My Dad's a Trump Voter. I'm Not. Here's How We Learned to Listen to Each Other, Not the Pundits (Exclusive)
- - My Dad's a Trump Voter. I'm Not. Here's How We Learned to Listen to Each Other, Not the Pundits (Exclusive)
Lizz Schumer, Brian SchaeferNovember 16, 2025 at 10:00 PM
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Courtesy of Brian Schaefer
Brian and his dad
I’ve always considered it a blessing and a curse that Thanksgiving occurs mere weeks after election day. Just as local municipalities and the country at large are processing new directions and feelings are still raw, the cruelty of the calendar requires that we head home to face people who may feel very differently about the outcome. To salt the wound, those people are often the ones most skilled at getting under our skin. In other words: family.
The holiday may feel especially fraught at this moment of heightened political toxicity, mistrust, anger and fear. But the potential blessing is that, shortly after a polarizing political Super Bowl, we’re forced to reconnect.
My belief in the possibility of that reconnection stems from my own positive experience growing up in a household where political disagreements — particularly with my father — are still going strong.
For years, I’d dread conversations about politics with my dad, which could range from frustrating to maddening, in part because neither of us was actually listening to the other. I used to envy friends whose families were politically aligned. What a luxury, I thought, to celebrate or bemoan the same people and policies, rather than hold your tongue, tiptoe around current events and face infuriating opinions.
But as our increasingly fractured media diets have pushed us into angry echo chambers, I now feel grateful for the ideological friction I encounter with my father.
Our conversations have helped me examine my positions, know my facts, consult multiple sources and think strategically rather than emotionally. Though they often leave me disappointed — at him, for not changing his mind; at myself for failing to convince him — I’m also filled with deep appreciation for his willingness to engage, respect for his own thoughtful reasoning (even if I disagree with it) and relief that even when things get heated, I know we can still share a drink afterward because we’re both committed first and foremost to our relationship. We’ve also both gotten much better at listening.
That gratitude, respect and the continued effort to communicate across political differences formed the foundation of my debut novel, Town & Country, which was published on Nov. 4. Election Day, of course.
Atria Books
Town & Country by Brian Schaefer
The story is set in a newly trendy rural town during a congressional race that challenges social, political and familial loyalties. Through the lens of a fictional community, the book illustrates difficult interpersonal dynamics and America’s rural-urban divide. It considers the perspectives of a handful of disparate characters — among them, wealthy gay urbanites, financially desperate farmers, twentysomethings slipping into addiction and a religiously devout real estate agent.
These characters grapple with ambition and betrayal, loneliness and desire, grief and faith. Some are oblivious and obnoxious and self-sabotaging. They irritate and offend. They have hurtful prejudices. In other words, they’ll remind you of someone you care about. They might remind you of yourself.
And that’s what fiction does best: It holds a mirror up to our own lives while taking us inside the minds and journeys of people often vastly different from us. It allows us to consider the factors and experiences that inform others’ beliefs and actions and recognize the conflicts and contradictions within them — and within ourselves. That’s the opposite of social and political discourse today, particularly online, which flattens people into simplistic categories, dismisses sincere questioning and assumes worst intentions.
Courtesy of Brian Schaefer
Brian and his dad
The narrative and ethos of my book were also inspired by a key part of my life today: For the past 12 years, my husband and I have split our time between New York City and a small town in the Hudson Valley in a very purple swing district. Our deepening understanding of some of the issues facing our rural region — food insecurity, lack of affordable housing, the opioid epidemic — and our increased political participation and involvement with local nonprofits made me look critically at our role in its evolving economy and examine our relationship to our part-time neighbors, many of whom are on the proverbial “opposing team.”
But I don’t think of them as enemies, the way our bombastic politicians and histrionic social media feeds encourage us to do, in large part because my experience with my dad, who is also part of the so-called “opposing team,” taught me the fallacy of that analogy.
Instead of listening to the pundits, I listened to my life. I was determined to extend grace to every character in my novel, regardless of political affiliation (which is never explicitly stated; the words “Republican” and “Democrat” don’t appear, a decision I made to free readers from preconceived associations).
Writing a book like this felt like a rare and radical proposition in today’s political climate. But it’s also why I’m confident everyone can connect with someone in the story, and why I believe it can help cool the heated debates in our homes — which then might begin to heal our fraught civic discourse.
Trust me, I’m aware of how idealistic this sounds. And I understand that many people today aren’t interested in granting the benefit of the doubt to those on the other side. The stakes are too high, they say, the threats are existential. I don’t disagree. One of my main concerns, both while writing the book and now that it’s going out into the world, is that its optimism is so far removed from our current reality as to seem almost comically naïve.
But that’s the other superpower of fiction: the ability to imagine better worlds, better ways of relating to one another, better versions of ourselves, better versions of society.
With Town & Country, I imagined what a family table and a political sphere might look like if everyone acted in good faith, even with all our biases and blind spots and intractable beliefs. Maybe these flawed but sincere characters will remind us of the decency and civility we all seek in our lives. Maybe they can model the way for us to reclaim it. And then maybe on Thanksgiving, we can just go back to giving thanks.
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