The nonstop personalization of politics that has continued as our politics become more nationalized and more polarized has plenty of harmful effects. But perhaps the most devastating of them all is that an increasing number of people seem to think that politics should be placed before their own families.
Kellyanne Conway has announced that she will be stepping down from her role in the White House. Her husband George announced that he will also be stepping down from his role at the anti-Trump Lincoln Project. The two had become the tabloid target of many in our supposedly serious media due to their marriage and their diametrically opposed beliefs about Trump.
Then, their children were drawn into it. Their 15-year-old daughter decided that she would lash out at her parents on social media, cheered on by the TikTok tech reporter at the New York Times. Is politics really worth the collapse of familial relations, especially in such a public way?
Increasingly, the loudest voices in our media and culture seem to think so. “How to talk to your Republican uncle at Thanksgiving,” has become a media trope, but its implications are destructive. If you cannot look at your family without seeing their political affiliations, you are sacrificing the bonds of those closest to you for a politics that has become bloated and venomous.
Marianne Williamson and Susan Rice, both of whom aren’t exactly political allies of Kellyanne Conway, highlighted this exact point. “I promise you your life ahead will be better if you handle your issues with her privately,” Williamson said. “Love has got to trump politics. It just has to.”
“Family first. It can be very hard,” Rice said. “But never stop trying. Nothing matters more.”
Rice has some experience with this. She was the runner-up to Kamala Harris in joining the most liberal presidential ticket in recent memory. Her son is 23 years old and an ardent Trump supporter who was the president of the Stanford College Republicans. Politically, the two couldn’t be more different. And as Rice has said, “My son and I will have some robust disagreements over some matters of policy, not all. And yet, at the end of the day, you know, I love him dearly, and he loves me.”
Your relationships with your family should not be subjected to the whims of political parties and candidates who don’t know or care about you. The idea that you don’t choose your family has always been somewhat overblown; you may not select them, but you always have the choice to sever ties and leave them behind. Legitimate reasons for doing so are few and far between, but politics is certainly not one of them.
