How I Learned to Talk Politics

For many teachers who work abroad in international schools, summer time is family time.

This photo was taken near my parents' house in Washington State.

Every August, returning to Seattle, there’s so much that I would look forward to: catching up with family and old friends, kayaking in the lagoon behind my parents’ house, watching the eagles soar overhead. There was one thing, however, that I didn’t look forward to. In fact, it was something I dreaded.

I grew up in a very conservative home. For liberals, this probably conjures up images of a subdued childhood where I was forced to wear long skirts and attend church on Sundays, and couldn’t watch TV (actually, that last one was true, but only because my parents could never get the TV working). My experience was a positive one, however. My parents showed us the world, traveling on a shoestring budget. They encouraged us to be open-minded, to think critically and to question the status quo. In fact, my mother is probably the strongest feminist I know, even though she wouldn’t call herself one.

Somewhere in Europe circa 1999

Needless to say, my conservative outlook got a liberal makeover when I attended a liberal university, then set foot into the world of international teaching. As you can imagine, this created some points of tension when I returned home for the holidays. Despite considering myself politically “moderate” (in comparison with my uber-liberal friends), I ended up sparring with my parents again and again. My Dad and I were the worst offenders. What would begin as an “innocent” conversation about the day’s news would turn into a heated debate over gun rights. The Trump years were the worst. I must confess that I did suffer a mild but persistent case of Trump Derangement Syndrome, a weakness which my father exploited by constantly bringing up the former president.

There was, however, a guiding light in all of this, and that was my husband, Chris. Chris has an uncanny ability to enter into tough, emotionally-charged conversations while keeping his reason and composure intact. Chris and my father would discuss hot-button topics, then shake hands, and my Dad would say, “That Chris. He may be liberal, but he’s one of those liberals you can actually talk to.” And it’s not just my Dad, whose views are pretty typical. Chris once kept a completely straight face talking to a bar owner who believed that Taylor Swift and Barak Obama are in fact reptilian humanoids bent on taking over the world (side note here: this conversation was in Italian and I was sure I was missing something. “Is this guy saying Taylor Swift is a lizard?” and my husband assured me, yes, that’s exactly what he was saying).

Well, 2023 was the year I decided it was about time I learn to talk politics myself. To my delight, I discovered that a wealth of information has already been published on this topic, from academic articles to practical, everyday guides. As I took careful notes on conversational techniques, I recognized the approach that my husband had intuited: listen fully, ask questions, seek to understand. And as I started sharing my research with others, I realized that it wasn’t just me: lots of people have a desire to engage in political conversations in a productive and meaningful way. And thus my idea for “How to talk politics and remain friends” was born.

How to talk politics and remain friends (easier said than done)

I faced one big problem, however. As a big believer in scenario-based learning, I wanted to make sure that participants had the opportunity to try out their skills in a conversation that simulated real life. But what would this conversation be about? I needed something controversial enough to get a little heated, but not so polarizing that people would be turned off from even trying.

In the end, I settled on...

Veganism!

It’s a topic that most people have opinions on, but doesn’t generally trigger overwhelming emotions. As a vegetarian myself, outlining the “vegan” side of the argument was easy. But as I set out to research “the other side”, I hit a surprising roadblock: I couldn’t for the life of me find any pro-meat web sites. My search results were so tailored to my preferences that Google wouldn’t show me anything that contradicted the ideals of plant-based eating. Even when I did discover a pro-meat site, I would scroll to the bottom only to find that it was a front for an animal welfare society, as a way of drawing unsuspecting meat-eaters in.

The realization was kind of terrifying. What kind of echo chamber have I been living in? And how am I going to break out of it?

The echo chamber of the internet...

The internet was not going to help me. I needed to do something daring. I needed to speak to…a real person.

This was when my brother-in-law came to the rescue. Not only does he raise all of his own meat (chicken, pigs, lamb, and more) but he’s always reading and learning about agricultural practices. Thankfully, he agreed to speak to me. While normally I would give my own two cents on the subject, I made myself promise to only listen and ask questions. My goal, after all, was to understand and learn.

And learn I did! Where the internet had failed, really listening to another person made me realize that the issue of eating meat (and really, eating in general) is much more complex than I had realized. To my brother-in-law’s disappointment, I’m still vegetarian, but I now understand that there are more important questions to ask than, “do you eat meat?” and that there are people in the meat industry who do care deeply about sustainability and animal welfare.

This conversation made me pause and wonder…how many opportunities to learn from another person have I missed in my lifetime, because I was too busy fighting for air time and getting my points across?

The real test came in the summertime, which, if you remember, is family time. I decided to put my savvy new conversational skills into practice. It didn’t take long for an opportunity to present itself. My Dad and I were sitting at the kitchen table, sipping our coffee, and he said casually,

“Did you hear what happened in Los Angeles this morning? Crime is really going up in that city.”

I’ll admit, the conversation that ensued did get a little heated, and I certainly didn’t manage to implement all five of the Essential Techniques (maybe only one of them, if we’re being honest). BUT, I did notice a big difference in how I felt. By the end of it, I felt reasonably calm, like we had just been discussing the weather, and my Dad and I were still on good terms. This gave me hope.

Opportunities for political conversations seem to spring up everywhere, and so I soon got another chance to argue converse with my Dad. A residence for the homeless had been built across from my parents’ church. Since the residence didn’t allow drugs, the residents spent most of the day smoking and drinking in the church parking lot. The church, needlessly to say, was not thrilled about this turn of events.

When the conversation started, I felt the temptation to fall into our usual conservative-liberal routine.

“Homelessness is usually the result of bad choices,” my Dad argued, “If someone is going to get off the streets, they have to really want to.”

Determined to fight against my instincts to “win”, I tried my best to instead find the “why” behind my Dad’s views on homelessness. I discovered the following: he believes that homelessness is the result of bad choices, and that a person has to 1) pay for those choices and 2) take intitiative to get out of that life. This reminded me of the moral psychology underpinning conservatism that I had read about in The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt. For conservatives, “fairness” is proportional, that is, if you work harder, you should get paid more. If you make a bad choice, you endure the consequence. In this way of thinking, welfare is “unfair”. For liberals, whose main moral concern is avoiding harm, caring for people is more important than fairness (these are of course huge generalizations, but bear with me…). Fairness, in a liberal sense, is defined as producing an outcome of equity.

But that wasn’t all. As we talked, I realized that my Dad’s views weren’t just dictated by his conservatism, but also shaped by his personal experience being homeless. These were stories that I was vaguely aware of, how he lived out of his car for months, how he was in and out of jail, and how he eventually managed to reclaim his dignity and turn his life around.

While liberals may find his views on homelessness to be heartless, I wasn’t at all surprised when I found out that my Dad has already taken the time to get to know the men in the parking lot and hear their stories. Through his law practice, he often reaches out to help people in practical ways, even (and especially) those who can't repay him.

At the end of the day, humans say a lot of things, but it's what we do that truly matters.

So I did it! I talked politics with my family and remained friends. Our conversations weren’t perfect, and I only managed to implement maybe one or two out of five techniques, but the improvements I saw gave me hope. Instead of closing doors and causing resentment, our conversations brought us closer and opened the way for newer and better future conversations.

By the way, the big secret of all conversational techniques is this: they really work…but only if you do them!

If you’re curious to try talking politics (and remaining friends) yourself, here’s the eLearning challenge:

To learn more, I highly recommend the following books:

Yes, You CAN Talk Politics: A workbook for talking across party lines, by Lisa K. Swallow

If you want to have better political conversations and have time to read just one book, this is a wonderful place to start. The writing is crystal clear and the workbook format encourages self-reflection. The strategies I shared in my eLearning are heavily inspired by the ones in this book. Highly recommended!

How to Have Difficult Conversations About Race: Practical Tools for Necessary Change in the Workplace and Beyond, by Kwame Christian

Kwame Christian is the founder of the American Negotiation Institute, and he writes with compassion, wisdom and realism. He shows how talking about race is a worthwhile endeavor, and the approachable techniques he outlines would work for any tough conversation. If you prefer an audio format, his podcasts, TED talks and interviews are also great.

The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion, by Jonathan Haidt

This book was really a joy to read, although it took me awhile to get through it because I had to let the ideas of each chapter sink in before moving on to the next one. On the one hand, it's academic and Yuval Harari-esque, and at the same time entertaining and highly readable. Throughout the book, Haidt answers the question proposed in the title: why are good people so divided by politics and religion? and: where do morals come from?