Millions of Americans shared Thanksgiving with family who voted differently — Jimmy Kimmel’s wife cut hers off
Last week, many of you likely sat around the Thanksgiving table with people who don’t share your worldview, but it didn’t stop you from breaking bread. In the end, family trumped ideological disputes.
But not everyone was willing to set aside their differences in the name of community and celebration. Jimmy Kimmel and his wife, Molly McNearney, for example, have cut contact with their family members who voted for Donald Trump.
On November 6 during an episode of the “We Can Do Hard Things” podcast, McNearney said, “It hurts me so much because of the personal relationship I now have where my husband is out there fighting this man, and to me, them voting for Trump is them not voting for my husband and me and our family, and I unfortunately have lost relationships with people in my family because of it.”
“I feel like I’m kind of in constant conflict, and I’m angry all the time. ... I personalize everything now. When I see these terrible stories every day, I’m immediately mad at certain aunts, uncles, cousins who put him in power. ... I wish I could deprogram myself in some way, but I get really angry,” she added.
“It’s weird how things have changed now,” Glenn Beck says in response. “But I've been thinking about it, and I think politics was not the sacred altar that it is now. Washington was not the center of our personal universe. Family was, community was, how we treated each other was. We had room to be wrong, room to disagree, room to be human.”
Glenn’s question, not just for McNearney and other like-minded liberals but also people on the right who let politics destroy their relationships, is: “Why is it so important to us that everyone sees the world exactly the way we do?”
“My relatives, I don’t hate them because they don’t agree with me. We hash it out, we roll our eyes, and then, ‘Pass the potatoes, will you?’” he says, noting that there are a lot of people in his family who vehemently oppose his views.
In the interview, McNearney also stated, “To me, this isn’t politics. It’s truly values,” but Glenn calls out her hypocrisy.
“Here’s one value that we all used to share: the value of accepting that other people, even family, even people you love, are allowed to be wrong. They’re allowed to fail. They’re allowed to see a world through a different prism,” he says.
“This belief that everybody who doesn’t agree with you, they’re somehow or another misinformed, that they’re somehow lesser, that if they don’t vote the way you want, they’re not voting for your family — that’s not democracy; that’s the seed of authoritarian thinking.”
Eventually, that little whispering voice that convinces you to be angry and reject people who don’t agree with you gets louder and louder.
“Do you force them eventually to see it your way? Because if you’ve tried to convince them and they can’t be convinced, your choice really is love them or force them into silence,” Glenn says.
Or, as Glenn suggests, “You shrug your shoulders and say, ‘Pass the potatoes.’”
To hear more of Glenn’s commentary, watch the video above.
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