When Conversations Became Combat

A personal story about outrage, disconnection, and the generational fallout of political dysfunction

As the arguments get louder, the next generation tunes out — lost in their own world while politics devours the room behind them. Image generated by ChatGPT with DALL·E, May 2025.

We should be able to enter professional spaces and engage with one another — sharing ideas, respectfully challenging each other’s views, and expanding our perspectives — without the conversation devolving into chaos, anger, or ignorance. Civil discourse isn’t optional. It’s essential.

This isn’t a defense of Trump. Or Biden. Or anyone, really. It’s a defense of the space between, where people used to talk, disagree, and still shake hands.

But that space is disappearing fast.

The cost of conversation

I remember trying to have a calm, reasonable discussion with my uncle, an old-school, blue-collar man born in the 1950s. He graduated from high school, went straight to work, and never looked back. He despises Donald Trump with a kind of rage that feels less political and more religious. There’s no space for nuance in his view. Trump is evil. End of story.

I lean conservative. I have my reasons. I wasn’t trying to start a fight. I simply offered my take: that Trump wasn’t going to jail, and all the talk surrounding it, especially so close to the election, was just political theater. A…