New York Magazine senior writer Sarah Jones says when people shun their relatives over politics, it’s not always about protest. Sometimes it’s about personal comfort, or even taste—and that’s okay.
“Young adults are going no-contact with parents and other relatives, often because of politics,” writes Jones.
Psychologist Joshua Coleman and Harris Poll CEO Will Johnson recently discovered that half of all American adults are “estranged from a close relative,” and although the reason can be personal, one in five “cite political differences” as the cause. The Trump years have only aggravated this trend as more open-minded generations jettison their intolerant elders.
As example, Jones pointed to a social media post by a woman claiming her 36-year-old son would not acknowledge her birthday gift “because he hasn’t spoken to my husband or I in seven months because we voted for Trump.” What followed, Jones said, was a “Rorschach test” with MAGA parents seeing echoes of “their own snowflakes” and others seeing “a narcissist who could not accept the consequences of her actions.”
Critics of political estrangement, like former Obama speechwriter and author David Litt, say “shunning plays into the hands of demagogues, making it easier for them to divide us and even, in some cases, to incite violence.” But Jones says that’s an “argument so naïve it borders on malice.” Litt’s own example of an estranged relative in his recent book was a politically-apathetic brother-in-law who doesn’t even vote. He was not a parent or sibling, and he was not hateful.
Jones said what Litt is serving up is a defense of “neutral ground,” which is “profoundly liberal, and … reminiscent of Barack Obama in particular.” And it is woefully out of date.
“So much has happened since then —like the rise of MAGA and a resurgent far right that has killed and will probably kill again — and somehow we’re still talking about discourse,” Jones said. “… Sometimes the act of knowing a person leaves you with no choice but to move on without them. If my parents liked Alligator Alcatraz, I’d no longer speak to them. If they were rude to my LGBT friends, I’d block their numbers.”