Who would have known President Trump would divide the whole country, as well as my family, within his time as president?

I would say my family has always been close, but also always slightly broken. The divorce didn’t help. The ‘rents living in different states didn’t either.

Regardless, even with the lows, it seemed we all still knew how to successfully come together on holidays, frequent weekend visits and still enjoy our time spent happily. However, within the past four years, this has changed.

The 2016 election where Trump won the race against Clinton was where the troubles began.

Suddenly, politics became a mainstream discussion filling up the dinner table.

The “how was your day?” turned into statements of “that’s fake news!” or “how can you vote for them?” The conversations were full of constant interruptions, not enough listening, hurt feelings and a result of table dashing.

Something to note, my immediate family consists of three LGBTQ+ members, a mixture of nature lovers as well as hunters, big city slickers and country bound individuals.

We all inhabit strong personalities, values and traits. Some materialistic, others successful based on moments living with less. Some of us are extremely opinionated, others are more objective.

The fact of the matter is, we were already divided in so many ways but didn’t let that stop us from being a family, until politics came into play.

Cleary, a family consists of differences. That is what makes one special. But the main thing in common, which is the love they have for one another, should hold all those differences together. One would think so anyways.

This is just not the case for my family. Instead, we have been more distant than ever before, going weeks on end without speaking a word to one another. The division has surely become more apparent since the 2020 election.

I can imagine many other families are experiencing the same political divide. I just thought mine would be different.

As the country continues to be separated, I feel my parents, siblings and beyond will continue to lose touch in what makes us, us.

Where are the boundaries?

When will we be able to look at one another and see a family member, instead of a “left wing liberal” or a “Trump supporter?”