The Great Divide

There’s much hand-wringing these days about the political polarization of our country. This angst is real and empirically provable in evolving individual state and community laws and regulations and, of course, in the very existence of Donald Trump at the top of the Republican presidential ticket. But until a week ago I had not experienced first-hand what I’m sure many others have experienced: a major political flameout in my immediate family.

It was the grandson’s 10th birthday party at my daughter’s house, a routine family gathering. Our immediate family is small, and I look forward to our get-togethers for holidays, birthdays, and the like. And my daughter’s a great cook, to boot.

I’ve always liked my sister-in-law’s husband John, who until last weekend never talked about politics. We generally chat on these occasions about books we’ve read, trips we’ve taken if anyone has gone anywhere, the fruits of his vegetable garden, or the habits of his yappy, annoying long-haired Chihuahua, who sits in the crook of his arm at the dinner table. It wasn’t that there was some kind of prohibition against talking about politics or anything; it was mostly that with all the food eating, gift opening, and general chaos of a dozen people getting together for dinner, it didn’t seem to come up. This isn’t how I grew up. In my family, dinner was never about the food; dinner was just an excuse to talk politics with my activist parents. We disagreed freely with each another, expressing our views of the world with passion—but without rancor. I see now that part of that dynamic was because, as liberal Democrats, we generally agreed with one another on major issues and shared a world view (even with my drug addict younger brother).

So, at last weekend’s family dinner John was uncharacteristically quiet. With Biden finally dropping out and Trump flipping out over the surge in Harris’ popularity, however, politics did come up at this dinner. This was great for me; I was psychologically back at my parents’ boisterous dinner table, arguing about the state and the fate of our sorry world. But that was then.

John’s first contribution to the discussion concerned energy—specifically how much power California imports from out of state. But instead of a natural segue into the state’s renewable energy resource development or the thorny issue of energy supply and demand, it was clear that his preference was for more drilling and fossil-fuel generation, and that Democrats are responsible for turning their backs on this abundant domestic resource. (Drill, Baby, Drill!)

It wouldn’t have been so bad had the discussion ended there instead of descending into poverty, homelessness, and crime, all of which he blamed on liberals: specifically California liberals. (He was born and raised in Oklahoma.) As our dinner plates were being collected, he jumped up from the table and declared that Democrats had singlehandedly ruined California, adding that “You’re damned right I’m voting for Trump!” Without even bidding anyone adieu he told his wife (my sister-in-law), who never challenges him, to get her things, they were leaving immediately and wouldn’t be coming back. As he flounced out of the house and down the driveway to his car, he offered a parting shot to my kind-hearted son-in-law that he was part of the problem by allowing such discussions in his house.

Had this been a normal conversation I’m sure we could have agreed on some points. California’s troubles are a complicated mess, to be sure, and many pols from both parties contributed to it — starting with Republican darling Ronald Reagan, who smilingly decimated the country’s weighted taxation system, along with the middle class. But exactly how Trump would cure any of these ills was not unexplored. Trump is, after all, a known quantity, and unless you happened to be either hiding out in a cave for the past eight years or myopically focused on your humongous stock portfolio, you know very well what Trump would be like a second time around—he’s just more pissed off after plotting his revenge on everyone he thinks has wronged him.

I still puzzle over John’s reaction and his promise to never return to our family events, how 20 years of celebrating together as a family could evaporate in a puff of smoke over politics. I asked myself, Why didn’t he speak up? Openly challenge opinions he disagreed with? Agree to disagree? Granted, there was surely a natural reluctance to broadcast his pro-Trump views in a roomful of Bay Area liberals. But we’ve been through presidential campaigns before as a family, to no ill effect. It’s because that, this time, John looked at me as a lesser person because of my different beliefs, which he clearly viewed as character flaws. This was no dinner-table discussion of my childhood where we all agreed to disagree on some relatively minor point before moving on to dessert and homework. This was an existential rift that separated the true believers from the liberal chaff.

And that’s a shame. I’ll miss him.