Unless you only surround yourself with likeminded people, you have at least one bipartisan relationship. It’s natural, it’s bound to happen, and honestly, it’s important. If we only allow ourselves to interact with people who see the world through the same lens as us, we would be a stagnant race with no hope of growth or change.
That being said, the bipartisan relationship is far from easy. Whether the relationship is with a parent, a partner, or a friend, for some reason opposing political views always seem to stir up trouble between people. There are few things people get as heated about as politics, and especially in an election as polarizing as this one, drama is bound to ensue.
The thing about political views is that they go hand in hand with social and fiscal views, and these all affect the way the world works. Fortunately, humans are empathetic and social beings, and so when a political move is going to affect millions of others who share our country, we tend to get very passionate. Because at the end of the day, regardless of red or blue, we get worked up because we care. We care about the future of our nation and the well being of the people in it. Of course there are different approaches on how to best serve the population, and different views of how to protect the civil liberties of our people. And of course we each think we have the correct answer. The problem is that as much as we think we know the best way for our country to be run, the friend or partner or parent who has an opposing view feels just as strongly. And that’s hard.
It’s hard because the reason we’re arguing is that we both are convinced we know the god’s honest truth and when that truth is as weighted and important as who will be the next POTUS, we feel it’s our job to convert those around us. If we know what’s right, then is it not our job to make sure that other people understand what needs to be done? We color ourselves prophets and when we can’t get our messages across to those closest to us, it hurts. Relationships get strained and we result to walking on eggshells to prevent damaging conversations. Then we feel guilty, because we have to avoid the huge elephant (or donkey) in the room to prevent another argument, but also feel like we should continue trying to create social change in the ones we love most.
The thing is, at the end of the day, we are more than who we vote for. We are not just “Democrat” or “Republican.” In the middle of the heated arguments we blind ourselves to everything else and we feel like we are opposite from the people we are debating with. We think they are ignorant of the truth of the world and wonder how it is that we can ever communicate with them. But the problem is they feel the same way. We are engaged in this trench warfare with each other and when neither side is willing to listen to the other, we lose the ability to have a dialogue of any kind. We resent the ignorance of the friend, partner, or parent and remind ourselves of just how clearly we see the world.
This is our problem. We alienate those we love because their opinions don’t align with our own. We create strains on our relationships because we judge their opinion as a reflection on their character. We so badly want those important to us to be on our side when we so firmly believe our side is right. But at the end of the day our friends, partners, and parents are allowed to have their own take on what is true just as much as we are. When the stakes are so high, this can be hard to accept but at the end of the day they are our friends, our partners, and our parents. They are the ones who love us and fight for us just as passionately as they fight for their politics. They are the ones we love most, and they are worth the struggles of a bipartisan relationship. They may seem backwards and ignorant on the topic of political, fiscal, and social change, but to them we seem the same way. We must continue to challenge each other and question each other because that is the only way to grow, as long as we’re willing to keep an open mind and listen to what is said.
In a few months this election will pass and in a few years this president will be replaced by another. There will always be something to argue about, as long as we keep the people whom we argue with in our lives. The bipartisan relationship is messy and challenging and enraging, but it’s what keeps us working to make this nation stronger. It’s what reminds us that we can love those we don’t understand, and that we should keep working to understand what we can’t grasp.
