This Thanksgiving, do not follow the old maxim that we should never discuss politics at the dinner table.
Many people’s emotions are running high right now. Elections often bring out a wide range of feelings, whether pride and optimism for those who are pleased with the results or disappointment and frustration from those who aren’t. After a long and grueling election season, we need to connect with and not avoid one another.
Donald Trump’s presidential win is sparking a surge of family and friendship breakups. To get a pulse on what people are thinking and feeling, BuzzFeed asked readers if they had cut anyone in their life out over Trump’s win, and they received several illuminating responses.
“I have no contact with anyone in my ‘family,’ even the ones that I kept in my life at a distance after 2016,” one person wrote. “They voted for someone who doesn’t care if my career helping children is defunded, that my LGBT+ child may lose their right to marry, that my child with a disability may lose their IEP funding, that my immigrant husband may lose his visa.”
While I respect people’s decision to distance themselves from those they believe are an affront to their viewpoints and values, I choose to lean in.
It is a knee-jerk reaction for someone to withdraw to avoid conflict. By not addressing issues head-on, friction can sometimes build up and eventually explode into a more considerable disagreement.
I do not engage in an attempt to convince someone to come over to my side of the fence, figuratively speaking. I engage because I want to better understand the person in front of me as a human being and not by the labels that subvert them and oversimplify complex issues affecting all of us.
In times of high conflict, it’s common for people to split into two opposing groups and view each other negatively. This can lead to generalizations and name-calling, which often dehumanizes the other side and can escalate tensions. A more productive approach is to seek a deeper understanding of the complex factors that contribute to different perspectives. By doing so, we can help reduce polarization and foster more constructive dialogue.
The public is also highly critical of partisan polarization’s impact on politics. According to a study by the Pew Research Center, more than eight-in-ten Americans (86%) say the following is a good description of politics: “Republicans and Democrats are more focused on fighting each other than on solving problems.” Asked to describe in their own words the biggest problem with the political system, 22% of Americans volunteer partisan polarization or lack of partisan cooperation.
Elected officials spend so much time arguing their viewpoints that they must often remember to listen. And listening is the foundation of collaboration.
Complicating The Narrative
As a solutions journalism practitioner, I leverage Complicating the Narratives (CTN), a strategy that helps journalists find new ways to report on controversial issues and polarizing politics. It draws on the experience of experts in conflict mediation. When reporters use these strategies, they listen better, ask more revealing questions, effectively introduce opposing viewpoints, and embrace nuance in their reports. They learn to tell more accurate, richer, and fuller stories.
I recently had a conversation about the presidential election with my lifelong friend, Fernando Barboto. Fernando and I are the children of South American immigrants. We were born in Paterson, New Jersey (an inner city just outside New York City) and are married with children. He’s a Republican, and I am an independent voter. He voted for Trump, and I voted for Vice President Kamala Harris.
Paterson, a diverse suburban area in Passaic County, New Jersey, supported Hillary Clinton with 74% of the vote in 2016 but chose president-elect Donald Trump in this year’s election. This region in the northern part of the state has typically leaned Democratic. However, Trump garnered approximately 95,000 votes, while Vice President Kamala Harris received around 89,000.
I applied the CTN technique of looping, in which one summarizes what’s been heard from the person they are talking to. It helps in two ways. First, it lets you check to see if you are, in fact, hearing correctly. The other thing looping does is show the person that you are listening. They know they are being heard because one repeats back what they said. It also invites them to go deeper and tell you more.
Fernando and I conversed and sometimes debated to understand better what drove our decision to vote for Trump and Harris. We discovered that we had more in common than what the extreme narratives in legacy media’s news coverage of the economy and immigration misled us to believe.
The Economy
“The most potent driver in the election was economic discontent, expressed in President-elect Donald Trump’s gains with most demographics,” said Clarissa Martínez de Castro,, Vice President of the Latino Vote Initiative at UnidosUS,. “If there is a mandate, it’s on that: raise wages and bring down food, housing and health care costs.”
The American Electorate Poll’s key findings on Hispanic voter motivations were the Cost of living/inflation (52%) and Jobs and the economy (36%). That was also high on Fernando’s and my list.
“(If) you want to see what the state of the economy is? Just go to the grocery store,” said Fernando. He shared disappointment with President Joe Biden’s administration in not doing more to help ease the financial strain. Exit polls indicate that inflation significantly influenced Trump’s electoral success. According to an ABC News exit poll, over two-thirds of voters perceived the economy as being in poor condition. Additionally, a CBS News exit poll revealed that three-quarters of voters viewed inflation as a hardship.
However, when it comes to attributing responsibility to the Biden and Harris administration, opinions among economists vary. While some economists acknowledge that the administration bears some responsibility, the majority, according to a USA TODAY report involving seven economists, emphasize that the global pandemic is the primary driver of the nation’s inflation crisis rather than the current administration’s actions. I agree. The Biden administration did not induce the country’s economic hardship; it inherited it.
Various indicators can assess an economy’s health, with gross domestic product (GDP) being the most widely utilized. GDP reflects the total production, expenditure, and income generated within an economy over a specific timeframe. Recent reports from Newsweek indicate that the U.S. is performing better than its G7 counterparts. While all G7 nations have faced challenges with high inflation in the post-pandemic period, the U.S. has still achieved economic growth, primarily attributed to improvements in the labor market.
“The enormous labor market churn of COVID in 2020-21 had the unintended benefit of moving millions of lower-income workers to better jobs, more income security, and/or running their own businesses,” Adam Posen, president of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, told Axios.
Despite the overall positive trend, there is a noticeable disparity in how the nation’s economy impacts Americans from various economic backgrounds. “Although the household incomes managed to keep pace, albeit with some lags, the situation remains precarious for many who are living paycheck to paycheck, often requiring a second job and/or relying on credit with record-high finance charges,” John Min, chief economist at Monex USA, told Newsweek.
Ahead of Election Day, a Redfield & Wilton Strategies polling revealed that 69% of those planning to vote for Trump believed the economy was on the road to ruin, while only 22% of Harris backers thought the same. Fernando agreed with me that gas prices have improved, but his decision to vote Republican was primarily due to lackluster advancements in other pocketbook issues. “It’s been tough on all of us,” he said.
Immigration
Another significant policy issue influencing Latino men’s support for Trump was immigration, particularly as it was closely linked to economic concerns during this election cycle. While about 4 in 10 young voters under 45 across racial and ethnic groups identified the economy as the top issue facing the country, older white and Latino voters were likely also to cite immigration, with about one-quarter of each saying that was the top issue. Fernando and I are both 54 years old.
Historically, immigrants have often been blamed for economic downturns in the United States, and the Republican Party effectively utilized this narrative by attributing challenges such as job accessibility, low wages, and affordable housing to immigrants. Brookings reported that 74% of Americans encountered misinformation suggesting that “immigrants are taking jobs and causing an increase in unemployment for people born in the U.S.”
Fernando and I agreed that immigration can enhance economic growth. His concern is about criminal activity and terrorism threats emanating from the Southern border. “You hear all these news reports about gang members coming over the border illegally, and cities (sanctuary cities) aren’t doing anything about it,” Fernando said. A Center for American Political Studies at Harvard University poll found that 57 % of respondents were most concerned about an increase in “violence” and “crime” due to the impact of mass immigration.
I disagreed with him. The perception that immigration contributes to rising crime rates is a longstanding belief held by many, persisting for over a century. This view continues to be entrenched despite increasing evidence suggesting otherwise, partly due to politicians like Trump who amplify this narrative. The Conversation’s analysis indicates that numerous studies have consistently found no causal relationship between immigration and increased crime rates.
Still, I conceded that statistics are a poor solace for victims’ families like Jocelyn Nungaray’s, who was strangled by two undocumented immigrants who entered the country illegally, according to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The Path Forward
Fernando and I also discussed the U.S. involvement in the Ukraine-Russian war and the war in Gaza. We also discussed the character of the candidates and Trump’s criminal conviction. The conversation followed a similar pattern of respectful tension facilitated by my applying the four pillars of Complicating The Narrative:
- Listening differently through the technique of Looping.
- Going beneath the problem by asking questions that probe and uncover motivations rather than positions.
- Embracing the complexity of ideas and perspectives and providing necessary context.
- Checking bias blind spots in ourselves by introducing qualitative and quantitative data
According to Reuters’ 2019 Digital News Report, 41% of Americans sometimes or often avoid the news. The primary reasons for this avoidance are negativity and feelings of powerlessness and helplessness. However, news outlets have the potential to play a crucial role in helping audiences navigate divisions and learn about solutions to the challenges facing their communities.
As Publisher of the Latino News Network, I strive to tell fair and accurate stories. I help writers and journalists find new ways to report on controversial issues and divisive topics by drawing on the CTN approach. Using these strategies, we listen better, ask more revealing questions, effectively introduce opposing viewpoints, and embrace nuance in reporting.
Fernando and I are concerned about and hopeful for many of the same things. We just have different ideas about how to solve and realize them. In our hour long conversation, we successfully communicated through our differences.
Engaging in passionate discussions about political views and being open to discomfort can contribute to a society capable of addressing various issues. At a fundamental level, this involves fostering respectful discourse, even in informal settings like family meals. Encouraging political conversations can start within families and extend to broader societal interactions.
Your upset stomach has nothing to do with the food on your plate. It’s built-up resentment due to unresolved issues with a loved one over their political leanings. So, this Thanksgiving, don’t just share a meal; share a conversation.
I am an accredited solutions journalism trainer with the Solutions Journalism Network and the director of solutions journalism, diversity, equity, and inclusion with The Fulcrum.