Comment: Make Thanksgiving table big enough for all voters

By Melinda Henneberger / The Kansas City Star

A friend recently showed me some messages she’d received from a couple of relatives, one of whom she had planned to see on Thanksgiving. Ostensibly, these were political messages, castigating her for her failure to support Donald Trump.

But really, they were just old-fashioned bullying: taunting, ridiculing, calling her names. She never answered in kind, though her tempered, mollifying and completely non-political responses only seemed to make these sore winners kick back all the more viciously.

Because she deserves better — and of course, we all do — I feel for her, torn between wanting to spend the holiday with family, because life is short, and wanting to spend it with those who, whatever their views, can manage to show some kindness, also because life is short. Whatever she decides will be the right answer.

Her situation is very different, though, from all of those who I see talking about cutting off everyone in their lives who voted for Trump. Many of my real life friends have said on social media how happy they are to be shed of all those fascists, and that as soon as they learn that someone they know voted for him, well then that person is dead to them.

Politically, Democrats will never learn anything that way, but then, many are not in a learning mood. The personal and communal loss is more devastating, though, even if they don’t see it that way.

I also happen to consider the president-elect a menace who, if he keeps his promises, will wreck the economy with inflationary tariffs, hasten climate change, destroy our alliances, embolden our enemies and punish his. He seems determined to undermine our military, let a crackpot bring back measles and make loyalty oaths to him the only requirement for even the most important federal jobs. The man will harm not only immigrants but all Americans, and will turn the lights out in Ukraine.

But we should stop saying that Trump supporters voted for these outcomes, or even in spite of them, because they don’t believe any of these things will happen, or see what’s already happening that way. Yes, we are living in two realities, and no, that won’t be addressed by avoiding all contact with those on the other planet.

So I’m still going to say — though nobody asked me — that I think those who are cutting off everyone in their lives who voted for Trump are making a mistake, both for themselves and for us as a country. I understand self-protection and self-care, but making blanket assumptions about the motivations of half of the country does not strike me as a very liberal thing to do. You can oppose his policies without writing off his people.

Maybe those so vociferous about doing so did not have a lot of contact with those who don’t think like them to begin with: One 2020 poll showed that 24 percent of Democrats said they are not friends with even one person who holds very different views, compared to 20 percent of independents and 12 percent of Republicans. If this squeamishness is intended to avoid negative emotions, it’s not working.

People voted for Trump for a lot of reasons, even if I think that most of those reasons boil down to what a conservative friend told me months ago about how she thought he’d win because there were just more mad people out there than sad people. Why that’s the case will not become better understood by shunning all those who feel that way.

I grew up in a county in southern Illinois that went 76 percent for Trump this year, and while I vehemently disagree with the way the overwhelming majority there voted, I could never dismiss my former neighbors as a bunch of haters, because I know them and so know better.

My dad, the best man I ever knew, loved Trump, though if you ask me, they had nothing in common in terms of values. Most of my relatives on both sides of the family are Trump voters, and there is a lot more to them than their support for someone I see as a human wrecking ball.

They know what I think and vice versa, but it doesn’t define us or our relationships, either, because what would that get us? A number of my conservative friends are Never Trump, and didn’t feel that in good conscience they could vote for either nominee, and it’s easy to talk politics with them.

Most, though not all, of my friends who did vote for him have never, so far as I know, voted for any Democrat, and I really can’t see that changing. Not to say that we haven’t had some heated exchanges, but what would I gain by losing lifelong friendships over these disagreements?

If tribalism is a problem, and it is, then retreating even further from people who don’t think like us can’t possibly be a solution.

So unless there are other issues, like the inexcusable cruelty shown to my friend in those text messages, then I say show up on Thanksgiving and give thanks that in America, we can at least for now still celebrate our differences.

When she lost her presidential race, Kamala Harris said that we don’t only love our country when we win. And we don’t only love our friends when they look or act or vote like we do.