“I hate my opponents,” President Donald Trump said before a mourning crowd at Charlie Kirk’s memorial service in Arizona on Sept. 22, according to the New York Times. “And I don’t want the best for them.” 

This remark appeared to encapsulate Trump’s retribution campaign targeting his opponents, from political leaders to universities and late-night TV hosts like Jimmy Kimmel. Kimmel expressed a different perspective during his Sept. 23 monologue, following a 48-hour suspension from ABC. Nearly in tears, he thanked those who dislike him for supporting his right to share his beliefs, explaining that he is close to many people with whom he disagrees politically. 

Kimmel suggested that polarization is an illusion, saying that Americans agree on more than they realize about issues like keeping children safe from guns, reproductive rights for women, and affordable health care. 

Despite that hopeful sentiment, it’s hard to believe all Americans really agree on these topics, especially during a time when it feels like the left and right only come together to criticize each other. The opposing viewpoints of Trump and Kimmel highlight this divide, raising important questions: Do we really have that much in common? If not, how do we stay connected during times of political division? 

According to a 2024 Gallup study, 80% of Americans believe that U.S. adults are deeply divided by politics. A Siena College-New York Times poll also reveals that one in five adults say politics has negatively impacted their friendships and relationships, while Time Magazine reported that one in 10 are estranged from a close relative due to political differences. 

Victoria Abdulla is among the nine out of 10 adults who haven’t severed ties with relatives despite differing political beliefs. The teacher and mother from Utica, New York, has felt conflicted about her parents’ support for Trump since his first term, but she knows one thing for certain: she can’t just cut them off. 

“The fact that my parents voted for Trump [in 2016] was just upsetting because it felt personal,” Abdulla explained. “But by 2024, it was even more of a slap in the face, because by this time, I’m married to a woman and I have children.”

Abdulla felt betrayed that her parents voted for someone who is outspoken against the LGBTQ+ community—echoing a belief many Americans share as politics becomes more intertwined with personal identity, according to PBS. 

Despite the hurt, Abdulla makes a conscious effort to include her parents in her children’s lives. However, while their political differences don’t cause a physical separation, they create a mental one in which they can’t speak openly. 

“There’s just this thing we don’t talk about, and it’s big, and it just doesn’t feel good,” she said.

Since Trump’s re-election, instead of cutting ties, Abdulla has recently tried to push these communication boundaries by being open with her parents about how their support for Trump is hurtful. 

“I don’t believe you should cut someone off for their political beliefs, because I think it’s really important to let them know how it makes you feel and how it affects your family,” she said. “I’ve told them how Trump’s decisions truly affect their grandchildren, me, and their transgender nephew.”

After the election, she sent them a lengthy message, explaining that she now has to pay thousands of dollars to secure her wife’s custody of their children through second parent adoption—a legal process that helps people maintain parental rights to their nonbiological children—out of fear that Trump’s stance on states’ rights would strip her wife’s right to call herself their mother.   

Even with these attempts to understand each other, Abdulla isn’t sure her parents comprehend the strain that politics has on their relationship, saying, “I think that they just hope like, ‘Oh, we’re family and family is blood, so no matter what we’ll be there for each other,’ which is true. But you just hold this resentment that wasn’t there before, and it sucks.” 

Still, Abdulla couldn’t imagine estranging herself, sharing that she couldn’t be “that radical.” She has a hard time accepting the viewpoint that, by refusing to cut contact with her family, she is tolerating that they’re against her. “It’s more complicated than that. It’s the grayest area you could ever be in.” 

“I don’t have anybody else. We’re the three musketeers; it was us against the world. I’m not going to do that—I’m just not,” she admitted. “If that makes me a hypocrite, so be it. I’m not going to disavow my parents.” 

Tallulah O’Connor-Brockway, a 19-year-old college student from Massachusetts, made a different decision. After marrying her Brazilian husband, João, earlier this year, she chose not to tell her mother, a Trump supporter who strongly believes the 2020 election was rigged, about her marriage.

O’Connor-Brockway has been on her own since she was 17 years old. Although politics wasn’t the main reason for their separation, she says it’s definitely a reason not to tell her mother, especially considering her views on people of color and immigrants. 

“How she interacted with people of different races, growing up, I was taught that people who didn’t speak English were ‘less than,’” she explained. “She taught me to look at everyone differently, rather than seeing that they’re human beings and people.” 

Knowing this about her mother and her support for Trump’s immigration policies, O’Connor-Brockway can’t imagine putting João—who doesn’t speak fluent English—into that environment. 

“How do we sit down at Thanksgiving, or just have a conversation with each other, knowing her beliefs? I honestly would dread that day,” she explained. 

O’Connor-Brockway’s mother isn’t the only family member who disapproves of their relationship. The couple, who identify as independents, has seen a stark difference in the responses to their marriage from João’s Democratic-leaning family and her Republican-leaning family. 

“I have seen a strict line between both sides. His family has been supportive—they’re happy for us. But any single time I tell someone on my side of the family, they are always negative,” she shared, believing her family’s conservative views on waiting to marry and build a nuclear family until you’re financially stable influences their reactions. 

While O’Connor-Brockway believes guarding herself is the only way she can deal with their division, her husband thinks people should be free to believe what they want without it harming their relationships.  

“People’s opinions should not depend on how you treat them. If what they think is disconnected from how you think people should act, that’s okay because that’s just what they think—it shouldn’t affect the relationship you have negatively,” he said. 

For some, it’s easier to cut ties when the relationship is a friendship. Stephanie DiPalma, a mother of South Korean descent from Troy, New York, and her husband ended a friendship of more than five years with a couple due to opposing feelings about race that became evident during Trump’s first presidency. 

Their friendship spanned their weddings and the births of their children, making them “extremely close,” as DiPalma described. But when her friends started making racist comments, from how they referenced professional athletes to topics on social media, DiPalma began to feel very uncomfortable. 

“I’m not white, so I don’t want to be around white people who talk about nonwhite people in a negative way,” she explained. 

Throughout their friendship, there were warning signs of their racism that she initially brushed off. 

“I was okay with looking the other way until Trump came and empowered them,” she recounted. “Back in 2020, he was going after Asians because of COVID-19 … It was a difficult experience for me. I was afraid to go out of my house—it was awful and scary,” she continued. 

They also held different opinions on policies like reproductive rights. “They were very ‘abortion is murder, women shouldn’t have a choice,’ all while hiding under the veil of Christianity and not going to church,” she said. 

“I felt the hypocrisy, and I didn’t want to be around it, and my husband wasn’t for it either,” DiPalma stated, which led to her cutting them off entirely.  

Ending friendships over politics wasn’t new for DiPalma. She first cut off a friend because of politics during George W. Bush’s presidency. She was a high school senior and just getting into politics when Bush invaded Iraq, a decision she opposed. Her neighbor, whom she’d known since childhood, supported it. 

“She and I butted heads back in the Bush days, so when Trump came into the picture, I wouldn’t go there with her,” she said, noting that her impatience for her neighbor’s politics ultimately led her to stop speaking to her altogether. 

DiPalma decided to end their friendship as she felt the nation becoming polarized, saying, “America is very polarized, right down to the halftime Super Bowl show—we’re just at each other’s throats, and a lot of it has to do with our leader.” 

But it wasn’t always like this. 

“It sounds cliché, and what a Democrat would typically say, but it didn’t feel this way during Bush,” she said, pointing out that Bush’s controversial decision to invade Iraq, though still divisive, didn’t create the same level of tension many Americans feel today. A Gallup poll supports this feeling, showing that Trump’s first term includes three of the 10 most polarized years—ranking first, second, and third—while Bush’s second term scores five, eight, and 10.

Ultimately, when it came to polarization, she said, “If America on Sept. 12, 2001, saw us on Sept. 11, 2025, they would be terrified. We weren’t this hateful and divisive. We were unified, and we did have respect to agree and have arguments.” 

Since Trump’s re-election, DiPalma has dropped yet another friend, whom she met in college, after discovering she voted for Trump. To DiPalma, supporting Trump, along with other negative traits, is enough for her to disconnect. 

“If you are openly a Trump supporter, wearing a Trump shirt, hat, or Bible, I’m not going to seek you out to be my friend. I’m not going to be rude to you, but you’re not approachable to me,” she explained. 

Hannah Spong and Michelle Bilka, two third-year students studying at Albany College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, believe you shouldn’t drop a friendship because of politics. 

The roommates have never considered themselves politically motivated, and consequently never discussed politics with their conservative family members. However, things changed when their new roommate, who identifies as conservative, moved in this year. 

“We knew she was conservative. She was very religious, very conservative, also from a military family, and you could tell by the people she surrounded herself with, so it was very clear,” Spong said. 

Initially, their roommate’s views didn’t bother them until they felt that she began to push her ideas onto them.  

“The more that I had longer conversations with her, the beliefs were kind of pushed, almost as if it were like ‘Okay, we both agree with this,’ but we don’t. She just assumed everyone aligns that way,” Spong continued. “And it’s awkward. It’s never us bringing up a topic of that nature; it’s always her.” 

Bilka, on the other hand, had been neighbors with the new roommate the previous year, and they were friends. Since having these uncomfortable conversations, she has found it difficult to maintain the connection. 

“I just don’t want to cause problems or tension with her. But if you think a certain way, you shouldn’t be putting it on someone else. You should remain friendly with them,” she said. It isn’t until their actions are fueled by hatred that the pair believes it’s justified to break people off. 

The roommates said that these types of conversations have only increased since Kirk’s passing. 

Kirk’s death has become a point of contention between the two parties, as seen in the case of Gerald Bostian, a 19-year-old philosophy and history double major at Boston University, who lost friends over a social media post he made following Kirk’s death. 

Bostian, who identifies as right-wing but is not necessarily affiliated with the Republican Party, says that over the years, he has felt tension with people over their political views, especially at a university in a progressive city like Boston. 

“There have been times people have stopped being friends with me because of my political beliefs,” he shared. “Some of my classmates, who I was pretty close with last year, unfollowed me after I posted ‘Rest in Peace Charlie Kirk’ after he got murdered, and I was like ‘Wait a minute, yes, we disagree, but I have no problem being friends with you even though you support Charlie Kirk getting hurt.’” 

Although most of the unfollows didn’t bother him, one involving a student he had worked with on several class projects the previous year did hurt. Wanting to understand her reasoning, he reached out to her. 

“I understand that not everyone agrees with my politics, and that’s okay, but I was like, ‘Did you really have to unfollow me over politics?’” She responded that their politics didn’t align, and she didn’t want to see what he posted online. 

Because of these experiences, Bostian disagrees with cutting people off over politics, arguing that it “doesn’t get us anywhere.”

“Over the years, I’ve learned to separate someone’s politics from who they are as a person,” he explained. “The person next to you is not your enemy. If they’re an American, you are not supposed to be fighting against them.”

While he believes that there are times a person’s political beliefs are indicative of their characteristics, that’s not enough for him to reject a friendship. 

He acknowledges, however, that maintaining those connections can be challenging. 

“I recognize that it’s much easier said than done,” he said. For this reason, he said that if you know you disagree politically, then don’t bring up politics in the conversation, as it will just lead to confrontation. 

“First, don’t bring things up, and if they do come up, staying calm and loving is very important,” he shared. “If you can pull that off, that’s better than not saying anything,” noting that he and his friends have sometimes changed each other’s minds through such discussions. 

However, he mentioned that if you’re the type of person who takes everything personally and can’t get through a political debate without getting angry, then it’s best to stay quiet until you “get it under control,” he said. “Say some prayers, go to church, grow your relationship with God, and then talk about politics when you can handle it.”  

Bostian also urges people to consider their priorities. “Ask yourself: What’s more important? My mom, in any case, or my political beliefs? I’d hope most people would choose their mom, because you only have one,” he said. 

Overall, he values communicating over all else. “I used to avoid talking about politics. Now, not so much,” he said. “Generally speaking, not saying what I think isn’t going to help. Democracy doesn’t work if we don’t actually say what we think.”

While none of these sources provided a single solution for staying connected, they all shared a commonality: they avoided discussing politics with political foes, citing discomfort and futility as the reasons. But maybe that’s precisely what America needs. 

According to research from the Annual Review of Political Science, Americans are more emotionally polarized than ideologically, meaning we agree on policy more than people think. Misperceptions about policy stem from the fact that, while there is policy overlap, only one party is motivated to put these issues on the agenda, according to The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, which, in turn, influences the stereotypical beliefs associated with each party’s views. 

Essentially, Americans have more common ground than what is reflected in our politicians’ agendas. Despite this, the study notes that providing real information about policy overlap can help counter these distorted views of the other party and reduce polarization. But for this to happen, communication must take place. 

When a country fails to communicate, we lose sight of what we initially had in common. In reality, most Americans aren’t feeling the same level of divisiveness as our politicians are. Instead, many are navigating awkward connections and avoiding confrontation to prevent the potential loss of relationships due to this divisiveness, because overall, we all yearn for human connection without political turmoil. Even those who do disconnect over political differences still recognize polarization as a problem that needs to be addressed. While we continue to argue over the best candidates and how to address polarization, we need to stay connected, even if it’s just to disagree.