Politics & Family

As a psychologist, I hear a lot about family dysfunction, and what I seem to be hearing a lot about recently are family arguments around politics… especially who voted for whom in the 2016 election. And, while families arguing over politics is nothing new, this year it seems to be less about ideology and more about a specific person.

Therefore, given that I’m writing this around the holiday season of 2017, I thought I would give those of you wanting to have more influence in this area of life, my best thoughts on how to keep these disagreements from ruining a family get together, or even destroying family relationships for years to come.

The quote that pertains to this issue (which I’m sending out to those six thousand people on my quote list), says, “Never let those you hate become more powerful than those you love.” What this means is that when we are arguing over whether a vote for (or against) one person or another becomes the main topic of conversation, the most powerful person in the room isn’t even in the room!

In other words, when the focus is on the person versus a set of ideas, that person becomes the most powerful force in the family, and the love that family members have for each other gets drowned in a sea of anger, resentment, and hate.

Again, this would be bad enough if it just ruined a particular family gathering, however, I have heard many instances where these arguments actually destroyed relationships! In this particularly intense political climate, it is not uncommon for one person to totally stop communicating with a particular family member altogether because of how they voted in the last election. This is one thing if that family relationship wasn’t that close to begin with, however, quite another when this happens between people who love each other.

For those of you who follow my “Life from the Top of the Mind” philosophy, you know that this hate and resentment comes from the lower 20% of the brain (the brainstem) and is triggered by the middle brain or the limbic system. The job of the limbic system is to scan the environment for signs of danger and engage our fight-or-flight response when it interprets some situation as a threat. Unfortunately, this middle brain is interpreting a decision made by someone we love (and the person that they voted for) as dangerous, and we find ourselves fighting (arguing) or fleeing (choosing never to speak to them again) as a reaction.

In this situation we have just made someone we hate or strongly dislike more powerful than those we love, and I don’t believe we are doing this on purpose, nor do I think we would recommend this reactive perspective to those we love.

Therefore, I suggest we make a purposeful decision based on love versus hate. This allows the upper 80% of our brain (the neocortex) to have more influence in who we are and what we do, and raises the potential that we will make choices that serve us and our family versus choices that divide us.

One way to do this is to understand that when someone is defending a particular person (generally who they voted for) what they are really doing is defending their judgment. They often feel our criticism is less about a vote but about our confidence in them, and they take this criticism very personally. Chances are that we aren’t trying to imply that they are stupid, but that is how it is heard, which understandably triggers their resentment.

The alternative here is to keep in mind who we love and why we love them, and make that more important than some person who isn’t even in the room. Our arguing with a family member isn’t going to change their mind anyway, therefore, I suggest we trust love versus hate in how we interpret the situation, and minimize the importance of those outside our family by choosing to engage those we love in a way that allows us to (a) enjoy the family get together, and (b) create a present and a future with our family that we would recommend to our children and/or grandchildren.

Of course, this is easier said than done. Therefore, if you are wanting more specifics on how to make love versus hate the dominant energy in our family (or at the very least, the energy that defines who we are and how we engage those we love), feel free to contact me. I would be happy to give you my best thoughts.