It’s a fact: Thanksgiving meals in national election years are shorter by up to 70 minutes, all due to political polarization.

A study first performed in the wake of the Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton presidential election raised eyebrows when it was published in 2018.  Could family members with contrasting political opinions and allegiances really have a harder time putting those differences aside for just a few hours?  Apparently so, because when a second study was done two years later, they found largely the same results.  People really spend less time at the Thanksgiving table during a presidential election year.

I’ve seen it happen in my own family.  My wife and I don’t always see eye to eye with our parents.  One Thanksgiving, I was in the kitchen, preparing the Thanksgiving meal, and my father-in-law was in the other room and wouldn’t stop talking about his candidate.  The frustration was welling up inside me, and my wife laid down a significant threat for if I even considered disrupting this joyous family gathering with my disagreements.  My wife’s wisdom (and threat) prevailed, and though I wasn’t counting the minutes at the table, I imagine I may have “exited” to get the pies earlier than other years.

It’s not only family bonds that are being tested and often torn apart over politics.  It’s happening between friends and in romantic relationships.

We have a tendency to make the opposing party’s candidate an abhorrent, evil person, out to destroy the United States.  Then the person who supports that candidate must also be abhorrent, evil, and out to destroy the United States.  It becomes us versus them at its worst.

As the accusations fly, our mind transforms the other person — family member, close friend or spouse — from someone we love to a repellant caricature.  What we’re doing is putting our political affiliations above our relationships.  We are aligned with a political party over anything else.

The sad thing about all of this is that our modern society encourages this division and behavior.  We used to have gathering places where people of all political persuasions went and enjoyed their time together — bars, taverns and bowling alleys, barbershops and hair salons or neighborhood stores and parks.  The local newspaper carried opinion pieces from both sides of the aisle.

Today, we find ourselves attracted to and then stuck in our echo chambers, both online and in person.  We can curate and personalize our news feeds to give us what we want, and to call out the villains on the other side.  The algorithm gives us enough of the good stuff and irking viewpoints to keep us scrolling.  And once cozily nestled in those echo chambers, it’s easier for the increasingly extreme voices of others to lure us in, making us more extreme.  We just know that our side is good and well intentioned.  The other side is the enemy.

Most of us don’t like what’s going on; we’re tired of it.  When conflict happens in the real world that harms or ends long-term relationships, we regret it once we’ve cooled off.  We just don’t have the tools to overcome our reactionary and emotional responses.  But the tools actually exist.  They can be summarized in four steps, all built around the concept of being “open.”

First, enter into political conversations with an open hand, not a closed fist, and be willing to seriously consider the other person’s opinion.  I find that it helps me to focus on literally keeping my hands open and palms up.

Second, keep an open mind.  Move your mind to investigator mode.  Ask good questions — not to trap the other person, but rather to gain understanding.

Third, keep an open heart.  Use those questions to find some common ground, even if it’s as simple and broad as “we can agree that we both want a better world.”

Lastly, open your mouth to express your own thoughts and — this is important — do it from a place of love, respect, and kindness.

And remember: it’s fine to agree to disagree.  You don’t need to convert everyone over to your point of view.  You’re not in the high school debate club, trying to win.  You’re learning, growing, and trying to be a better person.  You also don’t need to surrender your own beliefs and ideas — but as you express them, use love, respect, and kindness as the guide.

It should go without saying that a society whose social and personal ties are fraying isn’t healthy.  “A house divided against itself cannot stand,” as the Bible says.  So let’s all step back and ask ourselves what the priorities are in our own lives.  Do we put a political party over a close relationship?  Do we place more value in having a strong circle of friends and family who support us, or is it in candidates and politicians who don’t know us and whom we’ll never meet?

It’s my recommendation to prioritize relationships over being right in an argument.  We are all more than our political opinions.  If we’re going to fight over anything, let it be who gets the drumstick.

Elliot Sands is executive director of Live Faith First, a nondenominational nonprofit, and oversees its new program, Love, Respect, and Kindness (LRK).

Image: Pink Sherbet Photography via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0.