Preserving family bonds even if you disagree fiercely on politics

Mónica Guzmán is liberal, voting for President Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton in recent elections. Her parents are conservative, voting for former President Donald Trump twice, and planning to do so again.

When Guzmán got together with friends in Seattle in recent years, she started noticing an uncomfortable feeling in her gut when people described Trump voters as "basically monsters."

"They wouldn't put it that way most of the time. It would be subtle and quick, and sometimes not even that conscious. A joke about how ignorant they are, a side comment just presuming that they're beyond immoral and uncaring."

Sometimes, she says, "it was a jab out of seemingly nowhere. But it would build up in the group, it would echo around the room." Every once in a while, Guzmán found herself "nodding and laughing along. I'm not gonna pretend I didn't."

At first, she tried to ignore this "sneaky contempt about Trump voters" — but she kept feeling it was wrong. "Saying these false, contemptuous things about people we barely knew (was) profoundly harmful itself."

"Whether it's among a group of liberals, or a group of conservatives, or libertarians or anyone, we're not attacking the other side. We're attacking our collective ability to relate, build, verify, solve, anything. We're attacking ourselves."

When people said horrible things about Trump voters, Guzmán says, "they were saying horrible things about my parents" — "these two awesome people who brought me into this world ... people who are good and smart and mean the world to me."

A better, braver way This experience was part of what shaped Guzmán's desire to make a difference. The Deseret News is partnering with KUOW, Seattle's NPR news station, to help promote the "A Braver Way" podcast Guzmán hosts prior to this fall's U.S. election — a podcast that aims to provide listeners what they need to "keep that divided political chasm from swallowing you whole."

In a recent episode on navigating political tensions skillfully within families, Guzmán describes speaking to many who feel they've "lost something" that they can't get back in their own family relationships. "They feel that there's no way forward."

But there is. As captured in heartening stories she and others have shared, surprising softening can happen between people who don't give up on the space between them.

One liberal woman in Washington state shared the following about her conservative father in Colorado on the " Braver Way" podcast earlier this month in an episode on healing political hostilities within families.

From politically bitter to super sweet Janice Dickinson recalls irritation seizing her as soon as she walked into her elderly father's home and could hear Fox News — so much so that her father could sense the frustration in the air.

"It would set off a chain reaction of my dad being irritated back with me" and "eventually escalate into him getting really mad at me."

She cried every time. "It was an emotional situation."

Then she met a new conservative friend — an architect who expressed concern about the impact of a proliferation of government rules on construction and home prices. "Oh, I agree with that," Dickinson says, recalling her father's long career in construction.

A "light bulb" had gone off, as one of the first times Janet had found a point of agreement with conservatives. "I started to change," describing new visits with her father where she was no longer triggered by Fox News in the air. "It wasn't bothering me anymore."

Why? "Because I was beginning to believe that people could have other views and that was acceptable." Dickinson soon found her 80-something father starting to change as well. "I wasn't coming in and whatever energy I was giving off to him wasn't happening so he wasn't reacting to it."

"We became almost instantly an amazingly different relationship — very loving and kind," she said. "He never got mad at me again" — allowing Dickinson to get more actively involved in managing his care.

This woman's voice cracks with emotion when she mentions her last visit to her father's home, describing an "amazing moment" and "incredible time" they had together. Weeks later, he had a stroke that left him unconscious in the hospital.

"I never got to talk to him again," Dickinson recounts, before adding: "I felt like my father departed knowing that his daughter loved him and I said goodbye to him knowing how much I cared about him and there wasn't anything else."

"It was just pure and clean and so wonderful. I think the biggest thing for me is I sleep at night because I'm not feeling like half the country are terrible people and uneducated. I just feel like I'm not afraid of the other side."

At her father's memorial service, many people in their extended family showed up. "Many of them are conservative and nobody cared; it was an amazing celebration of his life and connection for all of us."

'Breaking my heart' This kind of softening and healing can feel like a pipe dream to the many who are currently feeling hopeless about their own estranged relationships. "I've talked to a lot of people in tears," says Mónica Guzmán, describing how "frustrating and confusing and sometimes painful it can be to confront the political divide in your own family."

Guzmán herself remembers how hard it was for her conservative mother to watch her daughter become more liberal, especially in learning about her daughter's adoption of a pro abortion rights position. Her mother Lupita says, "Yeah, especially because I knew so much about the specifics on how abortion is done. Because people, they just hear, OK, you just terminate your pregnancy. And for me it's, no, you're killing a human being."

"What you have in your uterus is not a refrigerator or a frog, it's a human being," she adds. "For me, I cannot give an inch on that." This immigrant mother from Mexico, now an American citizen, describes her sadness when suspecting her college-aged daughter had begun to feel differently, recalling the exact moment her daughter confirmed her new position. "It really, it broke my heart."

"I couldn't fathom it. ... That was hard on me." She cried. "It took a couple of days." Rather than just "getting over that," she describes just getting "used to it" and learning to be "content with the situation."

"'Cause I'm not, I'm not gonna change it. That's your position," Lupita Guzmán says. Her daughter clarifies: "You became content," but you're "never okay with it," right?

"I'm not okay with it. No, I'm not, okay. I still have the little Jiminy Cricket that's telling me, 'Oh, but that's wrong.'"

Guzmán herself has heard lots of people in the liberal community speak "as if you're a bad person if you have someone who supports Trump in your life and you're not always trying to change them."

Yet she and her parents have settled into a mostly peaceful acceptance of the fact they occupy different places, although Guzmán points out "it's not easy."

For instance, she can feel her pulse "kind of come up" and "the fire come out" at times when she thinks her parents "aren't seeing something that is so obvious to me."

'Do you feel a need to protect yourself from me too?' Guzmán's father Bernardo describes fearing their family disagreements could "break our relationship." He got so worried he asked his daughter one day if they were "ever gonna be prevented from seeing our grandkids."

This grandfather's not alone in hearing stories like that. Conservative-leaning centrist Amy Hebert from Idaho is one of them — with her grown son ceasing to speak with her in 2020 over disagreements about liberal politics.

Three years later, in 2023, she took a deep breath to ask her son via text if he wanted to talk.

"Yes," he texted back, prompting a "good conversation" on the phone that lasted 25 minutes. "I really have no idea where the slightly open door will lead," she said at the time — hoping it would "open up a little bit more all the time."

A much longer conversation took place almost a year later, when her son spoke of "boundaries he needed" and "how he's learned that it's better for him to keep some people out of his life."

That's when "Amy gathered her courage again," Guzmán recounts, and "asked what she was afraid to know."

"Are me and your dad in that group? Of people you want to keep out of your life?"

"No," he told her, reassuring her that he was enjoying their interaction. He wanted to talk again.

"We don't want to be at war in our country," Guzmán says. "We want to be at home."