Political divides cut through marriages and families in the run-up to the 2024 election

For many Americans, politics has become far more personal, and divisive, than it once was. Now, in the run-up to the November election, that’s creating some friction within families. Tonight, Judy Woodruff looks at the impact of politics on marriages, dating and families as part of her ongoing series, America at a Crossroads.
Geoff Bennett:
For many Americans, politics has become far more personal and divisive than it once was. And now, in the run-up to the November election, that’s creating some friction in families.
Tonight, Judy Woodruff looks at the impact of politics on marriages, dating, and families as part of her ongoing series America at a Crossroads.
Judy Woodruff:
For the Glasgow family, politics is never too far from home.
Whom are you voting for?
Chloe Chigro, Democratic Voter:
I’m going to go with Biden.
Matt Glasgow, Republican Voter:
I will go for Donald Trump.
Hilary Glasgow, Executive Director, Colorado Wins:
Joe Biden all the way.
Judy Woodruff:
Hilary and Matt, who were married nine years ago, have always butted heads, even making light of it in their wedding vows.
Hilary Glasgow:
I said that something about still loving him, even though he votes wrong.
Matt Glasgow:
Yes.
Hilary Glasgow:
Because he does.
Matt Glasgow:
I thought it was funny.
Hilary Glasgow:
Yes, we laugh.
Judy Woodruff:
Hilary is the Executive Director Of Colorado Wins, a labor union representing more than 24,000 state employees. She’s always been a die-hard liberal.
Hilary Glasgow:
No, as long as I can remember, I have been a Democrat.
Judy Woodruff:
Her husband, Matt, is on the opposite side. He voted for Donald Trump.
Matt Glasgow:
I don’t know. He’s probably not that nice of a guy. But I think that, like, overall, his policies probably have my best interests in mind.
Judy Woodruff:
And he says he will vote for him again in November, if he’s the nominee.
Matt Glasgow:
Like, the economy was good. I mean, it was.
Judy Woodruff:
Both admit it’s led to shouting matches.
Matt Glasgow:
It comes out of nowhere.
Hilary Glasgow:
It comes out of nowhere. It does get heated. We have big fights.
We have heard that there are people who are opposite parties and they just avoid the topic. I don’t understand how people do that, because politics is a big deal to me. So…
Judy Woodruff:
The Glasgows are part of a small minority in America that’s growing even smaller, marriages between Democrats and Republicans.
This polarized time, when politics have become so personal, has led to fewer people dating and marrying people with different views. And it’s one factor in a decline in marriages period, which have dropped by 60 percent since the 1970s.
Brad Wilcox, Director, National Marriage Project:
People are waiting longer and they’re just forgoing marriage. And part of the — I think the challenge for young adults today is that they’re often in different ideological camps.
Judy Woodruff:
Brad Wilcox, the director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia, studies the impact of marriage on society.
Brad Wilcox:
A much larger share of young women who are in this sort of progressive camp. It’s more than doubled since the early 1980s of women who are kind of identifying as liberal in that 18-to-30 bracket. And then you have seen a modest uptick in the share of young men who are single who are identifying as conservatives.
There are a lot of issues that are kind of dividing Americans now, and that makes it harder for people who are Republican to sort of, like, live with their Democratic family members, and vice versa.
Judy Woodruff:
Political tension wasn’t something Carole from Michigan expected to face with her husband.
Carole, Founder, Wives of the Deplorables Facebook Group: You know, the day after the election in 2016, my husband was working in Italy, and I called him, because I’m not — I have never been political. I’m just an anti-news kind of artsy gal.
And I called him and said, “Hillary lost,” and I was absolutely in tears and he said: “Well, of course. She should have.”
And I was like, uh-oh. Here we go. And that was the beginning of realizing what his beliefs were versus mine.
Judy Woodruff:
In an effort to find support after Trump’s election, she started a private Facebook group, Wives of the Deplorables, a tongue-in-cheek name drawing on a comment by Democratic presidential nominee Hilary Clinton in 2016.
A handful of the group’s 175 members spoke to us, but didn’t want to use their last names.
Elana, Democratic Voter:
I think that politics weren’t discussed as intensely, at least in my experience, before the 2016 election. Like, I think that I knew he was a Republican, I was a Democrat. I had no idea that these are some of the beliefs that he had. And that’s very hard to stomach.
Judy Woodruff:
Most of these mixed political marriages have survived, while some ended in divorce. But the 2016 election was a turning point for them all.
Gretchen, Democratic Voter:
I needed other women to talk to help — who are in similar situations to help talk me through it to figure out strategies to get to common ground again.
Linda, Democratic Voter:
if you look at the group, you will hear a lot of pain, that women are struggling to be able to maintain their relationships. And, in some cases, they’re not able to continue. And this is the way of the world right now with friends, with relatives, polar opposites, different silos not willing or able to listen to each other.
Judy Woodruff:
These political tensions aren’t just with married couples.
Brad Wilcox says many young Americans are choosing to only date people with the same political views. A recent survey found 81 percent of respondents would prefer not to date across the aisle when it comes to serious relationships. That’s a poll published by “Newsweek” last year.
Brad Wilcox:
So, there’s an undersupply of liberal men for liberal women, and there’s an undersupply of conservative women for the conservative men.
We are seeing a large — a larger minority of folks having difficulty finding someone who fits their world view.
Judy Woodruff:
The Glasgow’s 22-year-old daughter, Chloe Chigro, a college student, is one of those young people.
Chloe Chigro:
So I think it really is a case-by-case basis.
Judy Woodruff:
So there are issues that you would say, if somebody has a different view from me on this, that would matter?
Chloe Chigro:
Absolutely, reproductive rights, LGBTQ+ rights, immigrant rights, really just like if — people of color, like, Black Lives Matter, that’s a really important movement for me.
John McEntee, Co-Creator, The Right Stuff:
I think conservatives definitely need to stick together.
Judy Woodruff:
John McEntee, a political adviser who served in the Trump administration, created a dating app for conservatives called The Right Stuff.
Woman:
We’re sorry that you have had to endure years of bad dates and wasted time with people that don’t see the world our way.
John McEntee:
We knew there could be a market for it, so we took it to an investor. He loved the idea, and that was two years ago, and, yes, we’re off and running.
Judy Woodruff:
Do you think that’s good for all of us in the long run to be separated this way?
John McEntee:
If you match up in this day and age and you don’t agree on a lot of the main themes and the main values, it’s going to end poorly and maybe in disaster. So stay away from that.
Judy Woodruff:
But Brad Wilcox says, in the past, mixing politics and relationships has been beneficial to society.
Brad Wilcox:
Marriage has tended to sort of bridge the sexual divide, has — kind of to bring men and women together on a number of different fronts, including on the sort of political front.
And there were many marriages back in the day where you had a Democrat and a Republican getting married, and then that moderating their approach to life in general, whereas, today, because of this more polarized context, people are tending to marry along similar lines.
Judy Woodruff:
So the consequences, you’re saying, are greater than simply they can’t find a date for Saturday night?
Brad Wilcox:
Jefferson talked about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And what I think people don’t always realize is that sort of what happens in our loved lives and what happens in our families matters not just for ourselves or for our kids, but for their wider country or for our neighborhoods and communities.
Judy Woodruff:
And even when there are profound disagreements in those connections, some couples have figured out how to turn the focus to what brought them together in the first place.
Carole:
We used to scream at each other outside in the hot tub when politics came up, literally. I — and where we live, everyone can hear you. And we — just this last couple months, we were like, this is a politics-free zone.
Leslie, Democratic Voter:
Humor has saved us now. Humor — we can now get through a disagreement in about less than a minute by we kind of make the other person crack up.
Judy Woodruff:
Others acknowledge repairing fractured relationships will just take time.
Pam, Democratic Voter:
It took us seven or eight years to get — of all this anger. It’s going to take us a while to get back to where we were and hopefully improve our relationships and be better off for it, but it’s going to take time.
Judy Woodruff:
For the Glasgows, their secret for happiness across the divide is focusing on what they have in common.
Matt Glasgow:
I firmly believe, like, legitimately, everybody wants what’s best for everybody. And if you come from that position, I just disagree the path that she sees. That’s it. Politics is a big part, but, like, so are the kids. So are, like, everything else, which so are our interests. So are the things we like about each other.
So are — so, I mean, that’s more than who I voted for.
Hilary Glasgow:
If we can figure out a way that we can all still love each other, despite big differences like that, I think that that’s important.
Judy Woodruff:
For the “PBS NewsHour,” I’m Judy Woodruff in Pueblo, Colorado.