Republican vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance says politics is important but should never drive a wedge between friends or family members. Vance shared his view during a NewsNation town hall last week, telling a nationwide audience that “we’ve got to be better at communicating and talking to one another.” The deep cultural and political divide, he said, can be healed. A U.S. senator from Ohio and the author of Hillbilly Elegy, Vance said he has seen too many friends divide over politics.
“Sometimes they’ll get very personal about it,” he said. “And if you’re discarding a lifelong friendship because somebody votes for the other team, then you’ve made a terrible, terrible mistake, and you should do something different.”
He urged the audience: “Don’t cast aside” friendships because of politics.
“I’ve got friends who like me personally -- acquaintances who aren’t necessarily going to vote for me. That doesn’t make them bad people,” he said. “... This is my most important advice, whether you vote for me, whether you vote for Donald Trump, whether you vote for Kamala Harris -- don’t cast aside family members and lifelong friendships. Politics is not worth it, and I think if we follow that principle, we’ll heal the divide in this country.”
Meanwhile, Vance said the “biggest threat to democracy” in the U.S. is the “rising tide of censorship.” It’s “the idea that we should be trying to silence our fellow Americans rather than persuade them and talk to them.”
Americans, he said, “don’t like to be told what to think or what to say.”
.@JDVance says a difference in political views doesn't make someone a bad person and people shouldn't end their friendships or relationship with family over politics.
— NewsNation (@NewsNation) October 24, 2024
Tune into NewsNation for the #VanceTownHall, tonight at 8p/7C. How to watch: https://t.co/zg6reSMxvO pic.twitter.com/YjONFDboN0
“That’s one thing that I’ll always commit to as your vice president for the next four years,” Vance said. “I’ll always try to talk to people. We’ll go out there, and we’ll do events with people who disagree with us. We’ll answer questions from people who don’t always see eye to eye. But I think if we set the tone at the top -- the leadership of this country is all about communicating with one another. I think that’s how we start to heal the divide, but we all have a role in it.”
Photo Credit: ©Getty Images/Chip Somodevilla/Staff
Michael Foust has covered the intersection of faith and news for 20 years. His stories have appeared in Baptist Press, Christianity Today, The Christian Post, the Leaf-Chronicle, the Toronto Star and the Knoxville News-Sentinel.