American voters frequently classify the 2024 presidential election as the worst of times. But one national candidate cut through the vapid and vitriolic rhetoric to dispense perhaps the single best piece of advice ever given in this or any election. 

One of the four figures vying to win next week’s election begged the American people to put politics in perspective.

“Don’t cast aside family members and lifelong friendships. Politics is not worth it,” Republican vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance pleaded with viewers of last week’s NewsNation town hall, hosted by Chris Cuomo. Vance’s response to the question of how to heal our political divide is worth quoting at length:

“One of the things I’ve seen, especially from some of my wife’s friends and some of my friends is: They disagree with us on politics; they’ll get very personal about it. If you discard a lifelong friendship because somebody votes for the other team, you’ve made a terrible mistake, and you should do something different. … I’ve got friends who like me personally, acquaintances who aren’t necessarily going to for vote for me. That doesn’t make them bad people. This is my most important advice, whether you vote for me, whether you vote for Donald Trump, whether you vote for or Kamala Harris: Don’t cast aside family members and lifelong friendships. Politics is not worth it. I think if we follow that principle, we hold the divide in this country.”

Vance has shared that many of his Appalachian family members still belong to the Democratic Party, which long served as a token of identity for rural, working-class white voters. Increasingly, the parties have changed places economically, with many of the friends Vance made as a venture capitalist identifying with the party’s woke zeitgeist.

But the statistics show that Americans are sacrificing friendships, marriages, even family ties on the altar of political ideology. One in five Americans said their relationships with others had suffered due to political disagreements in 2022. The New York Times refers to this as “The Trump Effect,” but it long predates the 45th president’s entry into politics. People discriminate against members of the other political party “to a degree that exceeds discrimination based on race,” researchers Shanto Iyengar and Sean Westwood found … 10 years ago. Trump Derangement Syndrome was built on a preexisting foundation of broken personal relationships and political idolatry.

Christians should be constrained by the fact that they serve a God Who commands them to love everyone else unconditionally. Secularists share no such constraints. AEI’s May 2021 American Perspectives Survey revealed:

“Ending friendships over political disagreements occurs more among liberal and Democratic-leaning Americans. Democrats are twice as likely as Republicans are to report having ended a friendship over a political disagreement (20 percent vs. 10 percent). Political liberals are also far more likely than conservatives are to say they are no longer friends with someone due to political differences (28 percent vs. 10 percent, respectively). No group is more likely to end a friendship over politics than liberal women are; 33 percent say they stopped being friends with someone because of their politics.”

If ending friendships weren’t enough, Americans believe members of the opposite party should be denied gainful employment over their private views. Emily Ekins of the Cato Institute found in 2020 that 50% of strong liberals and one out of three strong conservatives support firing someone who made a political donation to the other party’s presidential campaign. America witnessed this when Mozilla founder Brendan Eich got unceremoniously expelled from the company he founded for supporting natural marriage in California’s Proposition 8.

This political hatred has caused a chilling effect on national discourse, as ever-larger swaths of America hold their breath and bite their tongues. By 2023, nearly 80% of students felt afraid to express their political views, according to the Heterodox Academy’s Campus Expression Survey.

The partisan lack of love has destroyed the most intimate of relationships, leading to a wave of divorces and break-ups. “The 2024 election is the divorce election,” proclaimed the liberal website Slate, as it begged readers to send them stories of getting divorced over politics in August. “Up until Trump’s 2016 win, some argued that breaking up over politics was immature and shortsighted, but what kind of relationship can you have where one of you is voting for Trump and the other for Harris? Can you really stay with someone if your political ideology diverges during such a pivotal election?” asked Slate writer Scaachi Koul.

A divorce lawyer confirmed, “The 2016 presidential election of Donald J. Trump brought a new wave of disagreements and divorces, leading to what has been termed ‘Trump Derangement Syndrome’ or ‘Trump Syndrome Divorce.’” A 2017 Wakefield Research study found that one in 10 Americans, and nearly one in four Millennials, had ended a marriage or relationship over politics, and 35% of Millennials said they knew of a relationship that partisanship had impacted for the worse. After Trump’s election, The Huffington Post advised liberals on “How To Survive Being Married To A Trump Supporter.”

Yet others insisted that putting Trump in the White House should put asunder what God hath joined together. “If You Are Married to a Trump Supporter, Divorce Them,” demanded Jennifer Wright in a 2017 Harper’s Bazaar article.

Many on the Left cheered a fake news story that Melania had divorced President Trump. Others encouraged Kellyanne Conway’s then 15-year-old daughter, Claudia, to post the most vile accusations against her parents. 

Even cheering on the disintegration of the family unit has not slaked rabid partisans’ hatred and desire to harm those who disagree with them. One in six Democrats believes “force is justified to prevent Donald Trump from becoming president,” to “coerce Congress or government officials,” and “to restore abortion rights,” according to a 2023 survey from the University of Chicago’s Chicago Project on Security and Threats (CPOST).

Politicians are supposed to calm, rather than inflame, these passions. James Madison wrote in The Federalist Papers (No. 10) that elected representatives have the duty “to refine and enlarge the public views” and “discern the true interest of their country,” because these politicians’ “patriotism and love of justice will be least likely to sacrifice it to temporary or partial considerations.” Instead, one political party has decided its “closing argument” will consist of calling the other party’s candidate a “fascist” soon to enact the Nazi-esque policies that he somehow refrained from implementing in his first term. At least two assassination attempts have followed, one from a man apparently deeply committed to opposing a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine.

“I probably took a bullet to the head because of the things that they say about me,” said Trump at his debate with Kamala Harris.

The Bible seemingly speaks to our current situation, warning that the days would come when generations would be “without natural affection” (II Timothy 3). Wives would hate their husbands, children would hate their parents, and those who share a hundred bonds of connection would unravel their ties as a form of political excommunication.

Americans must heed the advice of Vance, which echoes that of another Republican candidate at a time of even greater national peril. “We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies,” said Abraham Lincoln during his second inaugural address at the close of the Civil War. “Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearthstone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”

“The way is plain, peaceful, generous, just — a way which if followed, the world will forever applaud, and God must forever bless,” Lincoln concluded.

Believers in a Higher Power must proclaim the limits of politics, which has grown into the ugliest of idols, demanding costly sacrifices of heart and home. When we engage others in political discussions, we must listen patiently, analyze our opponents arguments honestly, and speak both charitably and forthrightly. We must endeavor “to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (Ephesians 4:3). Christians must replenish the depths of our Godly affection for all His children, that the world will kindle at the divine flame of love. The expression of our supernatural love may in time restore natural affection and bring peace, at last.