December 4, 2023 • 39 mins
In this episode, we meet Dana Cogar, a lifelong Democrat married to a professional Republican, who sees the political differences between her and her husband as a challenge AND a source of strength. Together, we delve into the details of her marriage and daily life, while also sharing our thoughts on political polarization, the dangers of social media, and what we think “civil discourse” really means. Listen in and let’s be curious together!
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Hey, thanks for joining us andtuning in to my podcast, Curious and
Uncomfortable. I'm Niri. You arecreator, producer, and host. This
podcast is an exploratory conversation where twopeople come together and talk about being uncomfortable.
I have guests come on from allover the country, from various walks
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of life and unique professions, andtogether we question all things uncomfortable through many
lenses society, lifestyle, politics,culture, and more. In doing this,
our conversations are real, perceptive andnatural. They aren't scripted, and
most of the time they aren't evenreally planned. We're just two curious people
(00:43):
eager to answer some questions. Soopen your mind, listen, and learn.
Let's be curious together. Our guesttoday is Dana. This is a
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new one because we haven't really coveredthis kind of conversation yet on the podcast.
We've talked about culture, we've talkedabout you know, childhood and trauma
and professional work, but we haven'treally covered politics. And I really liked
this episode because Dana. Dana reallyopened up to me. Her husband is
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a professional Republican, So Dana beinga Democrat pretty much your whole life and
growing up with parents as Democrats whenshe met her husband and her now husband
and started dating him. A lotof challenges came with that, and really
what was the most difficult was compromiseand really being able to have conversations and
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accept the fact that you are goingto disagree. In talking with Dana,
it seems like she's accepted that andlearn to agree to disagree with our husband
on a lot of topics that arein the news today, a lot of
sense of topics. You know,they have been in a relationship together through
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multiple presidencies, through Bush, Obama, Trump, and now Biden, and
so how do you have civil discourse? What does civil discourse look like these
days? How do you have thesedialogues with people that think you're wrong.
Dana has found a way to reallymake sure that the differences in opinion between
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her and her husband never trump theirmarriage and their relationship with their kids.
They never have and they never will. And I think that's wonderful, and
I think that's really hard to dothese days, very hard to do in
relationships in gen let alone a marriage. So Dan and I really we really
cover it all. We talk aboutpolitical polarization, we talk about social media's
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impact on younger generations, and reallyall of us, and how we can
seek out news that that's different andnot stay in that political bubble. So
listen in Enjoy and let's get curiouswith Dana. What does the everyday family
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dynamic look like for you? SoI think that was really something you know,
once Chuck and I got married,in terms of a dynamic that we
had to establish, it was somethingthat we established ahead of time, actually,
right, And if I'm honest withmyself, I grew up almost in
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a bubble. My parents were bothvery, very liberal Democrats from New York.
I told them later in life,you are East Coast snobs, right.
They just had kind of their ownview of the world that was very
East Coast oriented. And then Imet this man. A large part portion
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of his family was from West Virginia, the other side of his family from
Ohio. He's a professional Republican.It was a dance and we had to
figure out can we do this dance? And it was compromise. As we
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were dating. It was the Bushcorerecount, and so that was kind of
a huge deal at that time.And I was going out to protest the
war, the First Gold War,and he would say, don't call me
if you get thrown in the clink, and he was going out to protest
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in front of the Vice president's mansionwith signs that said get out of Dick
Cheney's house. I mean, wereally were kind of at the opposite end.
So we had to figure out howdo we talk about these things.
It was not easy or perfect,but we reached a point where we knew
what point we could take things toand where we just ended up having to
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decide to agree to disagree because therewere so many other things that we had
in common or that we liked abouteach other and enjoyed about each other,
and that were important to us.So politics was only it was one part
of that. It was magnified oramplified because he worked on the hill.
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But all of this to say,it was a lot for us to figure
out and overcome, and yet atthe same time, it just wasn't the
most important thing for us because wewere attracted to each other. We did
have other values that mesh coincided,and we eventually fell in love with each
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other, and in the big picture, that was just such a small portion
of what was going on. However, I will say over the last twenty
two years, it's grown. Butthat's just the nature I think of the
political divide in this country right now. So we've continuously had to figure out
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how to shift and talk about thingsand then bring kids into the picture.
And my eldest has told us heis registering as a Republican, and my
daughter is the president of the YoungDemocrats club at her high school. I'm
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pretty much sure that's where my youngestmy son is leaning, but he just
hasn't said. I think he doesn'twant to come out and say like which
he doesn't want to feel like he'staking sides. But everything that I see
in him and how he talks aboutthings or views the world, tells me
that it's outside. But so it'sa now we have a blend, mixed
family of you know, views,and it's just dinner time conversations can be
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spicy. But I think, andI hope that we've taught our kids too,
that it can't be the most importantthing. There has to be a
way to have debate and open dialogue. And if you just if you're reaching
that point, if your soul,if your sole goal is to change somebody
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else's mind, then you're losing straightout of the gate. It has to
be. You have to find away to debate, make your point,
have civil discourse, and then whenyou reach a point where you realize we're
not going to get past this,we're still trying to, then you agree
to disagree and move on. That'sinteresting because when you bring kids into the
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situation, kind of like you weretalking about with your son, where he
feels like maybe he would be leaningtowards one parent then the other. Of
course, you would never want toput a young child in that situation,
and they don't really know at ayoung age. I'm not sure how old
he is. But even at myage and I'm eighteen and I can register
to vote, I don't even knowreally where I'm leaning in terms of who
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I would vote for. And youknow, of course I pay attention to
politics and I read the news,but I haven't really developed my own understanding
as an individual as myself, asidefrom my parents, maybe the generations of
my family, like for you,growing up very liberal parents and then you
sort of transitioning into that, andI'm assuming it was probably the same for
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your husband as well. So it'sinteresting you have to pret yourself from that.
Eventually you know, that's kind ofthe part of growing up and becoming
an adult. What does that dialoguelook like? Are you saying, you
know, you don't have to agreewith me, you don't have to agree
with dad. You can say neithercan I'm like, I'm not personally offended
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if you agree with this person orthe other. You know, how does
that work. It's a challenge.It is a much bigger challenge than figuring
it out between two adults who arein a relationship and love each other.
So, because these are kids,and they're both of our kids, and
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they are hearing these kind of debatesat the dinner table and realizing that,
hey, mom and dad have differentviews about what was just stated on the
news or what is being discussed atthe dinner table. And we've both had
the kids come to us separately,right, so we have a conversation and
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then I know my kids have gottenmy husband and said, okay, tell
me what you think on this andwhy, And then they come to me
and they say the same thing.And in talking to my husband, we've
always really agreed that we're a team, you know, in how we discipline
our kids, but in how wetalk about this and that we're never going
to denigrate the other side. Andso I think, especially for me,
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it's been a great exercise in beingintentional, thoughtful, taking a minute before
I answer my kids questions and makingsure that I can. And this is
where I think we are missing iton a larger national scale, this civil
discourse of let me tell you whyI think the way I think. I
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don't agree with your father, butI'm not saying he's wrong or evil now
in my head sometimes so I think, oh my god, he's totally wrong
and he's off base. Sure,but a if I come out of the
gate saying that to my husband,kids are not that's going to you know,
that starts to stop the conversation.But also with kids involved, we
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really don't want them to feel thatkind of tension. So I think it's
caused both of us to be verythoughtful and attentional a lot how we answer
those questions. My youngest is fourteen. He's a freshman in high school,
and I had him ask me abouttwo months ago, okay, mom,
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without getting on a soapbox. Heunderstands that that term without getting on a
soapbox, Can you please just explainto me basically the difference between Republicans and
Democrats, And I'll be honest,that was I had to take more than
a minute. You're going to haveto give me a minute here, in
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part because I think the world doesupside down right now. Ten fifteen years
ago, I could have answered thatquestion much differently, absolutely, and so
I really had to step back andbe very thoughtful. I put myself in
my husband's shoes and thought about howwould he answer this question to my son
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and make sure that I wasn't vilifyingone side or the other. And I'll
also say I'm not a Democrat anymore. I'm an independent, but I think
for the purposes of that conversation,because he was trying to understand the two
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major sides, and so I thinkit really means putting yourself in the other
people's shoes, at least for alittle bit, in order to answer that
question, you know, fairly orhonestly. And I ended the conversation with
if you haven't already talked to dad, I think you should talk to Dad
too, and then compare our answersbecause the truth is always somewhere in between.
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Seeing Democrat and Republican as a blackand white thing, is what people
do, and it's what's really dangerous, I think in our democracy, because
it's everything but black and white.It's more like a spectrum, because when
you have the extreme Republican or theextreme Democrat, and then you have the
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people that are left leaning centrists,right leaning centrist, completely neutral, and
then you have people that really don'tdon't know they're my age or they're younger,
and they haven't really put much thoughtinto their position. They just know
what's out there. I really trynot to bring my opinion into a conversation.
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A political conversation, I completely blockout, mainly because I know it'll
start some sort of issue. Ihave friends at school and friends outside of
school, and we have very politicallyheavy conversations. They're usually around politics.
What's going on with Trump, what'sgoing on with Biden? The election?
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Who's going to vote? Who areyou going to vote for? Oh?
Why would you vote for them?Things like that, and so it makes
me step back and say, Okay, today, I'm not going to contribute
because I don't know what someone's goingto say. I could be misunderstood,
I could be painted as someone i'mnot. I would say I'm definitely more
left leaning than anything else. Butbut then again, I step back,
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and I think, I think it'skind of sad that we feel like we
have to push back on what wejust think to say I feel. I
feel that makes me sad. Wouldyou say today, I'm not going to
engage or you know, I don'treally want to say what I think or
I feel, And that's what I'msaying before. I think we've reached a
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point in this country where we can'thave that civil discourse, and that makes
me sad because I truly, trulybelieve there are more things that unite us
than separate us. I think themajority of this country, and we are
a democracy, and democracy is majorityrules. The majority of this country is
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in the center, a little bitleft to center, a little bit right
of center, but in the center. And it's the extremes that have the
bully pulpit. And we could godown the road or the rabbit hole of
social media, but I truly believethat social media has a lot to do
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with that, because those algorithms thencontinue to isolate us and just spiral us
into this group of like minded peoplewhere we never hear anything else. You
know, you never hear the disagreementand you never hear the other side,
but you but there's vitriol about theother side, and it's happening on both
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sides. And yet I've found AndI just went to a conference in Florida.
I was talking to some of mycompanies, different partners. We were
out to dinner one night talking toa guy from Louisiana, very red state.
He's basically very red. It wasreally interesting to me what he had
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to say of I don't know whatto believe anymore. And you know,
here's what i want for my family, and here's what I'm hoping for my
business, and here's what And inthe end, we had so much to
talk about and we agreed on somuch more than just politics. And on
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the face of it, if youif you looked at us, I'm from
northern virgin and yeah, he's fromLouisiana. And he said, I'm a
simple country boy and I don't wantto get into all the politics of it.
And I said, while I'm outsideof DC and local news is political
news, right, But we founda way to talk about stuff. He
said a couple things I might notagree with. I'm sure I said a
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couple things but in the end,we were both We wanted the same thing
for our families, you know,for our livelihoods. We wanted to get
along. We had a lot incommon, and we don't have that anymore.
And I think because a lot ofthese conversations are taking place digitally and
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then you know in person, youfeel very conscious of Okay, well,
this is my online presence and thisis what's happening in person. But it
makes me sad that you feel likeyou have to pause and you can't say
what you want to say, orthat you're going to be judged so harshly,
because but that's where we are,that's what's happening. I'll across the
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board. My husband and I areopposite ends of the spectrum, but we've
made it work for twenty two years. I think it comes from respect,
from being able to listen to theother side, from being able to step
back at some point, transparency aswell, right transparency and then saying,
hey, you know what I don'tYou've said your thing and I've said mine,
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and I don't think we're going toagree on this one, and that's
got to be okay. Yeah,I don't think everybody thinks that or at
least not on social media, youend up having to be right. Well
what if what if we just agreeto disagree? Yeah, that's that's only
becoming less common. I think peoplehave a strong desire to always be right,
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and you know, if they're not, then they're not getting their point
across. But there's there's you don'thave to be right to get your point
across, because the point of thoseconversations is not to necessarily prove your point,
is to just state it. AndI think that's where that's where the
issue, that's where the issue lies. Is all right, I've made my
argument, like a debate, I'vemade an argument or I'm going to stop.
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They're now going to make their argument. And now I feel like,
okay, I have to give allthese different you know, statistics and percentages
and the credible sources I know,and trust me. I saw this on
this site and I saw that video. That's real footage. I know what
I'm talking about. That's what Isaw. Trust me, this is bad,
this is wrong, You're wrong.I have proof, And then you
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have to feel like you have to. It's like a defensive I have to
defend myself. What a lot ofpeople have last sight of And again I'm
going to go back to social media. I'm not going to blame everything on
social media, but I'm going tosay Hamas is a terrorist organization. They'll
bomb their own people to make it, you know, to get out riled
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up, or do whatever it isthat they need to do for their end
goal. So we should, ashuman beings in this world together be able
to look at what's happening and lookat what's happening to innocent people on both
sides and have empathy and compassion.Taking that conversation then to the next level
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and talking about right wrong, andthen really looking at where are people getting
their information from, where they're gettingtheir news from, and how is this
being filtered? And not just forthis issue that for so many we try
to tell our kids you can't justif you're looking at TikTok or Twitter,
you're not getting the full picture.You're getting what you want to see.
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How many people in this country orthis world are getting their news from Facebook
or Twitter or TikTok. Yeah,and let's not forget that TikTok is owned
by a foreign government. But soit can become time consuming and exhausting to
try and filter out news from allthe different sides that you're supposed to and
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then for younger people to not evenknow that some of those other sources exist,
right, But it does those sourcesthat affects how we see the world.
If you're getting your news from Facebook, well we all know that all
those algorithms, they're keeping track ofyou, and they get you siloed into
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people just like you, and there'sno outside noise, right yeah, unless
you seek it, Unless you seekit, and telling you the other side
is evil? Is their mainstream mediaanymore? And who do we trust anymore?
So it becomes harder and harder tobe balanced and thoughtful. Were there
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specific things within either Trump's presidency ormaybe even before during Bush, like before
when you were dating, but Iknow with marriage and as time goes on,
you're developing more of a relationship.So yeah, what was the most
difficult part or what topics kind ofstood out? So I think with Bush,
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like the recount wasn't I mean,it was bad, but it was
what it was, and then thewinner was declared, right for me,
how we went to war and whywe went to war? And really at
one point the whole country found outthere were no weapons of mass destruction.
There were none, and it wasa war that was supposed to last few
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months, maybe a year, maybethree. Well it went on for perpetuity,
and how many lives were lost andmy day, jab what I do
for a living is I'm a contractorwho supports veterans affairs and I see veterans
on a daily basis, and Isee the cost of this war on them.
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And I also felt like Republicans nevertook responsibility for that. So that
was a hard conversation. It waswhen we got through, but it was
not always easy. We were definitelyon opposite sides there. And again,
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he's a professional Republican. I don'tthink that really sunk in and I really
understand what that meant until we wereyears into it, right, and then
with Trump, I think I felt, like many people did, like this
guy is just a grifter. LikeI'm looking at my husband and I'm thinking,
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you loved Ronald Reagan. This isa man that you wanted to emulate,
and you have his speeches and geez, there's a poster of him in
your office, and like a trueReaganite, how how can you embrace this
person that is just so opposite ofanything. And I don't I didn't love
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run Reagan's politics, but how doyou look at Trump and say, yeah,
I'm you know, I'm going tovote for you. It just that
was beyond me. And also asa victim of sexual assault with Trump coming
in, and as the mother ofa daughter, I just I had I
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had to work through that. Myhusband is able to separate the stuff that
goes on at work and the stuffthat he believes in. He voted for
Trump, and so that was veryhard for me. We should all be
allowed to vote who we're going tovote for and be able to talk about
that. But that first year withTrump, like I just felt so strongly
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about stuff, and I was theone that had to come around. I
was hard on him and really gavehim a run for said probably said things
I shouldn't have said, or wastrying to push buttons because I was just
so upset about it. And Ireally had to step back and say,
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Okay, this is my problem,not his. He's entitled to his rights
and his beliefs and how he's goingto vote and without being given a hard
time on it. Although I willsay that my husband and I look at
each other and say, can't believeit's down to Biden and Trump again.
Yeah, this is Alice in Wonderland. Crazy that and what are you going
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to do? Like this? Andwhat do you do? Ultimately, the
system is not working right now andit's up to us to fix it.
I'm interested to know, like waitwith friends, maybe earlier on with before
you were married or in the earlystages, was that difficult, Like meeting
your husband's friends who were more likedid you see that they were more following
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his ideals? And then your friendswere more maybe liberal, and then bringing
that together one time it became aproblem. The neighborhood in which we live,
the county in which we live,is very liberal. Some of the
text change from the neighborhood would justreally reach a certain point sometimes. And
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Chuck wasn't always on them, butI did have to reach out to a
couple neighbors because Chuck was some ofthem. And to Chuck's credit, he
just didn't engage. He knew betterand he didn't engage, but I knew
it bothered him, and I hadto reach out and say to these people,
you know, this is a manthat you've he's been your neighbor for
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fifteen years. You know he woulddo anything for you and that he's a
friend to you, and some ofthe stuff that you're putting in these tech
like it's unacceptable, and I justwant you to remember who he is and
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if you think that by throwing someof this stuff to him is going to
change how the GOP thinks, orchange how Trump thinks, or change whatever
representative or senator or my husband worksfor, change how they think you're wrong.
But all you're gonna do is kindof hurt his feelings, right,
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Like, please remember the person,the human being, the friends, the
neighbor that is on this text changebecause he is a good husband, and
he is a good father, andhe has a good friend and like I
can list a lot of stuff thathe's done for neighbors. And it took
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that for some of them to writeback and say, I am so sorry,
got you know, carried away andI'll be honest. A lot of
what they were reacting to and thenforwarding into the chain were tweets just like
can you just remember, like whyare you directing this to the man who
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picked your kids up from school thewhole week you were gone or helped by
dinner when your wife was sick,and like the humanity sometimes was missing.
That to me was really hard.My really good friends know him well enough
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and his really good friends know mewell enough that again, we can get
into some spicy debates, but weall know where to stop. But at
the same time, we are friends, and we all recognize. My friends
recognize I've been married to this manfor twenty years and he's been a great
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husband and a great father and viceversa, and we really try to respect
that. I feel like all Isee is the extreme of both sides.
I don't see anything in the middle, which is probably about ten percent ten
percent on the extreme liberal and tenpercent on the extreme Republic. Where's the
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other eighty percent? And they're noton there, probably because they know better,
but also because it's just not whatsocial media's algorithm is going to give
me. I mean, I'm noton Twitter. I was on it for
a couple of months and I justremember being like Jesus, I got to
get off, like what's going on? Never on Facebook or anything like that,
But it's it's just as damaging onespecially with TikTok, but Instagram and
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YouTube even maybe less YouTube. Butyou know that didn't even exist when you
were dating your husband. I mean, we like, here's my family dynamic.
And I will say that friends onboth sides look at this sometimes they're
like, whatever makes you all tick? This is great. I am very
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pro choice, and my daughter ispro choice, and she and I went
to the Women's March. My eldestson through high school, including his senior
year, went to the Right toLife March. You know, I dropped
him off at the Metro to goto that, and check drop me and
Sydney off at the Metro to goto our march. And there's just a
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respect for these differences. And youknow, I've had a couple of friends
say, God, do you feellike you failed because your son is like
going to these right to life merges? Does he not respect a woman's friend?
Like whoa hold on this? Chidgrew up in a house where both
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views were put forward. That's whathe is choosing. I don't agree with
it, but I do not feellike I failed in any way as his
mother or to impress anything upon him. I know Chuck doesn't feel like he
failed our daughter in any way.I think we both feel really proud that
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we raised kids who understand the importanceof speaking their truth and their beliefs without
taking it to an extreme or denigratingsomebody else for what they think or believe.
And so for that, I'm reallyreally proud. I think when you're
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when you're growing up and you're ableto develop your own, like you said,
your own truth, your own yourown way of looking at things,
your own line of thinking, that'swhen you've you've been able to say,
you know, I separate myself frommy parents, with the generations of my
family or social media, I separatemyself from what I see online. I'm
just going to think what I think, and I'm not afraid to bring that
up in conversations or feel like Ihave to defend myself. I think the
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most interesting thing is that, orwell, the most irritating thing is that
when you're disagreeing with someone in aconversation, the conversation is labeled as an
argument, but it never is.It's just a conversation. And I remember
having conversations. I have two olderbrothers, and yeah, we've disagreed,
well, we've agreed on most things, but hi, my older brothers,
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you know, they're probably sometimes abit more conservative in some respects, which
is totally fine. And then maybemy parents or some other friends being like
whoa, whoa, whoa. Imean I was like, it's okay,
We're like, but we're just we'rejust talking. I mean, no one
raised their voice, no one wasmad at this person, and no one
called anyone any names or anything.It was completely full of information, full
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of Oh I understand that, butlet me push this a little bit further,
not in a disrespectful way, andlet's continue that like you would have
anal debate. I would never sayto my brother, you're awful, You're
wrong. There's no right or wrong. This is all subjective. Maybe the
information is hopefully objective, but ouropinions are not right or wrong. Well,
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I think that's a key point,right, So make sure you have
your facts correct. I think thatgets harder hard today. But make sure
you have your facts correct. Ifyou can stick to facts, then hopefully
you can keep emotion out of this. But also if you can respect that
opinions, okay, opinions and feelings. Opinions and feelings aren't always rational.
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If opinions are based on things thataren't factual, well then you can have
a debate, right, But adebate doesn't have to be an argument.
You can debate the facts. ButI think you just made a really,
really important point, and that isthat people should be allowed to voice their
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opinions without discourse. Like if youjust immediately tell somebody they're wrong or they're
stupid or that's so messed up,they're going to shut down. There is
no discourse in conversation after that.It is just an argument after that.
But if you can listen and say, but here are the facts, or
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here are the facts that you justmentioned, and try to correlate it to
that, you're going to get alot farther. I think, I think
we lose so much when people whoare if we don't let people who are
different into our lives. Yeah,definitely. I mean I try my best
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to create environments in which I delveinto those conversations just as much as I
can necessarily, like seek out peoplewho are different, but would never exclude
them from a group of friends.I would never not let them be in
a certain conversation or say, youknow, oh I would. It would
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be kind of weird to do that. If I have a podcast literally culled
curious and uncomfortable. But I don'tget uncomfortable with the conversations, right,
I quite like them, and Iencourage them as much as I can.
And I've had certain people sometimes ingroup dynamics be like, well, like,
why did you write them? Itjust hurts my feelings. And I
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said, if it hurts your feelings, you can talk to them, or
you can leave the group. I'mnot going to just exclude some of them
because of a you know, becausesomething that they say in twenty percent of
our conversations you don't agree with,because politics is not all that we talk
about. We also just have funand we go out and we go get
food to me watch TV, andyou know, we're just friends. And
(35:57):
the same thing with your marriage,even with being something that he professionally involves
himself in, your marriage in ofitself will always weigh more than the difference
or the commonalities, will always weighmore than the one that won difference or
the many differences. And I thinkthat's what we have to really keep in
(36:20):
mind, is that we're all alongmore similar than we think, whether we
like it, really are. Imean, I grew up in a house
I came home one day from secondgrade and there were eleven Vietnamese people in
my house. My parents had toldCatholic charities that they would accept Vietnamese refugees,
and literally, I think like aweek later, eleven people showed up.
(36:45):
And that was the first family.Wow. We had multiple after that.
And then I have a foster brotherwho's Vietnamese. I came home from
college and there were four Ethiopian kidssitting in my parents' basement and it's awesome.
Yeah, And I mean that thatwas amazing, right, And then
(37:07):
you know, fast forward at alldifferent walks of life there too. If
you had to say a piece ofadvice or just anything you like to say
to people who very much reject everythingwe've talked about, you know, or
don't maybe just not even don't reject, just don't understand why this is an
(37:29):
important thing, especially in our inour political climate today, especially for the
younger generation coming in with social media, with people who are struggling in their
marriages or with their friendships or relationships. What do you have to say to
that and how can you how canyou encourage what we've talked about. I
(37:52):
truly believe that there is more thatunites us in this world not just this
country. We have more then wedo differently, And if you can be
open and you're willing to listen,to just take a minute and listen,
then we would all be so muchbetter off. If I just discounted my
(38:19):
husband because of his politics. Youknow, he's one of the people that
got the name of National Airport changedto Reagan National Airport, and I was
ridiculing that. On our second orthird date. That's when I found out
that he's one of the people thatworked on the legislation. I was like,
oh sorry, And it's become ajoke since then. But if I
(38:40):
just if I hadn't been open toany of that, and if he hadn't
been open to any of it,we would have missed out on so much
in this life, as I thinkmost people would. And so I think
just taking a minute and really beingopen to new experiences and new opinions,
(39:04):
not because they're going to change yourmind, but just because they're going to
give you maybe a different perspective ora little bit more understanding, and trying
to find the commonalities that connect us. Because I really do think that that's
so much stronger
Hey, thanks for joining us andtuning in to my podcast, Curious and
Uncomfortable. I'm Niri. You arecreator, producer, and host. This
podcast is an exploratory conversation where twopeople come together and talk about being uncomfortable.
I have guests come on from allover the country, from various walks
(00:20):
of life and unique professions, andtogether we question all things uncomfortable through many
lenses society, lifestyle, politics,culture, and more. In doing this,
our conversations are real, perceptive andnatural. They aren't scripted, and
most of the time they aren't evenreally planned. We're just two curious people
(00:43):
eager to answer some questions. Soopen your mind, listen, and learn.
Let's be curious together. Our guesttoday is Dana. This is a
(01:15):
new one because we haven't really coveredthis kind of conversation yet on the podcast.
We've talked about culture, we've talkedabout you know, childhood and trauma
and professional work, but we haven'treally covered politics. And I really liked
this episode because Dana. Dana reallyopened up to me. Her husband is
(01:38):
a professional Republican, So Dana beinga Democrat pretty much your whole life and
growing up with parents as Democrats whenshe met her husband and her now husband
and started dating him. A lotof challenges came with that, and really
what was the most difficult was compromiseand really being able to have conversations and
(02:04):
accept the fact that you are goingto disagree. In talking with Dana,
it seems like she's accepted that andlearn to agree to disagree with our husband
on a lot of topics that arein the news today, a lot of
sense of topics. You know,they have been in a relationship together through
(02:25):
multiple presidencies, through Bush, Obama, Trump, and now Biden, and
so how do you have civil discourse? What does civil discourse look like these
days? How do you have thesedialogues with people that think you're wrong.
Dana has found a way to reallymake sure that the differences in opinion between
(02:46):
her and her husband never trump theirmarriage and their relationship with their kids.
They never have and they never will. And I think that's wonderful, and
I think that's really hard to dothese days, very hard to do in
relationships in gen let alone a marriage. So Dan and I really we really
cover it all. We talk aboutpolitical polarization, we talk about social media's
(03:08):
impact on younger generations, and reallyall of us, and how we can
seek out news that that's different andnot stay in that political bubble. So
listen in Enjoy and let's get curiouswith Dana. What does the everyday family
(03:38):
dynamic look like for you? SoI think that was really something you know,
once Chuck and I got married,in terms of a dynamic that we
had to establish, it was somethingthat we established ahead of time, actually,
right, And if I'm honest withmyself, I grew up almost in
(03:59):
a bubble. My parents were bothvery, very liberal Democrats from New York.
I told them later in life,you are East Coast snobs, right.
They just had kind of their ownview of the world that was very
East Coast oriented. And then Imet this man. A large part portion
(04:20):
of his family was from West Virginia, the other side of his family from
Ohio. He's a professional Republican.It was a dance and we had to
figure out can we do this dance? And it was compromise. As we
(04:41):
were dating. It was the Bushcorerecount, and so that was kind of
a huge deal at that time.And I was going out to protest the
war, the First Gold War,and he would say, don't call me
if you get thrown in the clink, and he was going out to protest
(05:01):
in front of the Vice president's mansionwith signs that said get out of Dick
Cheney's house. I mean, wereally were kind of at the opposite end.
So we had to figure out howdo we talk about these things.
It was not easy or perfect,but we reached a point where we knew
what point we could take things toand where we just ended up having to
(05:26):
decide to agree to disagree because therewere so many other things that we had
in common or that we liked abouteach other and enjoyed about each other,
and that were important to us.So politics was only it was one part
of that. It was magnified oramplified because he worked on the hill.
(05:48):
But all of this to say,it was a lot for us to figure
out and overcome, and yet atthe same time, it just wasn't the
most important thing for us because wewere attracted to each other. We did
have other values that mesh coincided,and we eventually fell in love with each
(06:12):
other, and in the big picture, that was just such a small portion
of what was going on. However, I will say over the last twenty
two years, it's grown. Butthat's just the nature I think of the
political divide in this country right now. So we've continuously had to figure out
(06:32):
how to shift and talk about thingsand then bring kids into the picture.
And my eldest has told us heis registering as a Republican, and my
daughter is the president of the YoungDemocrats club at her high school. I'm
(06:56):
pretty much sure that's where my youngestmy son is leaning, but he just
hasn't said. I think he doesn'twant to come out and say like which
he doesn't want to feel like he'staking sides. But everything that I see
in him and how he talks aboutthings or views the world, tells me
that it's outside. But so it'sa now we have a blend, mixed
family of you know, views,and it's just dinner time conversations can be
(07:25):
spicy. But I think, andI hope that we've taught our kids too,
that it can't be the most importantthing. There has to be a
way to have debate and open dialogue. And if you just if you're reaching
that point, if your soul,if your sole goal is to change somebody
(07:46):
else's mind, then you're losing straightout of the gate. It has to
be. You have to find away to debate, make your point,
have civil discourse, and then whenyou reach a point where you realize we're
not going to get past this,we're still trying to, then you agree
to disagree and move on. That'sinteresting because when you bring kids into the
(08:09):
situation, kind of like you weretalking about with your son, where he
feels like maybe he would be leaningtowards one parent then the other. Of
course, you would never want toput a young child in that situation,
and they don't really know at ayoung age. I'm not sure how old
he is. But even at myage and I'm eighteen and I can register
to vote, I don't even knowreally where I'm leaning in terms of who
(08:33):
I would vote for. And youknow, of course I pay attention to
politics and I read the news,but I haven't really developed my own understanding
as an individual as myself, asidefrom my parents, maybe the generations of
my family, like for you,growing up very liberal parents and then you
sort of transitioning into that, andI'm assuming it was probably the same for
(08:56):
your husband as well. So it'sinteresting you have to pret yourself from that.
Eventually you know, that's kind ofthe part of growing up and becoming
an adult. What does that dialoguelook like? Are you saying, you
know, you don't have to agreewith me, you don't have to agree
with dad. You can say neithercan I'm like, I'm not personally offended
(09:18):
if you agree with this person orthe other. You know, how does
that work. It's a challenge.It is a much bigger challenge than figuring
it out between two adults who arein a relationship and love each other.
So, because these are kids,and they're both of our kids, and
(09:39):
they are hearing these kind of debatesat the dinner table and realizing that,
hey, mom and dad have differentviews about what was just stated on the
news or what is being discussed atthe dinner table. And we've both had
the kids come to us separately,right, so we have a conversation and
(10:01):
then I know my kids have gottenmy husband and said, okay, tell
me what you think on this andwhy, And then they come to me
and they say the same thing.And in talking to my husband, we've
always really agreed that we're a team, you know, in how we discipline
our kids, but in how wetalk about this and that we're never going
to denigrate the other side. Andso I think, especially for me,
(10:28):
it's been a great exercise in beingintentional, thoughtful, taking a minute before
I answer my kids questions and makingsure that I can. And this is
where I think we are missing iton a larger national scale, this civil
discourse of let me tell you whyI think the way I think. I
(10:50):
don't agree with your father, butI'm not saying he's wrong or evil now
in my head sometimes so I think, oh my god, he's totally wrong
and he's off base. Sure,but a if I come out of the
gate saying that to my husband,kids are not that's going to you know,
that starts to stop the conversation.But also with kids involved, we
(11:13):
really don't want them to feel thatkind of tension. So I think it's
caused both of us to be verythoughtful and attentional a lot how we answer
those questions. My youngest is fourteen. He's a freshman in high school,
and I had him ask me abouttwo months ago, okay, mom,
(11:33):
without getting on a soapbox. Heunderstands that that term without getting on a
soapbox, Can you please just explainto me basically the difference between Republicans and
Democrats, And I'll be honest,that was I had to take more than
a minute. You're going to haveto give me a minute here, in
(11:58):
part because I think the world doesupside down right now. Ten fifteen years
ago, I could have answered thatquestion much differently, absolutely, and so
I really had to step back andbe very thoughtful. I put myself in
my husband's shoes and thought about howwould he answer this question to my son
(12:24):
and make sure that I wasn't vilifyingone side or the other. And I'll
also say I'm not a Democrat anymore. I'm an independent, but I think
for the purposes of that conversation,because he was trying to understand the two
(12:45):
major sides, and so I thinkit really means putting yourself in the other
people's shoes, at least for alittle bit, in order to answer that
question, you know, fairly orhonestly. And I ended the conversation with
if you haven't already talked to dad, I think you should talk to Dad
too, and then compare our answersbecause the truth is always somewhere in between.
(13:13):
Seeing Democrat and Republican as a blackand white thing, is what people
do, and it's what's really dangerous, I think in our democracy, because
it's everything but black and white.It's more like a spectrum, because when
you have the extreme Republican or theextreme Democrat, and then you have the
(13:35):
people that are left leaning centrists,right leaning centrist, completely neutral, and
then you have people that really don'tdon't know they're my age or they're younger,
and they haven't really put much thoughtinto their position. They just know
what's out there. I really trynot to bring my opinion into a conversation.
(13:56):
A political conversation, I completely blockout, mainly because I know it'll
start some sort of issue. Ihave friends at school and friends outside of
school, and we have very politicallyheavy conversations. They're usually around politics.
What's going on with Trump, what'sgoing on with Biden? The election?
(14:18):
Who's going to vote? Who areyou going to vote for? Oh?
Why would you vote for them?Things like that, and so it makes
me step back and say, Okay, today, I'm not going to contribute
because I don't know what someone's goingto say. I could be misunderstood,
I could be painted as someone i'mnot. I would say I'm definitely more
left leaning than anything else. Butbut then again, I step back,
(14:41):
and I think, I think it'skind of sad that we feel like we
have to push back on what wejust think to say I feel. I
feel that makes me sad. Wouldyou say today, I'm not going to
engage or you know, I don'treally want to say what I think or
I feel, And that's what I'msaying before. I think we've reached a
(15:03):
point in this country where we can'thave that civil discourse, and that makes
me sad because I truly, trulybelieve there are more things that unite us
than separate us. I think themajority of this country, and we are
a democracy, and democracy is majorityrules. The majority of this country is
(15:26):
in the center, a little bitleft to center, a little bit right
of center, but in the center. And it's the extremes that have the
bully pulpit. And we could godown the road or the rabbit hole of
social media, but I truly believethat social media has a lot to do
(15:50):
with that, because those algorithms thencontinue to isolate us and just spiral us
into this group of like minded peoplewhere we never hear anything else. You
know, you never hear the disagreementand you never hear the other side,
but you but there's vitriol about theother side, and it's happening on both
(16:11):
sides. And yet I've found AndI just went to a conference in Florida.
I was talking to some of mycompanies, different partners. We were
out to dinner one night talking toa guy from Louisiana, very red state.
He's basically very red. It wasreally interesting to me what he had
(16:33):
to say of I don't know whatto believe anymore. And you know,
here's what i want for my family, and here's what I'm hoping for my
business, and here's what And inthe end, we had so much to
talk about and we agreed on somuch more than just politics. And on
(16:56):
the face of it, if youif you looked at us, I'm from
northern virgin and yeah, he's fromLouisiana. And he said, I'm a
simple country boy and I don't wantto get into all the politics of it.
And I said, while I'm outsideof DC and local news is political
news, right, But we founda way to talk about stuff. He
said a couple things I might notagree with. I'm sure I said a
(17:18):
couple things but in the end,we were both We wanted the same thing
for our families, you know,for our livelihoods. We wanted to get
along. We had a lot incommon, and we don't have that anymore.
And I think because a lot ofthese conversations are taking place digitally and
(17:41):
then you know in person, youfeel very conscious of Okay, well,
this is my online presence and thisis what's happening in person. But it
makes me sad that you feel likeyou have to pause and you can't say
what you want to say, orthat you're going to be judged so harshly,
because but that's where we are,that's what's happening. I'll across the
(18:04):
board. My husband and I areopposite ends of the spectrum, but we've
made it work for twenty two years. I think it comes from respect,
from being able to listen to theother side, from being able to step
back at some point, transparency aswell, right transparency and then saying,
hey, you know what I don'tYou've said your thing and I've said mine,
(18:27):
and I don't think we're going toagree on this one, and that's
got to be okay. Yeah,I don't think everybody thinks that or at
least not on social media, youend up having to be right. Well
what if what if we just agreeto disagree? Yeah, that's that's only
becoming less common. I think peoplehave a strong desire to always be right,
(18:52):
and you know, if they're not, then they're not getting their point
across. But there's there's you don'thave to be right to get your point
across, because the point of thoseconversations is not to necessarily prove your point,
is to just state it. AndI think that's where that's where the
issue, that's where the issue lies. Is all right, I've made my
argument, like a debate, I'vemade an argument or I'm going to stop.
(19:17):
They're now going to make their argument. And now I feel like,
okay, I have to give allthese different you know, statistics and percentages
and the credible sources I know,and trust me. I saw this on
this site and I saw that video. That's real footage. I know what
I'm talking about. That's what Isaw. Trust me, this is bad,
this is wrong, You're wrong.I have proof, And then you
(19:37):
have to feel like you have to. It's like a defensive I have to
defend myself. What a lot ofpeople have last sight of And again I'm
going to go back to social media. I'm not going to blame everything on
social media, but I'm going tosay Hamas is a terrorist organization. They'll
bomb their own people to make it, you know, to get out riled
(20:00):
up, or do whatever it isthat they need to do for their end
goal. So we should, ashuman beings in this world together be able
to look at what's happening and lookat what's happening to innocent people on both
sides and have empathy and compassion.Taking that conversation then to the next level
(20:22):
and talking about right wrong, andthen really looking at where are people getting
their information from, where they're gettingtheir news from, and how is this
being filtered? And not just forthis issue that for so many we try
to tell our kids you can't justif you're looking at TikTok or Twitter,
you're not getting the full picture.You're getting what you want to see.
(20:45):
How many people in this country orthis world are getting their news from Facebook
or Twitter or TikTok. Yeah,and let's not forget that TikTok is owned
by a foreign government. But soit can become time consuming and exhausting to
try and filter out news from allthe different sides that you're supposed to and
(21:11):
then for younger people to not evenknow that some of those other sources exist,
right, But it does those sourcesthat affects how we see the world.
If you're getting your news from Facebook, well we all know that all
those algorithms, they're keeping track ofyou, and they get you siloed into
(21:32):
people just like you, and there'sno outside noise, right yeah, unless
you seek it, Unless you seekit, and telling you the other side
is evil? Is their mainstream mediaanymore? And who do we trust anymore?
So it becomes harder and harder tobe balanced and thoughtful. Were there
(21:55):
specific things within either Trump's presidency ormaybe even before during Bush, like before
when you were dating, but Iknow with marriage and as time goes on,
you're developing more of a relationship.So yeah, what was the most
difficult part or what topics kind ofstood out? So I think with Bush,
(22:17):
like the recount wasn't I mean,it was bad, but it was
what it was, and then thewinner was declared, right for me,
how we went to war and whywe went to war? And really at
one point the whole country found outthere were no weapons of mass destruction.
There were none, and it wasa war that was supposed to last few
(22:41):
months, maybe a year, maybethree. Well it went on for perpetuity,
and how many lives were lost andmy day, jab what I do
for a living is I'm a contractorwho supports veterans affairs and I see veterans
on a daily basis, and Isee the cost of this war on them.
(23:04):
And I also felt like Republicans nevertook responsibility for that. So that
was a hard conversation. It waswhen we got through, but it was
not always easy. We were definitelyon opposite sides there. And again,
(23:25):
he's a professional Republican. I don'tthink that really sunk in and I really
understand what that meant until we wereyears into it, right, and then
with Trump, I think I felt, like many people did, like this
guy is just a grifter. LikeI'm looking at my husband and I'm thinking,
(23:47):
you loved Ronald Reagan. This isa man that you wanted to emulate,
and you have his speeches and geez, there's a poster of him in
your office, and like a trueReaganite, how how can you embrace this
person that is just so opposite ofanything. And I don't I didn't love
(24:11):
run Reagan's politics, but how doyou look at Trump and say, yeah,
I'm you know, I'm going tovote for you. It just that
was beyond me. And also asa victim of sexual assault with Trump coming
in, and as the mother ofa daughter, I just I had I
(24:36):
had to work through that. Myhusband is able to separate the stuff that
goes on at work and the stuffthat he believes in. He voted for
Trump, and so that was veryhard for me. We should all be
allowed to vote who we're going tovote for and be able to talk about
that. But that first year withTrump, like I just felt so strongly
(24:56):
about stuff, and I was theone that had to come around. I
was hard on him and really gavehim a run for said probably said things
I shouldn't have said, or wastrying to push buttons because I was just
so upset about it. And Ireally had to step back and say,
(25:18):
Okay, this is my problem,not his. He's entitled to his rights
and his beliefs and how he's goingto vote and without being given a hard
time on it. Although I willsay that my husband and I look at
each other and say, can't believeit's down to Biden and Trump again.
Yeah, this is Alice in Wonderland. Crazy that and what are you going
(25:40):
to do? Like this? Andwhat do you do? Ultimately, the
system is not working right now andit's up to us to fix it.
I'm interested to know, like waitwith friends, maybe earlier on with before
you were married or in the earlystages, was that difficult, Like meeting
your husband's friends who were more likedid you see that they were more following
(26:04):
his ideals? And then your friendswere more maybe liberal, and then bringing
that together one time it became aproblem. The neighborhood in which we live,
the county in which we live,is very liberal. Some of the
text change from the neighborhood would justreally reach a certain point sometimes. And
(26:29):
Chuck wasn't always on them, butI did have to reach out to a
couple neighbors because Chuck was some ofthem. And to Chuck's credit, he
just didn't engage. He knew betterand he didn't engage, but I knew
it bothered him, and I hadto reach out and say to these people,
you know, this is a manthat you've he's been your neighbor for
(26:49):
fifteen years. You know he woulddo anything for you and that he's a
friend to you, and some ofthe stuff that you're putting in these tech
like it's unacceptable, and I justwant you to remember who he is and
(27:10):
if you think that by throwing someof this stuff to him is going to
change how the GOP thinks, orchange how Trump thinks, or change whatever
representative or senator or my husband worksfor, change how they think you're wrong.
But all you're gonna do is kindof hurt his feelings, right,
(27:32):
Like, please remember the person,the human being, the friends, the
neighbor that is on this text changebecause he is a good husband, and
he is a good father, andhe has a good friend and like I
can list a lot of stuff thathe's done for neighbors. And it took
(27:53):
that for some of them to writeback and say, I am so sorry,
got you know, carried away andI'll be honest. A lot of
what they were reacting to and thenforwarding into the chain were tweets just like
can you just remember, like whyare you directing this to the man who
(28:15):
picked your kids up from school thewhole week you were gone or helped by
dinner when your wife was sick,and like the humanity sometimes was missing.
That to me was really hard.My really good friends know him well enough
(28:36):
and his really good friends know mewell enough that again, we can get
into some spicy debates, but weall know where to stop. But at
the same time, we are friends, and we all recognize. My friends
recognize I've been married to this manfor twenty years and he's been a great
(28:56):
husband and a great father and viceversa, and we really try to respect
that. I feel like all Isee is the extreme of both sides.
I don't see anything in the middle, which is probably about ten percent ten
percent on the extreme liberal and tenpercent on the extreme Republic. Where's the
(29:17):
other eighty percent? And they're noton there, probably because they know better,
but also because it's just not whatsocial media's algorithm is going to give
me. I mean, I'm noton Twitter. I was on it for
a couple of months and I justremember being like Jesus, I got to
get off, like what's going on? Never on Facebook or anything like that,
But it's it's just as damaging onespecially with TikTok, but Instagram and
(29:45):
YouTube even maybe less YouTube. Butyou know that didn't even exist when you
were dating your husband. I mean, we like, here's my family dynamic.
And I will say that friends onboth sides look at this sometimes they're
like, whatever makes you all tick? This is great. I am very
(30:07):
pro choice, and my daughter ispro choice, and she and I went
to the Women's March. My eldestson through high school, including his senior
year, went to the Right toLife March. You know, I dropped
him off at the Metro to goto that, and check drop me and
Sydney off at the Metro to goto our march. And there's just a
(30:32):
respect for these differences. And youknow, I've had a couple of friends
say, God, do you feellike you failed because your son is like
going to these right to life merges? Does he not respect a woman's friend?
Like whoa hold on this? Chidgrew up in a house where both
(30:53):
views were put forward. That's whathe is choosing. I don't agree with
it, but I do not feellike I failed in any way as his
mother or to impress anything upon him. I know Chuck doesn't feel like he
failed our daughter in any way.I think we both feel really proud that
(31:15):
we raised kids who understand the importanceof speaking their truth and their beliefs without
taking it to an extreme or denigratingsomebody else for what they think or believe.
And so for that, I'm reallyreally proud. I think when you're
(31:40):
when you're growing up and you're ableto develop your own, like you said,
your own truth, your own yourown way of looking at things,
your own line of thinking, that'swhen you've you've been able to say,
you know, I separate myself frommy parents, with the generations of my
family or social media, I separatemyself from what I see online. I'm
just going to think what I think, and I'm not afraid to bring that
up in conversations or feel like Ihave to defend myself. I think the
(32:05):
most interesting thing is that, orwell, the most irritating thing is that
when you're disagreeing with someone in aconversation, the conversation is labeled as an
argument, but it never is.It's just a conversation. And I remember
having conversations. I have two olderbrothers, and yeah, we've disagreed,
well, we've agreed on most things, but hi, my older brothers,
(32:29):
you know, they're probably sometimes abit more conservative in some respects, which
is totally fine. And then maybemy parents or some other friends being like
whoa, whoa, whoa. Imean I was like, it's okay,
We're like, but we're just we'rejust talking. I mean, no one
raised their voice, no one wasmad at this person, and no one
called anyone any names or anything.It was completely full of information, full
(32:52):
of Oh I understand that, butlet me push this a little bit further,
not in a disrespectful way, andlet's continue that like you would have
anal debate. I would never sayto my brother, you're awful, You're
wrong. There's no right or wrong. This is all subjective. Maybe the
information is hopefully objective, but ouropinions are not right or wrong. Well,
(33:15):
I think that's a key point,right, So make sure you have
your facts correct. I think thatgets harder hard today. But make sure
you have your facts correct. Ifyou can stick to facts, then hopefully
you can keep emotion out of this. But also if you can respect that
opinions, okay, opinions and feelings. Opinions and feelings aren't always rational.
(33:42):
If opinions are based on things thataren't factual, well then you can have
a debate, right, But adebate doesn't have to be an argument.
You can debate the facts. ButI think you just made a really,
really important point, and that isthat people should be allowed to voice their
(34:05):
opinions without discourse. Like if youjust immediately tell somebody they're wrong or they're
stupid or that's so messed up,they're going to shut down. There is
no discourse in conversation after that.It is just an argument after that.
But if you can listen and say, but here are the facts, or
(34:29):
here are the facts that you justmentioned, and try to correlate it to
that, you're going to get alot farther. I think, I think
we lose so much when people whoare if we don't let people who are
different into our lives. Yeah,definitely. I mean I try my best
(34:50):
to create environments in which I delveinto those conversations just as much as I
can necessarily, like seek out peoplewho are different, but would never exclude
them from a group of friends.I would never not let them be in
a certain conversation or say, youknow, oh I would. It would
(35:13):
be kind of weird to do that. If I have a podcast literally culled
curious and uncomfortable. But I don'tget uncomfortable with the conversations, right,
I quite like them, and Iencourage them as much as I can.
And I've had certain people sometimes ingroup dynamics be like, well, like,
why did you write them? Itjust hurts my feelings. And I
(35:34):
said, if it hurts your feelings, you can talk to them, or
you can leave the group. I'mnot going to just exclude some of them
because of a you know, becausesomething that they say in twenty percent of
our conversations you don't agree with,because politics is not all that we talk
about. We also just have funand we go out and we go get
food to me watch TV, andyou know, we're just friends. And
(35:57):
the same thing with your marriage,even with being something that he professionally involves
himself in, your marriage in ofitself will always weigh more than the difference
or the commonalities, will always weighmore than the one that won difference or
the many differences. And I thinkthat's what we have to really keep in
(36:20):
mind, is that we're all alongmore similar than we think, whether we
like it, really are. Imean, I grew up in a house
I came home one day from secondgrade and there were eleven Vietnamese people in
my house. My parents had toldCatholic charities that they would accept Vietnamese refugees,
and literally, I think like aweek later, eleven people showed up.
(36:45):
And that was the first family.Wow. We had multiple after that.
And then I have a foster brotherwho's Vietnamese. I came home from
college and there were four Ethiopian kidssitting in my parents' basement and it's awesome.
Yeah, And I mean that thatwas amazing, right, And then
(37:07):
you know, fast forward at alldifferent walks of life there too. If
you had to say a piece ofadvice or just anything you like to say
to people who very much reject everythingwe've talked about, you know, or
don't maybe just not even don't reject, just don't understand why this is an
(37:29):
important thing, especially in our inour political climate today, especially for the
younger generation coming in with social media, with people who are struggling in their
marriages or with their friendships or relationships. What do you have to say to
that and how can you how canyou encourage what we've talked about. I
(37:52):
truly believe that there is more thatunites us in this world not just this
country. We have more then wedo differently, And if you can be
open and you're willing to listen,to just take a minute and listen,
then we would all be so muchbetter off. If I just discounted my
(38:19):
husband because of his politics. Youknow, he's one of the people that
got the name of National Airport changedto Reagan National Airport, and I was
ridiculing that. On our second orthird date. That's when I found out
that he's one of the people thatworked on the legislation. I was like,
oh sorry, And it's become ajoke since then. But if I
(38:40):
just if I hadn't been open toany of that, and if he hadn't
been open to any of it,we would have missed out on so much
in this life, as I thinkmost people would. And so I think
just taking a minute and really beingopen to new experiences and new opinions,
(39:04):
not because they're going to change yourmind, but just because they're going to
give you maybe a different perspective ora little bit more understanding, and trying
to find the commonalities that connect us. Because I really do think that that's
so much stronger
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