How To Respond When Your Parents Back Trump?

In this episode of How To!, Bill Doherty, a professor of family social science at the University of Minnesota, shares tips for navigating difficult political conversations with parents. Young people are coping with fractured relationships with their Trump-supporter parents after his second presidential win. Clarify: Be curious about what your relative really believes and paraphrase what you think they believe as accurately as possible. Don’t shade or distort what they’ve said.

To persuade family members or friends to reconsider their support for Donald Trump, try to be curious about their beliefs and paraphrase what they think they believe as accurately as possible. Don’t shade or distort what they’ve said. Holland, who worked for Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign and whose father is a Trump supporter, learns a lot about how to engage in political conversations in the current situation.

The emotional landscape matters a great deal. Hannah Arendt’s “The Origins of” suggests approaching Trump supporters with curiosity and a genuine desire to understand where they’re coming from. Some questions to ask yourself when approaching difficult political conversations with family members include:

1. Tell your mom to not speak of politics around your child (or even have Fox News on in the conversation).
2. When she brings it up, redirect the conversation and put a boundary that you won’t cross. If she does, walk away.
3. Kate’s parents were always Republicans, but something changed around the time president-elect Donald Trump ran for office for the first time. Donald Trump said something several weeks that was really inciteful, and his supporters had to walk away.

Amira Barger explains how the country can still create a future where everyone thrives, regardless of who is in power. To get over your parents supporting Trump, get in touch with your friends who support you for who you are.