How a European Vacation Broke My Political Echo Chamber
On the topic of politics and my family, the word jarring comes to mind. When I was growing up, almost my entire extended family, and certainly my nuclear family, were staunchly conservative. Seared into my memory is riding around in my grandfather’s car as a little kid listening to Sean Hannity’s radio show interrupted occasionally by Clearance Clearwater Revival and Bog Seger songs.
Their beliefs mirrored the community we lived in, which was Southern and conservative. In my youth, I believed the Republican Party was the party of hard work, values, and aboveboard living because that is how my parents taught me to live and we were Republicans. I did not question this notion until I was in my first year of law school.
During winter break of my 1L year, my family and I went on a European vacation. We traveled through Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands. For the first time, I saw societies that were community-based. There were small children getting on public transit alone, to the alarm of no one but my family and I. Families and friend groups met for extended dinners, savoring every moment of their time together. The cities were clean and safe. People’s basic needs seemed like they were being met. Even going to McDonald’s was an experience. The food was clean and fresh—more akin to a real meal—and the employees took seriously what most Americans would consider a meaningless job. But how could this be? I thought “community-based societies” was just another way of saying socialists, hippies, tree huggers, etc. Everything I was seeing and experiencing clashed with my upbringing and my worldview. It was intense and resulted in my rethinking my views on everything.
Since that European trip, and with much reflection, my political views have completely shifted. I am now solidly left-leaning, as is my mother. This change did not pose issues with family dynamics until Donald Trump won in 2016. During the first year of his presidency, I graduated from law school and began my legal career. During this time, I saw an alarming change. I used to believe that Republicans and Democrats wanted what was best for Americans — they just had different ways of getting there. But during President Trump’s first term, it seemed behavior that society once viewed as negative and unacceptable was now normal and promoted (racism, misogyny, homophobia, violence, etc.). Watching people I used to believe were reasonable do Olympic-level mental gymnastics to defend the actions of the Trump administration was astonishing.
Fast forward to 2025 and it feels like the world’s worst episode of Punk’d. It is difficult to reconcile that people with the same background as I can look at what I am looking at and not see a crisis. Rather, they see progress and improvement. My grandmother keeps Fox News on the living room TV 24/7, believes every soundbite without hesitation, and will not do any research or consider other perspectives.
The things I hear my family members saying, the callousness and cruelty of their tone, is profoundly disappointing. Parents working full time should be able to provide a safe home for themselves and their children. Families should not go hungry. Children should be safe at school. Every American should have health insurance, and that insurance should provide actual health care, not just the perception of it. To me, these are not partisan ideas, they are foundational.
I love my country and I love my family. I hold on to the hope that we can be a society that is kinder to everyone.
Anonymous
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I’ve seen so much mental gymnastics. It’s the idea that those who need SNAP benefits should get a better paying job like that is just an easy solution of applying. I’ve seen people say health insurance is a scam and suggest a community plan instead of trying to tackle the issue of why health insurance kind of sucks to begin with. I’ve seen people say that immigrants should have come to this country the right way when that way has a lot of roadblocks and many were brought here as children. I think many view these issues as black and white, but they are all types of grey.