Nothing has ever hit me like a punch in the gut harder than when I went to my mom’s house and saw Trump signs sitting proudly in her front yard. As I stood there, I couldn’t help but ask myself, “What do you do when the people you love most have views fundamentally opposite of yours?”
After the election, it didn’t take long for all of my social media to be inundated with people who were cutting off their Trump supporting friends and loved ones. I was one of them. I quickly realized that being in Texas, if I deleted all my friends and family who supported Trump, I wouldn’t have any friends left. It was a depressing and sobering fact. And my mother? Well, I owe every feminist bone in my body to that woman. She was the reason I rebelled against perceived injustices like when my Dad said that women should be in the home to cook and clean. God gave me a brain for a reason. God gave my Dad arms and legs for a reason, too.
Where does that leave all of us who feel the same way during these upcoming holidays? We are left struggling to reconcile our love for our family across deep ideological divides. For me, the choice to remain connected–despite anger and disappointment–is a defiant act of hope, a refusal to let these ideological differences erase the bonds that have shaped who I am. A belief that things can change, things can get better, because they have to. Right?
The people in power want us to stay divided. They thrive on chaos and the more they divide us, the more they can capitalize on our fear of each other. There are valid arguments on why we should cut Trump supporters out of our lives, but I’d argue that there are just as many to keep the dialogue open. I understand the urge to cut these people out of our lives, but I pose this question to you all: if all of the people who believed differently just dropped out of the Trump supporters’ lives, would there ever be hope for them to see our side?
My mom is a Trump supporter. This is the same woman who, when all my clothes were covered in blood after suffering a miscarriage, she took off her own clothes to give me something to wear. That’s not a memory that goes away because of who she voted for. Please forgive me if I’m having a hard time reconciling who she was with who she is now, just as she is probably having to reconcile the same about me. What if, rather than drawing lines in the sand, we embraced the discomfort, learned from history, and gained a deeper understanding of ourselves and those who disagree with us instead?
History and research both show that dialogue is not just beneficial; it is essential for unity and progress. Social psychologist Gordon Allport’s Contact Hypothesis demonstrates that meaningful interaction between opposing groups reduces prejudice and fosters understanding. Similarly, Jonathan Haidt argues in The Righteous Mind (First Vintage Books, 2013) that bridging ideological divides requires genuine engagement, not avoidance. Historical examples further underscore this. Martin Luther King Jr. relied on dialogue to challenge injustice, while South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission used conversations between victims and perpetrators to rebuild trust after apartheid.
Even in post-Civil War America, Abraham Lincoln’s leadership hinged on bringing opposing perspectives together, believing that dialogue was a pathway to healing. When we refuse to engage, we risk deeper polarization—something modern studies, like Pew Research Center’s findings on political division in the U.S., clearly warn against. Rebuilding unity requires that we reject the impulse to isolate and instead embrace the challenging but necessary work of conversation. How can we preach tolerance but not teach it?
I know that continuing relationships with people who have such different views can feel like a deep betrayal to your own beliefs. I know to some, speaking with Trump voters would simply be intolerable because there are just some values that are non-negotiable. The problem with avoidance or silence is that it just makes the elephant in the room that much larger. When has avoiding the problem ever actually made it go away? Yes, being silent makes for a more peaceful Christmas, but here we are four years later. Has our silence gotten us anywhere different?
If we want things to change, we have to be those agents of change. I know there are people like me, who are scared to even begin to have this conversation because I know how quickly things can turn volatile, but my best advice is to approach these conversations with curiosity and not judgment and to only broach them if you’re in a safe place to do so.
Refusing to engage does little to change our minds, but it does harden our hearts and reinforces the “us versus them” mentality that has only fueled this division. Dialogue remains one of the most powerful tools for fostering mutual understanding and finding common ground–even if it’s difficult, even if it’s imperfect. The goal isn’t necessarily to agree but to maintain human connection and resist the forces that profit from our collective estrangement.
If we have any hope of restoring our faith in our country and in the bonds with these people in our lives, we must keep the conversation going. Here in Texas, someone always holds the door open for you if they’re coming out or if you’re coming in. And let me tell you, nobody has ever stopped to ask me who I voted for before holding that door open for me. Let’s hold the door open on dialogue, let’s hold space for those who disagree with us and aim for unity and not division.