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by Gabbi Timmas, Braver Angels
In 2020, I sent my dad a text: I told him I couldn’t talk to him anymore—not until at least the election was over. He wrote back just to say he was looking forward to talking to me again soon.
It was the thick of election season, and I was profoundly anxious. Like so many people, it had already been a hard year for me, and the instability of our country left me feeling genuinely afraid of what was to come.
In an effort to do something, I started working with an organization on an initiative called “deep canvassing,” which was aimed at persuading undecideds to vote for my preferred candidate. The work was emotionally draining but rewarding, and I’d often try out what I’d learned on the undecided voters in my life.
If only I could deep canvass my father.
My dad and I had always differed on politics, but this time, it felt personal. “If he really cared about me, he’d change his vote,” I thought. Every failed attempt to convince him only left me feeling more alienated.
After the election, my dad and I resumed talking. He never held those weeks of radio silence against me—he was just happy to get a text back.
In the months after the 2020 election, I found Braver Angels. In so many ways, it opened up my mind and fundamentally changed the way I think and talk about politics.
The first idea that radically shifted my mindset is that the goal of political conversations is to learn, not to persuade. When I stopped trying to convince people to agree with me, I suddenly had a lot more room to actually hear them out.
Now that I had the capacity to hear what they were saying, I realized that people are often more conflicted and complicated than I thought. By not putting people I disagree with on the defense, we could have more honest conversations. In these, we often found a lot of agreement.
The more I was able to productively disagree with people, the more I realized that I didn’t need them to agree with me in order for me to be okay. I found strength and peace in myself that left me feeling more empowered, even when the world felt scary and out of control.
And as for my dad, I learned that navigating politics in families is uniquely challenging. It’s not unusual for political differences to feel personal. In 2020, I measured my dad’s care for me with a single metric: his vote. However, in the years since, as my relationship with my dad has grown and changed, new thoughts started to emerge.
Would someone who didn’t care about me show up wherever, whenever I needed him? Would someone who didn’t care about me give me space while reminding me he’d always be there for me?
Without meaning to, my dad—just by virtue of being himself—complicated the narrative I had of him.
Four years after I fired off that text to my dad, he and I sat outside a polling place in Michigan to spread a different message. Here, on Election Day, we sat side by side to let people know that although we may vote differently, we’re committed to maintaining our relationship.
Over the past few weeks, I’ve heard from many people who are scared and hurting. And some may feel it’s not an option to reach across the aisle or reconcile with their relatives; their family dynamics may be more difficult, or their personal stakes in politics could be higher.
But it’s precisely because I’ve been given so much that I feel it’s my duty to bridge the political divide and reduce the growing level of contempt. To me, it’s the best way I know how to protect the country—and the people—that I love.
To contact Vermont’s two Braver Angels coordinators, email: Katherine Cadwell, blue, kcadwell@braverangels.com, and Lincoln Earle-Centers, red, learlecenters@braverangels.com.
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Categories: Commentary
one of the more intelligent articles, should be required reading for students and family members….
some people are creating division, on purpose, they get power from people living in fear, people are easy to control when they are fearful.
Church congregations of all groups are also heavily divided in the Dem/Rep……and this is on purpose by those who are skilled in the art of subversion.
Church congregations should have Christ above any dufus running this country. If you are a follower of Jesus Christ, he’s your north star, everything else will come and go, thankfully he’s in control of the entire situation.
The bible is immensely practical, Kings is good reading, with about 20% of leaders good and 80% not so hot, some things have not changed in the world.
None of these fools on TV are going to bring you soup when you are sick. None of them are coming over for thanksgiving. Putting family above anyone on your television set is just good common sense.
Funny how if you take politics out of family conversations, everybody gets along pretty well. Tells you much right there.
’tis nice that this entitled young woman came to see that her father might have the wisdom of experience.
Pride is the basis for most all arguments. It’s not much more than “ I’m right, let me prove it to you, let me “deep canvass you.”
Do we want to be more loving or a know it all?
The first sign of wisdom is admitting you don’t know everything.
This is a most excellent and loving father. Kudos.
Love, joy and peace, results from following someone who knows way more than us. TGBTG
I hate to be a downer but the author is part of the problem. As a former democrat male who got personally blamed for Hilary’s loss in 2016, got shunned for not attending women’s marches and was then told that Biden was great and there were absolutely no problems with faked dossiers, campaign surveillance, or specious impeachment trials I don’t care what you think. And you did all that – you blew up friendships, family relationships and even good constructive career contacts – and all because it was Trump.
Die hard democrats even defended election rigging in the days immediately after the election because “ it doesn’t mater, all that matters is that he’s gone now and that’s the end of it”. They did this before they got their “most secure election ever” talking points. Then it was blanket denials all round and “ show me the evidence …. No not that evidence…. See you have no evidence”
Now we’re supposed to believe that they were just “sooo sincere and caring”. They only wanted what was best for everyone.
No, you sent me away. Now you stay away. I don’t care about your “feelings” or your “sense of self worth” because you didn’t care about mine.
I wish you well. I hope you have a happy life. But I turned the other cheek. You don’t exist to me now.
Propaganda works, psyops work, and the dumbing down of generation after generation works – the Smartphone made it work brilliantly to the advantage of the 1% – societal collapse by design with the help of Apple and Microsoft. Divide and conquer, all by design, for well over 100 years in the USA. The acceleration started when they put a bullet into JFK and the Game of Thrones was in full force and full control from then on. The kids are not all right, but they will be once they wake up and turn away from the Matrix.
Awww, how sweet. Can’t we all just get along.
“The study of history is a powerful antidote to contemporary arrogance. It is humbling to discover how many of our glib assumptions, which seem to us novel and plausible, have been tested before, not once but many times and in innumerable guises; and discovered to be, at great human cost, wholly false.”
–The Quotable Paul Johnson: A Topical Compilation of His Wit, Wisdom and Satire,