The NPR Politics Podcast - How To Avoid Talking About Politics This Thanksgiving

Episode Date: November 26, 2025

In a recent NPR/PBS News/Marist poll, Republicans and Democrats described people in the other political party as "closed-minded" and "dishonest" when talking about politics. That doesn't bode well for upcoming holiday gatherings. We discuss how to navigate Thanksgiving meals while avoiding arguments about politics.This episode: political correspondent Ashley Lopez, political reporter Elena Moore, and senior political editor and correspondent Domenico Montanaro.This podcast was produced by Casey Morell and edited by Rachel Baye.Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi.Listen to every episode of the NPR Politics Podcast sponsor-free, unlock access to bonus episodes with more from the NPR Politics team, and support public media when you sign up for The NPR Politics Podcast+ at plus.npr.org/politics.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hi, this is Liz in Ahjahik, Halisco, Mexico. I'm listening to the Rockets or Coetes, calling the faithful to Mass at 6.30 in the morning to celebrate the town's patron saint feast San Andreas. It's a nine-day feast. That's a lot of rockets. This podcast was recorded at. 11, 12 a.m. Eastern Time on Wednesday, November 26, 2025. Things might have changed by the time you hear it, but I'll still be listening to the rockets and the roosters bring on the morning down here. Enjoy the show. That all sounds very lovely.

I will say... Incredible use of sound. I think hearing a rocket at 6.30 in the morning would give me a heart attack. Yeah, that's definitely true. But this sounded quite beautiful, and she did a really... good job with that and it sounds like a fun place to be. Yeah, I want to learn more about this feast. Sounds very

interesting. All right, hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Ashley Lopez. I cover politics. I'm Elena Moore. I also cover politics. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. And today on the show, we're going to be talking about politics. A lot of you are preparing to spend Thanksgiving

with your in-laws or your extended family, your friends. And you may be wondering, how do I avoid arguments about politics at a time when Americans are more divided than ever. Well, today on the show, we're going to weigh in. Domenico, I want to start with you because we actually have some polling that kind of like gets around this. There was a recent NPR, PBS, News, Mayer's poll. And it turns out Republicans and Democrats describe people in the other political party as close-minded and dishonest when talking about

politics, which is kind of charged. I mean, how big is this divide that we're talking about here? Well, I mean, when you have more than eight and ten in, you know, each party saying that the other side is closed-minded when talking about politics, I'd say the divide's pretty big, you know, but at the same time, it's interesting because everyone then winds up getting together and having to kind of have this kind of awkward moment where they feel like, uh-oh, how am I going to either talk about this, avoid talking about this, suppress feelings or not. And I mean, there's a ton of reasons for why we've gotten to this point in the country. Yeah. Elena, you actually spoke to folks about this divide. I mean,

what did you hear? Yeah, I called up a bunch of respondents who took part in our most recent poll to ask them about this question and get some more kind of personal understanding of where they're coming from when they say that the other side folks are dishonest or not open-minded. And really, I heard from Democrats and Republicans a very similar message, which was things are harder to talk about these days. And I had people tell me that they feel judged or they feel like they're not, you know, being heard or on the other side that they don't feel like they can even have a productive conversation anymore. I talked to one man in Georgia who called himself kind of the black sheep of his liberal family. He's a Trump voter. And he said that there is just

kind of a known unspoken rule that we don't talk politics at Thanksgiving or holidays because it'll take away from the holiday and they're not going to get anywhere. And that kind of sense of almost like defeatism that I heard of people being like, this is a done deal. That was quite striking. I also heard people like a Democratic voter, Teresa Tucker and Lansing, Michigan, who kind of said that this kind of feeling has gotten stronger over the last few years, last decade even. I think, unfortunately, this administration has pitted people against each other. And, you know, if we would have more conversations, I think we would find we have a lot more in common than we don't. Yeah. That gentleman, like the law and his family is no talking about politics. I think that's a hard one to enforce among most families. Almost everything is political, right? What do you guys do? Like when a relative or a friend starts to pick a fight about politics?

You know, it's funny because we're reporters, so people always seem to want to pick our brains. But not really pick our brains. More like tell us what should be in our brains. And I find that, especially with family, to be incredibly frustrating because, you know, we clearly, like, have a reason we do this job. And we have personal opinions, too. So that makes it difficult because you don't want anybody to necessarily judge you one way or the other for that. So I often will try to not engage generally or trying to figure out who the, you know, if I know, if there's an in I have with that person, you know, if it's my brother or. or a sister, there's like a way to talk about something that we've talked about in the past to try to go for that common ground a little bit. But mostly, I cook usually for Thanksgiving for everybody.

So I have a lot of time in the kitchen and have a lot of time to talk about cooking or I'll talk about sports. Yeah, I feel like there's no better tool than the segue and also just like the buffer. Oh, not the one you write on. No, I mean, that's definitely a bad. ad tool. But I feel like I love a good buffer. Like someone, basically, it reminds me of what I was told when I like started like trying TV hits, where they're like, if you don't know the answer to this question, you're like, that's a great question. You know, by the way, it makes me think

of turkey. And while we're talking about turkey, and I love a good, I love a good shift. So I feel like as soon as you can kind of move the conversation along, that's kind of also our job. I feel like in the field. Definitely, as Domenico said, like, people will want our opinions or want our like own response to the same questions we ask. And I'm always like, well, I want to hear from you. You are the person that we're interested in. And I try to take that forward when I'm in conversations. I don't necessarily always feel comfortable and be like, well, tell me why you feel that way, channeling my therapist mother a little bit. How do you feel? I think that's called deflection. And that's, for sure. And that can be useful. I mean, it's very useful. I mean, I will

say, like, as a reporter, it's very useful to have the skill of being able to be curious, but sort of dispassionate when you need to, like, turning on that part of your brain and being like, you know, why do you feel that way? I'm curious. Like, what in your life has led you to this, like, opinion? I mean, it works mostly with, like, I would say, like, extended family, but it's, if it's, like, a really close family member, it's kind of hard to put the, like, the emotions of things away. Yeah, I think people have, like, a big problem. I think a bigger problem, now in the Trump era of really trying to understand where each other come from. You know, I think it was a little bit easier before Trump because during Trump, he's done so many things

that have been so divisive in ways where people feel really strongly on one side or the other. I mean, it shows up in our polling, you know, 48% of people in our poll strongly disapprove of the job that he's doing, but he has a very strong and dug-in base. And, you know, I think there's a lot of people on the left who think that people on the right who voted for Trump, that they believe and espouse all of the things that Trump does and see him as a real threat to democracy and can't imagine that anybody would support that. And for, you know, those on the Trump side, they feel like a lot of liberals don't listen. They feel like they will never give Trump the credit for anything. They'll like to talk about because echo what he says about if he cured cancer,

they wouldn't even like that, right? But I think that there are such passions that have gotten more divided, you know, because of social media, because of the Trump era. And it makes it really, really hard when people are, like, siloed with the kinds of information that they take in where they get that information and whether or not they can bridge that gap to even understand where someone on the other side might be coming from. It's like deeper and deeper repercussions of labels, really, because like a label inherently, I think, makes a lot of folks feel misunderstood. and you can have preconceived ideas of what someone's identity is, what their views are because of a label that they subscribe to like Democrat or Republican.

And I think voters that I talk to feel that that can be really misleading sometimes. I mean, I talk to Republicans and I've talked to lots of Democrats who call themselves conservative or liberal, but have tons of things to say that are a bit more nuanced on even folks in their own party. And I think sometimes people can feel a bit written off as just one thing or the other when, you know, people are complex and they have lots of different opinions. And just because they may have voted for one name doesn't mean they're 100% on board. Sometimes it does. But, I mean, even among Republicans, Domenico mentioned approval rating of the president right now.

Almost nine and ten Republicans do approve of President Trump's job in office. That said, I still talked to Trump supporters who were like, I would like, I would like. like to see him focus more on this issue or this issue. And notably, the number one issue that people want to hear him focus on, even if they support him, is the economy. Let's take a quick break. More in a moment. And we're back. And we've been talking about navigating Thanksgiving conversations at a time when our partisan divides are deeper than ever. And Elena, I want to go back to something you were talking about. I mean, are there any political topics out there that actually most people can agree on? Yeah, I mean, I think almost everybody can agree.

that the price of something in their life is too high, whether that be groceries or health care costs or trying to buy a house or rent, you know, that's kind of something that's in the front of everybody's mind right now. You know, whether we want to talk about it or not, it is kind of a big focus. And that's what we hear from voters really around the country. In some respects, politically, yes, there are, I think everything, though, you could argue as politics. Everything has some involvement, you know, for a policy prescription or some other so i don't know i mean i like to think about the people that i'm around and even if they believe what they believe there's a reason why i choose to you know be at a thanksgiving with

them for example you know i mean a lot of times you can obviously can't pick your family but there are reasons i would focus on or try to focus on the reasons why you like these people and hopefully there's something that you do and you can and you can focus on that um but you know look the political topics right now make it really tough. I mean, yeah, people think that stuff is it costs a lot. But then, of course, you move to the next part of that conversation, which is, yeah, what are you going to do about it? Right, right. And also they have different folks to blame, different forces to blame for why things are expensive, which, you know, I joke about everyone being united on prices and the costs of groceries. Obviously, those are real concerns.

But it is funny where I'll have a conversation with a Democratic voter and then I'll have a conversation with a Republican voter, and they'll really paint a similar picture of, you know, their challenges for the upcoming year. But they have completely different causes or say they have different causes. And so Domenico's right. That is a bit of a little bit of a landmine right there. But a complaint is fun. I think like you can make, like a complaint about something you can't control. It is very uniting. It's a very, it's a good time. I like a complaint fest sometimes. It can't be all bad. A little bit of a festivist preview. Exactly. My favorite holiday.

I mean, well, let's talk more about like some safe topics, you know, that are maybe completely not political at all. If someone's like trying to think of like, okay, I need to change this conversation to something safe, what is usually y'all's go-to? How about them Mets? Oh, gosh. Yeah, we're going to talk about the Brandon Nimmo trade. It's already hard enough. I'm in a house where almost everyone else is a Yankees fan. Oh, sad for you. It's been sweet, though, that my daughter. See, there's that snark again.

But my daughter just became kind of a Mets fan in the past year, which I'm sad for her on that, but it's also sweet. But she, like, was crying because of the Mets trading Brandon Nimmo, the longest tenured met on the team, which I thought was very, like, sweet. Took me back to my youth. And I was, like, talking to her about times when I was, like, really sad about something with baseball. And it's just, it's just interesting. I think that there is, like, people have passions about different things, whatever. it is right and i mean for me sports seems like an easy place to go because i mean number one my dad is a gym teacher uh coach i grew up playing sports uh everybody in my household basically is somehow

involved or it pays attention to it and it's metrics based right like the sort of new york talk radio culture as annoying and loud obnoxious as it is it's like you yell and scream but whoever's got the best points based on the best data gets to win and the one who loses like their feelings don't matter. And there's something like actually nice about that because there's something pure about it where you have a chance at the next thing and it doesn't have to do with just your feelings. It has to do with, you know, whether or not you make better points or not. Yeah, I would say in my house, I mean, obviously we've talked about I'm also New York or go Yankees we'll see next year, but I'm in my grandma's house in Baltimore

right now, and so I am in an Orioles house, which is kind of like, they are kind of like the Mets of the ALE East in some ways. Amazing team, you know, heartwise. But so sports is one thing, but I think also for me. You're struggling here. You're struggling with the grace, I will say. I'm sorry. No, it is Grace. Look, I'm friends with, you see, this is with Mets fans and Orioles fans. I got to say as like a non-sports person. I know. I know you guys both said this.

Contentious already. Okay. Very true. But there's a love fight and there's a politics fight for sure. But I was going to say one thing that isn't political and may, you know, relate to people not on living on the Northeast Corridor train line is I am become in the last few years, really since COVID, a avid reality television watcher. And I say that because I have found it the most uniting thing.

maybe ever in like anything I can talk about because really anywhere in this country you can find someone who watched a specific real housewives of Salt Lake City scene that is obsessively incredible and crazy and like it's like kind of my new conversation starter I'm like do you watch any mind-numbing television that you want to talk to me about except for that person who is really serious about politics that grandparent and thinks that watching reality TV is shallow yeah and then we go back to sports or we talk about the Oscars I mean bring back hobbies, guys. Like, I have gotten really into knitting and sewing, and I love talking about that. And even if the other person's not interested, they're like, kind of like, oh, this is sort of a light topic. My little brother's really into cooking. I don't care that much about cooking. But, you know, when he talks about something he's cooked, I'm like, oh, that's kind of interesting. It kind of gives me ideas for a meal. Like, it's light. Especially, I mean, we are talking about Thanksgiving here. Talk about the food. Well, I do wish you guys a very nice, peaceful Thanksgiving. I hope you have a great time. I think we'll leave it there for today. I'm Ashley Lopez. I cover politics.

I'm Elena Moore. I cover politics, too. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. And I will say, it's Thanksgiving. So focus on what you're thankful for. Yeah. I'm thankful for this pod. Yeah, I'm thankful for you guys. And we're thankful for y'all listening.

And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.