We were on opposite sides of the aisle (she a Republican, I a Democrat) but spent months putting it aside in the sake of friendship & she just suddenly a couple weeks ago quit speaking to me & said it was politics. I have a new prominent role in the College Democrats chapter here on campus, which I think may have driven this break up. It’s definitely taught me a lot about how personal politics is – even though we thought we could set it aside, I think unless there’s strict boundaries or an insane level of understanding, there’s always a chance of complications.”
I asked her why she thinks this happens. Her response:
“I think some of it is hard to disagree with people sometimes & it takes a lot to be able to come to the point where you can accept those differences & move past them. My entire family & my close childhood friends are all conservative leaning & I only recently felt like I could tell my family that I think the way I do. There’s this underlying fear, at least there was for me & for others I talk to, of just never being fully accepted for believing differently than the people around you.”
Another 19-year-old in Texas echoed similar experiences:
“I’ve had friends that I’ve had since my childhood, who have abruptly not only blocked and unfollowed me after hearing me say the slightest conservative things, not even that I endorsed Trump. And they will spread horrible lies about me and my character on their public social media platforms. And I just wondered how something so minor can affect a friendship that’s been good for so long.”
When asked why she thinks this happens, she said:
“I think it’s too hard to disagree, not on my part though. Specifically I think that they think that I’m actively against their ‘existence’ or human rights, but that’s not the case at all by any means. I think it’s all just miscommunication and lack of knowledge pertaining to politics and especially what I myself believe in.”
How did we get here?
The bigger issue isn’t just that friendships are breaking up over politics, it’s that we’ve forgotten how to handle disagreement. Social media rewards outrage, not dialogue. And in the absence of in-person forums for disagreement or examples of healthy political discourse from our leaders, many young people see political differences as irreconcilable. Our political climate and online culture fosters an “us vs. them” mentality, rooted in identity and moral purity. And it goes both ways – politicians on both sides of the aisle find plenty of fault with the other party, but rarely allow themselves to compliment ideas they might actually agree with, reinforcing a culture where compromise feels impossible.
The solution isn’t forcing friendships across ideological lines, but rather cultivating spaces where disagreement isn’t an automatic dealbreaker. I’ve met students who are part of Bridge USA, an organization that encourages disagreement and cross-partisan conversation on college campuses. And I’ve been at conferences with state and local lawmakers of opposite party allegiances (shoutout to Future Caucus, an organization that brings together young state lawmakers from across the aisle and country) where I’ve seen the possibility of friendships between people who fundamentally disagree with one another. It is possible. But it needs to happen in real life, through face-to-face discussion and human-to-human interaction.
So where do we go from here?
What does it say about today’s culture that 19-year-olds feel it’s too hard to disagree? We need to turn off the cameras and stop giving merit to the use of social media algorithms that celebrate inflammatory rhetoric. There’s a way to rewire the system for good.
Friendship isn’t just about shared views — it’s about shared values. Maybe the key to navigating political differences isn’t about changing minds, but about finding common ground in how we approach difficult conversations.
Rather than shutting each other out, what if we took the pressure off winning debates and instead focused on understanding the “why” behind our differences? If nothing else, learning how to have difficult conversations now might be the skill that serves Gen Z the most in the long run.
A follow up from last week
Sitting with Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna (CA-17) at Trump’s address to Congress tonight will be newsfluencer Carlos Eduardo Espina, an immigrant rights activist who is one of the creators who was mentioned in last week’s exploration of where young people are getting their news. That’s a smart move from Khanna, who’s been racking up millions of likes and views on TikTok.
Noteworthy reads
On politics
The Democrats’ young man problem is real, Christian Paz for Vox
Donald Trump’s approval rating soars with Gen Z, Ewan Palmer for Newsweek
In the workplace
Gen Z doesn't lack a worth ethic. They’re just uninspired by today’s corporate landscape, Paul Walker for Fortune
Across culture writ large
Ben Shelton Came To Tennis Late – He’s Been Riding A Rocket To The Top Of The Sport, Corey Seymour for Vogue
All Your Favorite It Girls Are Starting in This Off Broadway Play, Samuel Maude for Elle
Noteworthy reads from around the world
Health-conscious middle class and Gen Z drive demand for protein, Eleanor Hayward for The Times
Great piece, as always, but if we’re going off the age of the actresses in White Lotus, I think we are to believe the characters are Gen X! Both Bibb and Monaghan were born in the 1970s!
Braver Angels is another group that works to find common ground across political divides.
I agree we need to listen more, ask more questions, and make fewer assumptions. I also agree that shared values are important in friendships (and dating relationships), and our political labels may or may not be a shorthand for those values. After all, I don't even agree with everyone in my own political party on a number of issues.
An even bigger problem is that increasingly, there are becoming two different realities (or, perceptions of reality), and what really stymies communication is when people can't even agree on what constitutes a historical or scientific fact, let alone how to interpret it or feel about it.