Young People Are Struggling to Deal With Their Trump-Supporter Parents — Again

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*Subjects asked to use first names only to protect their privacy.

Kate's parents think she's going to hell for the abortion she had. They believe vaccines are dangerous and that elite politicians are pedophiles running the world. Though Kate's parents were always Republicans, something changed around the time president-elect Donald Trump ran for office for the first time. Now she can barely hold a conversation with them anymore. "I just avoid them as much as possible," she says.

With Donald Trump securing victory in the 2024 election, some Gen Z voters are struggling to deal with their Trump-supporter parents — again. Exit polls so far show that people between age 50 and 64 voted for Trump more than any other age group, at a margin of 56% supporting Trump, who was impeached for inciting an insurrection and found liable for sexual abuse . The disconnect between young people like Kate, 24, and their parents is only widening, leaving families further fractured in the wake of another divided election.

When Kate was growing up, she says, her parents would have described themselves as "fiscal Republicans. They didn't really care about social issues, trans people, or gay marriage." In the 2016 primaries, Kate's dad favored Marco Rubio and thought Trump was a "clown." But then, seemingly suddenly, her father was drawn into QAnon , a debunked conspiracy theory that posits America is run by Hollywood elites and Democratic politicians who are satanic pedophiles intent on trafficking children and taking over the world.

Kate's dad started parroting QAnon talking points and politics became a "24/7 topic of conversation," she says. "I've come to accept that it's only getting worse. And the fact that they've seen what Trump is capable of and the stuff he said and they're still fighting for this man — and they would choose to follow him over having a relationship with me — that speaks volumes." Kate continues, "Especially because I'm an only child, I feel like if I lose my parents, it feels like I'm losing my whole family, essentially."

The first time Holly, 24, diverged from her parents' political beliefs was in elementary school, when her teacher held a mock election to mirror the 2008 presidential race. Holly voted for Barack Obama, while her parents voted for Republican nominee John McCain. Her parents now support Trump, which feels contradictory to the way they raised her. Her mother, particularly, always made sure Holly realized how privileged she was and that the family was giving back to charities and being involved in the community. "She's the person that instilled this deep empathy for others in me," Holly says, a stark difference from the division Trump espouses . "The reason I believe this way is because of my ability to feel empathy for other groups I'm not even a part of."

Research shows that political divisions have grown in recent years, as people focus more on hating their opponent than they do feeling fealty to those who share their views. One study found that people are more often viewing their political opponents as less moral, not just people who have differing opinions. This, researchers told Time , has resulted in a political "mega-identity," one in which politics isn't necessarily about what kind of tax plan you support, but instead signals to others whether you're a good or bad person (depending on their beliefs). This has deeply divided families, of course; many have long struggled to reconcile their family's political views and have now drawn a line, refusing to engage with relatives who support one side or the other.

In an op-ed for CNN, journalist Richard L. Eldredge wrote about his own familial fracture, saying it wasn't about political affiliations, but about the very fabric of his loved one's being. "To be clear, this was never about a difference of political opinion," he wrote . "We've gotten through that before. This was about a fundamental difference in morality, integrity, and decency and a person who exemplifies none of those things."

That's the thing Holly struggles with as she tries to reason through how her mother — a business owner who was raised in a rural state and still lives there — believes. When they discuss Trump, Holly's mother says she knows he "isn't a good person," but she agrees with his business policies. Holly tries to understand, but just doesn't get it; how can purported business policies be more important than what happened on January 6 or what Holly considers the problematic rhetoric against marginalized people? It's painful, she says, to know they believe such different things about the world. "We do fundamentally view the world very differently, and it's very hard to view the world fundamentally differently from the person that raised you," she says. "The person that's supposed to take care of you in a way." These days, the mother and daughter have a surface-level relationship.

While some young people are figuring out how to continue dealing with their Trump-loving families, others are finding themselves in these rough waters for the first time. For example, Rachel, 27, was shocked by her father's turn to Trump. Before the election, she says, they used to bond over joking about the cult of MAGA. They laughed about people flying Trump flags and wearing Trump-branded gear — but that was before Rachel's dad decided to vote for the man they used to mock.

Rachel found out the week before the election, when her dad offhandedly asked who she was voting for. "I said, 'Kamala, of course,'" she recalls. It didn't even cross her mind that he might be voting for Trump until he told her he was. "It used to be me and Dad on one side and those crazies on the other," she says. "Now he's with those crazies in my eyes, whether he likes it or not."

Rachel tried to reason with her Trump-supporter parents in the lead-up to the election and stressed the importance of bodily autonomy, but her parents didn't care about that. She brought up Trump's possible cuts to social security , which will affect her grandmother, but that didn't budge them. Rachel talked about Project 2025 , which her dad said was "a myth," though Republicans have admitted (and celebrated) since winning the election that Project 2025 is, in fact, their plan .

So, when Rachel woke on Wednesday morning to the news that Trump had won the election, she said it was like a "living nightmare." Though her mother would usually leave Rachel a note before leaving for work and her dad would call her during lunch, her parents were silent. "It just seemed like they were ignoring what they knew I'd be upset about and had both decided to pretend they had no part in making me sad," she says, now facing four years of this new reality. "[The day] was so quiet from them it felt like I was in the twilight zone."