Politics dividing families at Thanksgiving time

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Post-election tensions are prompting some families to rethink who will be at the Thanksgiving table this year.

In the weeks after the victory of President-elect Donald Trump, a fiery debate has re-emerged about whether it’s fair to cut ties with loved ones due to opposing political values. While some people said they are choosing not to celebrate the upcoming holidays with family members who voted for Trump, others are lamenting being uninvited to family gatherings for supporting him.

For many people, politics has always been considered a taboo subject at the dinner table. But in recent years, as the country has become more politically and culturally divided, some said it’s gotten harder to face the holidays with friends and family members who don’t share their political views. This animosity is a culmination of tensions that had been rising within politically divided families and friend groups ever since Trump’s first victory, in 2016.

A national CBS News/YouGov poll conducted last week found that 71% of people plan to avoid political discussions at Thanksgiving. Of those polled, 1 in 10 said they have changed their plans to avoid gathering with people who voted for a different presidential candidate than they did.

“If somebody voted in ways that hurt you or people you love, it is 100% OK to distance yourself from them,” said Alexis Voss, a stay-at-home mother in Ohio who identifies as liberal.

Voss was among the dozens of people on social media who posted videos about how they are opting out of their family Thanksgiving plans. After spending eight years trying to reconcile with her largely Republican extended family, Voss said she’s reached a boiling point.

“That’s a privilege to say that you think this is just about politics. … I don’t think this is about politics,” she said. “I think this is about my morals and my basic human rights as a woman and mother.”

In recent weeks, public figures have fanned the flames of the discourse by weighing in on the topic. One highly circulated clip showed Yale psychiatrist Amanda Calhoun telling MSNBC’s Joy Reid that it’s “completely fine to not be around those people and to tell them why, to say, ‘I have a problem with the way that you voted because it went against my very livelihood. And I’m not going to be around you this holiday. I need to take some space for me.’”

The comment sparked a flurry of backlash from conservatives, including Fox News host Jesse Watters, who shared on air that his mother had uninvited him from his family Thanksgiving. Elon Musk also responded to a similar debate last week, writing on X: “Cutting someone off just because they voted for the other candidate is close-minded and just plain mean.”

Jay Van Bavel, a psychology professor at New York University, said the country’s division in recent years has largely been driven by hatred of the other side as opposed to love of one’s own side. This is exacerbated, he said, by Trump’s status as one of the most polarizing political figures in American history.

Van Bavel is director of NYU’s Social Identity and Morality Lab, which studies the dynamics of shared social identities. He said the lab’s research shows that much of the polarization comes from massive misunderstandings about the other party’s actual stances — a consequence of social media platforms’ tendency to amplify the most extreme voices within either party.

“There’s way more diversity among Republicans than most Democrats believe, and there’s way more diversity among most Democrats than most Republicans believe,” Van Bavel said. “And the average member of those parties doesn’t believe what we think they believe.”

Diana Rodriguez Wallach, a Pennsylvania-based author of young adult horror, who supported Vice President Kamala Harris, said she’s skipping her family Thanksgiving to protect her mental health.

California resident Jordan Williams, who voted for Trump, said he received upward of 50 Thanksgiving invitations from strangers online after posting on TikTok that his family isn’t inviting him home this year.

Being the only MAGA conservative in a majority-Democratic family, Williams said, has caused a splinter between him and his loved ones.

Williams, 23, said some of his family members hurled insults at him during their conversations after the election, but that he still hopes to “mend the fence” if they one day grow receptive.

“Honestly, it was crushing,” he said of his newfound alienation. “I’m a family man, and for me to be ostracized and kicked out of family groups because of who I voted for, it really hurt me a lot.”

The instinct to exclude people who “violate social norms” is one that’s permeated societies throughout history, according to Van Bavel. But in order for a society like the United States to function, he said, people must figure out how to deal with those who fundamentally differ from themselves.

“One of the biggest fears people have is being socially ostracized,” Van Bavel said. “But in the case of politics, it might make them double down and they might decide now that you’re extra crazy because you’ve done this thing to exclude them.”

Because tensions are so high this year, former hostage negotiator Scott Walker, who now coaches clients on negotiation and conflict resolution, is hosting an all-day public hotline on Thanksgiving Day for families who might need help defusing political arguments.

It’s an idea launched by the emotion management app Ahead, which conducted an anonymous data analysis of 81,000 U.S. users and found that 44% predict more political arguments during this year’s Thanksgiving than any previous Thanksgiving.

or those who are planning to attend a possibly hostile Thanksgiving, Walker said it can help to prepare in advance for the hot-button topics that are likely to come up. A productive conversation can come from listening to understand an opponent’s point of view, Walker said, rather than only listening to rebut. He added that it’s OK to feel angry or disappointed, but that it’s important not to let ego run the show.

So many rightwingers have been too busy trying to fight Hollywood from shoehorning DEI into their once favorite franchises; thus ruining them in favor of pandering to a modern audience that is so minimal in numbers that it doesn't translate well into smash hit ratings, box office success, nor merchandising profits; that they completely ignored the horrible ramifications of once again more republican economics. Many of them have just looked up what tariffs are and they don't like it one bit.

I may be a cultural conservative myself, but I always vote on economics. I voted democrat because I love my social security. Politicians should never have gotten involved in the culture war. We were doing well on our own just letting our wallets do the talking. When politicians put their hats in the ring, I knew they were going to f**k it all up and result in conservatives getting more and more aggressive and over defining wokeness just like they over define socialism.

It's perfectly understandable that people who support hate and harm to the most vulnerable are not welcome at gatherings. People who voted for Trump are doing actual harm to humanity. That's no small thing. The reverse is not true in that people who voted for Harris are not harming the lives of Trump supporters.

Also, people who voted for Harris are not "woke." In its original conception, the term woke refers to people who have awakened to injustice and the wrongs of the world. The majority of Democrats simply support a status quo that is different from the Republican status quo but is still mainstream and not woke. I wish people would stop tossing that word around, especially as it's been bastardized and changed by the Right to simply refer to anyone whose politics they don't like and to subvert what it actually refers to.

^I don't completely understand your response which seems to be only partly in response to things I said and partly in response to things I didn't say. No hard feelings, just saying I don't fully understand.

I am not any of the "bastardized" definitions of "woke" and I voted for Harris. No matter what definition of "woke" you prefer I have not read anything about "MAGA's excluding them or Harris voters in general. Whatever you want to call them there are certain elements of the left for whom canceling/shunning/ostracizing MAGA's is the point. Plenty of MAGA's think wokes/libs/democrats promote dangerously harmful ideas yet I don't read much about them excluding family members. I am curious about this.

It's hard for me to say what might be in the minds of MAGAs.

Easy, our political views do not discriminate and go against their human rights like theirs do.

Cutting off friends and family over politics is deranged behavior.

Cutting off friends and family over politics is deranged behavior.