Friend & Foe: The political divide is affecting our personal relationships
Temporada 1
por Jennifer Hardacker
Jessica identifies as biracial and talks about the ways political differences has complicated her relationships in her family. This includes her white, liberal leaning mother, her conservative uncles, and her black father, a staunch Republican. In our conversation, Jessica speaks of the importance of having compassion for others. She points out that we’re all on a journey, and that we should be optimistic that others can learn and change. She also asserts that we have to keep the lines of communication open with those that don’t have the same beliefs as us, because if we don’t address the issue, the problem will only get worse as we further dehumanize one another.
When Alexander first got to college, he found himself routinely being chastised by his college peers for the conservative beliefs he had learned from his family. Alexander, who’s parents immigrated to the US from Mexico, grew up in Southern Oregon. Alexander describes the population of his Southern Oregon hometown as being predominantly white with a few Mexicans, and those few Mexicans were his own family. Alex had adopted the conservative beliefs of his white high school friends as a way to better fit in as one of the only brown kids in the school, but when he got to college, he began to form his own opinions and those new opinions put him in opposition to his family's conservative leanings.
This is my conversation with Cassandra from the summer of 2020. Cassandra lives just outside of Portland, identifies as gay, and supported Trump for both the 206 and 2020 elections. Cassandra replied to my social media post asking folks who would be willing to talk to me about how political differences have affected personal relationships. She was sad and angry that so many of her left leaning friends decided to cut off communication with her rather than have a conversation about their political differences. Cassandra observes that our desire to belong to a group can cause us to say things that further increase the political divide.
Michelle comes from a large Catholic family, but she finds herself in conflict with their conservative beliefs. This has led to challenges in maintaining relationships with certain family members, becoming a source of inner turmoil for her. What deeply troubles Michelle is not merely the divergence in political views but the awareness that for her, it goes beyond politics—it touches upon fundamental questions of morality.
Niome was raised in a small, predominantly white, conservative town in Oregon. As the daughter of Mexican immigrant parents, she experienced the political divide firsthand during her senior year of high school in 2016. Niome faced ridicule from her high school classmates for calling out Trump's racist rhetoric. Further complicating matters, she has family members who are immigrants from Mexico but support Trump's immigration policies.
This is Chris's perspective on the friendship between him and Sean and their challenges in maintaining it despite their ideological differences. I initially spoke with Chris in the summer of 2020 and followed up with him in the spring of 2021. Chris acknowledges that he acted poorly when he first realized the extent of the disparity between his and Sean's political ideologies. Throughout our conversation, we delved into various topics, including the trend of progressive individuals "canceling" others within their own ranks for expressing viewpoints that deviate slightly from the progressive rhetoric.
I had the opportunity to interview two friends who stand on opposite sides of the political divide, discussing how it affects their relationship. Chris embraces the progressive democrat ideology, while Sean identifies as a Libertarian. My initial conversation with Sean took place in the summer of 2020, and I followed up with him in the spring of 2021. Throughout our discussion, we explored various reasons behind the deepening divide, the tendency for people to form tribes with rigid membership boundaries, and our growing inability to engage in civil conversations with individuals who hold different ideologies without resorting to name-calling.