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Key points
- Seeing family during the holidays may mean getting together with those on "the other side" politically.
- Citing evidence that contradicts someone's belief can create cognitive dissonance on their part, often making them even harder to convince.
- There's nothing to gain, and everything to lose, by engaging in holiday political battles.
“We live in a political world,” Dylan sang, “where peace is not welcome at all.” Perhaps those words have never rung more true in our lifetimes than during these 21st-century divided days we’re living in. Masked and anonymous, or unmasked and unafraid, simply stepping out the door marks which side we’re on.
Whether it’s our bumper stickers or our flags, our pronouns or our arsenals, our hybrid cars or jacked-up trucks, we signal our virtues and values in a multitude of ways. In doing so, we communicate our identities in order to unite with some and divide from others. Then come the holidays and we have to all eat, drink and be merry together as if love and shared humanity were something we genuinely felt for those on the other side.
So how can we get through the holidays with those we differ from politically?
Don't try to persuade anyone.
To start, here’s a basic concept in human psychology that each person, regardless of their politics, ought to keep in mind when socializing across political divides. Trying to convince the other person that you’re right will only make them more convinced they’re right.
You know what’s going to happen. Someone, maybe even you, will not leave well enough alone. You’ll all be drinking and eating and laughing, when someone comments on some current event, something in the news, something that will vocalize their political stance and adverse judgment of liberals or conservatives. Then someone else, maybe you, will correct them. Maybe with well-reasoned evidence, facts and statistics. Maybe with something from Twitter or TV or a protest sign.
Then the battle begins—because the more credible evidence there is to counter someone’s long-held views, the more likely they will cognitively realign that evidence to correspond to their long-held views. Two plus two will prove to be five one way or another. That’s how cognitive dissonance works—we don’t like to think that we’re wrong, that we’ve been duped, that we’ve made mistakes—so rather than change our views to fit the facts, we twist and turn the facts to fit our views. And if it’s mere nonsense that’s sputtered in defense of an alternative position, then pointing out its nonsense will only convince the one sputtering it that you are hopelessly naïve. And then the laughter stops and the screaming begins.
Don't take the bait.
Don’t do it. Don’t take the bait when someone baits you. Nothing you can say will convince them that they’re wrong. You will not gain anything by vocalizing your views—everyone sitting around the holiday table will know which side you are on without you having to say a word. You don’t need to remind them. You won’t be proven right by those who disagree, and those who do agree need no convincing—all you do is risk annoying them for engaging in an emotional battle that will keep you angry and others for days. There’s no upside to the argument.
Give peace a chance.
If peace is to be welcome at all this holiday season, it requires a laying down of arms, more specifically, our verbal arms. Just as there are certain topics we don’t discuss with strangers, or the opposite gender, or our parents or children, accept that there are certain topics not to be discussed across political divides in our homes and private parties.
We accept that other people feel differently. We can even accept that they’re gullible, self-centered, or on the path to ruin. But the end of a turbulent year that has seen nearly a million Americans die from a contagious disease, inflation soaring, politicians behaving badly and foolishly—and which has even featured a giant asteroid hurtling toward our planet as if to remind us the sky really is falling—is not the time to turn against our friends and families. Yes, we might have grown distant, we may even have cut people out of our lives for the values they’ve sided with. But if you find yourself spending the holidays with those whose views you cannot stand, stand down. Stand down from the arguments you will not win, stand down from the battles that have no end, stand down from the anger rising inside you that will do more to corrode your own spirit and soul than persuade someone else you’re right.
Don't be right. Do right.
Don’t try to be right with those you know to be wrong. Try to do right. Reaching across the dinner table to share a dish someone has taken the time and care to prepare, passing the wine or water to soothe your nerves or quench your thirst, or recalling a joyous family story that brings all together in laughter, is the only way to welcome peace into our politically divided social worlds. The moment will pass soon enough, and the battles can resume outside our homes. But within our houses, let’s welcome peace, by making way for it this holiday season.
