Do you and your immediate family openly talk about politics all the way to the point where you will tell each other who you are voting for? Do you usually have peaceful discussions or more challenging ones?


38 comments

  1. With my immediately family, yes, mostly because we are all on the same side of the political spectrum.

    With my more distant family such as cousins, no.

  3. Parents? Sometimes. We generally agree or agree to disagree.

    Brother? Aggressively avoid it. Inevitably leads to a fight. Hit a really bad breaking point a few years ago where things almost got out of hand and we didn’t talk for a while. Since then, I avoid political subjects unless I know it’s a point of agreement, and I ignore it when/if he says something that invites any other kind of political discussion.

  4. With my immediate family, yeah, of course. We’re mostly on the same page about things, so that makes it easier.

  5. Yeah, a discussion can be challenging and still peaceful.

    I hate this idea that foreigners have that Americans need to be in 100% agreement all the time or we get incredibly distressed.

  6. I actually find it pretty sad that people let politics tear their families apart.

    I think it is a sign of weak emotional intelligence and closed-mindedness if you transfer your hatred for the other side of the political spectrum onto you cousins or siblings because they vote different than you.

  7. Generally no and I try to shut down any sort of conversation that steers into that territory. Family is far too important to try to create artificial divisions and hate from disagreements about things that frankly none of us have any control over.

    They know my leanings, I know theirs, arguing over specifics is unnecessary and can lead to negative outcomes in our personal relationships. Plus political discussions with my family are uninteresting and unproductive because they’re not well informed either about current events or civics and I tend to go deep into the legal, structural, and philosophical side of things.

  8. No, I think because we all know who we’re voting for and we’d rather not argue over it.

  9. With both my parents and my sister, and it’s usually peaceful since we’re on the same side politically, and usually vote for the same people.

  10. Yeah, but mostly because disagreements with my parents are pretty minor. They basically raised me to be a news junkie like them so we like to talk current events. I’m the only one of my siblings who really caught onto that, so we don’t talk politics amongst ourselves.

  11. Absolutely not. They are very conservative and I am the complete opposite. They are not open to other perspectives, so there’s no use trying to change their minds because it just becomes a big argument where they try to prove me wrong.

  12. My husband and sister, yes. We can talk civilly even on topics we disagree on.

    My parents, absolutely not.

  13. Yes. My immediate family and I all have largely similar views, so it’s fine.

  14. Immediate? Yeah. Our folks did a pretty good job of not pushing their views down our throats and let us decide for ourselves. Some of us are right, some left, some in the middle. We’re all generally open minded and willing to listen. It’s only cropped up into a problem once with a girlfriend my brother brought by once…

    We don’t talk about it often, but if it’s current events, like now, it comes up more often.

  15. My side of the family – yes though we’ve all had less to say post 2016 with how ridiculous things have been across the board. We generally trend towards Romney-esq / pre Trump conservatism. 

    My spouse’s family is split between die hard conservatives who think immigration is the only issue in the world and MSNBC style liberals who are obsessed with talking about fascism. Neither of those conversations are interesting or fun so I try to avoid getting into it. 

  16. I have 3 teen boys. We talk about politics, history, the books we are reading, current events all the time. Our discussions make it pretty clear where we all stand. We are very civil about it. We are liberal and our sons run a bit of the spectrum but 2 lean pretty liberal (and they really like history/current events/keeping up with the news) but one is not liberal nor interested in current events/history, etc.

    When my parents were alive they were very conservative — they weren’t really into discussions or debate or really reading or learning more about stuff. If you brought up an opposing opinion or fact they’d kind of just get irritated so you learn mostly to just keep your mouth shut.

    When it comes to the in-laws we don’t even talk about it at ALL. They have wildly different views and the gap is too big to bridge- we just don’t discuss it at all.

  17. Frequently. We have spirited debates about both big issues and nuanced ideas.

  18. No, are you kidding me? I just want to attend a family event in peace. If someone is over 50 and I love them, the last f*cking thing I want to do is discuss politics with them.

    I’m taking “immediate family” to mean my in-laws and siblings, not just my wife.

  21. Most of my family is center-left, and I’m left of them. My father is far right. I don’t talk to him that much anyway, but I certainly won’t talk politics with him. Everyone else, that’s usually fine

  23. With my husband and kids, yes. With my sister and brother in law, yes. With my step-mother and grandmother, yes.

    They are reasonable people.

    My mother? No. My father? Nope. My neighbors? My mother in law?!?

    No way.

    It’s impossible to have any meaningful political conversation with them because it always devolves into some kind of nonsense that isn’t true and it’s super frustrating.

    But, they “do their own research”.

    I edited this without the red/blue take.

  25. Yes, but even though I don’t agree with all of their positions, we agree on many key things and none of them are irrational or extreme. My dad is very moderate, generally pretty socially liberal (though in his words, “the woke is going kind of crazy but that’s okay and they’re allowed to do that”) and fiscally conservative – he absolutely despises Trump and everything he stands for. My mom is pretty liberal, very mainstream Democrat kind of opinion, big Obama fan. My sister is very socially liberal (BLM, bisexual, etc. – about as left as you get socially) but I honestly don’t think she’s ever thought very strongly about economic or international politics type issues. I’m a “democratic socialist” type – my inner ideological idealist purist loves the idea of an anarcho-communist utopia, but I’m realistic enough to know that’s not happening in our lifetimes so I’d be happy with a Bernie type and can accept a Biden.

    We all are pretty open about pretty much voting straight ticket Democrat since 2016 (my dad hates Hillary so he voted Johnson in 2016, though he’s later said that if he knew that his vote would be the one that would have changed it he would have swallowed his feelings and voted Hillary), in my case and my dad’s we do research the whole ticket on both sides (I never expect to find anything I like on the R side but I check anyway because I don’t ever want to be a blind partisan) – I suspect my mom and sister look more at the letter than the person for any position less prominent than Representative. We do all vote in all general elections, presidential and midterm, and we usually vote in all the primaries.

    Though I have some friends that are not so fortunate. One is very liberal, similar in politics to me, but her parents and brother are very conservative, not die hard Trumpet but they have and will vote for him without any reservations – they know each other’s politics do not agree so they just don’t talk about it. I have another friend who’s family is ***very*** conservative, and then some (direct quote he has heard his dad and brother say: “why can’t white people say [N-word, hard R]? White people can be [N-words] too.”) He had to lie and say he voted for Johnson and not Hillary in 2016 because he didn’t want them to basically disown him but he couldn’t hide his disgust at Trump – he ended up moving to Seattle.

  26. My family has a time and place policy to talk about politics. My brother is a hard conservative but doesn’t talk politics. Most of the time, it’s me mediating between my hard, conservative sister and my moderate liberal mother.

    Things usually get the most heated when me and my sister and I go at it despite both being Trump supporters.

  27. I have a rule in my house where if politics are talked about I kick you out lol

  28. No, but I don’t talk politics with anyone. I watch the local news to know what is happening in the world from a high level but beyond that I don’t care. Democrats and Republicans are all the same to me. Oligarchs that will never change so, for me, there is no reason to stress over it.

  29. Not since Obama sent out his talking points for Thanksgiving dinner with instructions to get their faces in defense of ACA. Since that point every time my liberal siblings bring up politics, I just take my plate a leave. After doing that a few times they stopped bringing going up politics.

  30. Absolutely. We’re all pretty much on the same page.

    I even talk politics with my friends who don’t agree with me politically and are far left of me. Some of them I’ve been friends with for almost 40 years. We can argue and debate without rancor or jingoism.

    I’m comfortable with my politics. I’m conservative, working class, rural and in a multigenerational farming family. Some of our land we have been farming for over 100 years.

    I’ll be voting for Trump, though I don’t like any of the candidates we’ve been offered. I don’t care for most politicians these days, despite having been a local elected official occasionally in my life (18 years, split between a village councilman and township trustee).

  31. Not really. My parents are both pretty liberal, and I once told them I was an independent voter… And now they think I’m super far right and I think it’s hilarious, especially since I lean pretty liberal on most social issues. I’m not going to correct them anytime soon.

  32. I try to avoid it, sometimes they do it against my will anyways.

    I usually just counter with whatever is going on in British politics at the moment and they tend to stop.

  33. Never discuss religion, parenting or politics unless you want Thanksgiving dinner and relationships ruined.

  34. > I’m not brave enough for politics.

    I take the “Obi-Wan” approach to politics. I won’t instigate those conversations, but I’ll respond if someone says something. I understand enough that I can comment/challenge from either side, if necessary.

    That said, amongst my closest friends and dad, I’ll discuss my own political opinions.

  35. Mostly. More so on women’s rights. There are a few that we don’t EVEN begin to open a conversation with since they believe that if we don’t support their candidate, we are negating their existence (views on sexuality) and will cut off all contact.

    I wish more people were open to discussions. Too many become close-minded without it

  36. No. My parents have voted Republican pretty consistently my whole life. I don’t know how they’ve voted since Trump got elected, and I don’t want to know. I know for a fact that my mother is more moderate than she used to be, but that’s it.

    My in laws are extremely liberal, and I avoid talking politics with them for different reasons.

  37. It really depends on the family member.

    For the most part, I’ve given up on having political conversations with family. Everything is so exceptionally charged now that it wears me out!

  38. TRIGGER WARNING: Geopolitics

    Used to, not anymore after finding out my mom is a fervent tankie who vehemently denies the existence of Chinese internment camps and mistreatment of the LGBT by the Russian government, while still shitting on the US and it’s allies for doing similar things, I see myself as relatively left and I thought she and I were on the same page of “human rights abuses are bad no matter who’s doing it” but apparently she’s been victim to lobotomy by Twitter vatniks and thinks human rights abuses just don’t exist over there and the cherry on top is she’s so sure of herself because she went to Beijing exactly once.

    It makes me sad because she used to be very level headed and was the one person I thought I could talk to about politics without feeling like defenestrating myself but apparently not anymore.

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