Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

Ask Joe: Navigating Difficult Conversations

Ask Joe: Navigating Difficult Conversations

Hey Joe,

I’m pretty happy with the results of the elections. It could have been a lot worse. And I know there’s still a lot of work to do. But I’ve already heard from some family members who see the world differently that they are very upset and angry. I’ll be spending Thanksgiving with them and I don’t have the energy to deal with all that. Any tips?


Reluctant

Hey Reluctant,

Yes, I always get this question around this time of the year. Tension and anxiety are still high. Polarized viewpoints seem to be our new norm! While policy-making and social change are necessary, on some level, the real work of bridge-building and creating a civil, respectful society takes place around the kitchen table, and where we gather in a diverse community.

I’d like to refer back to some tips that I offered last year at this time. In spite of this polarized context, there are ways for you to take care of yourself during the holidays, while preserving or re-igniting the integrity of your relationships:

1. Set boundaries: Here’s an option: you have every right to respectfully say that you don’t want to have any conversations about politics and that you will respectfully step away if a conversation starts. Here’s another: if you are feeling confident enough to engage in conversations, make it clear, in a respectful way, that you are willing to discuss politics, but only if everyone involved is willing to listen with an open heart. If that is not agreed upon, then make it clear that you will be excusing yourself when those conversations begin.

2. Be curious: Notice your own words, practice silence and do your best to listen. The dinner table might not be the best place for others to hear your viewpoints. Consider your attachment to being right and to proving others wrong. If you listen to what others have to say, you may learn something new, or receive information you didn’t have previously, that might help you find common ground and peace at this time.

3. Love and compassion: If the people you will be spending time with are family or friends, remember how they have loved you, and how you have loved them. Though views evolve and connections can become strained, these bonds may transcend politics.

4. Daily practice: Find time to do the things that empower you and bring you balance and peace. Do practices that currently work for you – jogging, yoga, Tai Chi, etc. This can help you regulate your nervous system, and foster stronger connection to your heart.

5. Contact your support network: Sometimes connecting with allies can reduce the anxiety and tense emotions. Perhaps you can arrange with three of your trusted friends that if you need them, they will be close to the phone to help you ground and find balance. Offer to be a support to your friends as well.

6. Humor: See whether you can keep things light. Human beings – all of us – are pretty funny creatures. Humor is a great way to diffuse tension and reactive behavior and still stay engaged, without feeling like you are betraying your boundaries or integrity.

These are just a few ideas, Reluctant. Perhaps you have others? I’d love to hear about them.

We are navigating a time of tremendous transitions which offers challenges AND opportunities for growth. Resilience grows through respect; compassion and curiosity help us build bridges which we need now more than ever.

Sending you holiday wishes of peace, inner strength and compassion with yourself and others,

Joe

Learn more about Joe Weston and his work here. Make sure to c heck out Joe’s bestselling book Fierce Civility: Transforming our Global Culture from Polarization to Lasting Peace, published March 2023.

To Ask Joe, please submit questions to: AskJoe@Fulcrum.us.

Read More

When Good Intentions Kill Cures: A Warning on AI Regulation

Kevin Frazier warns that one-size-fits-all AI laws risk stifling innovation. Learn the 7 “sins” policymakers must avoid to protect progress.

Getty Images, Aitor Diago

When Good Intentions Kill Cures: A Warning on AI Regulation

Imagine it is 2028. A start-up in St. Louis trains an AI model that can spot pancreatic cancer six months earlier than the best radiologists, buying patients precious time that medicine has never been able to give them. But the model never leaves the lab. Why? Because a well-intentioned, technology-neutral state statute drafted in 2025 forces every “automated decision system” to undergo a one-size-fits-all bias audit, to be repeated annually, and to be performed only by outside experts who—three years in—still do not exist in sufficient numbers. While regulators scramble, the company’s venture funding dries up, the founders decamp to Singapore, and thousands of Americans are deprived of an innovation that would have saved their lives.

That grim vignette is fictional—so far. But it is the predictable destination of the seven “deadly sins” that already haunt our AI policy debates. Reactive politicians are at risk of passing laws that fly in the face of what qualifies as good policy for emerging technologies.

Keep ReadingShow less
President Donald Trump standing next to a chart in the Oval Office.

U.S. President Donald Trump discusses economic data with Stephen Moore (L), Senior Visiting Fellow in Economics at The Heritage Foundation, in the Oval Office on August 07, 2025 in Washington, DC.

Getty Images, Win McNamee

Investor-in-Chief: Trump’s Business Deals, Loyalty Scorecards, and the Rise of Neo-Socialist Capitalism

For over 100 years, the Republican Party has stood for free-market capitalism and keeping the government’s heavy hand out of the economy. Government intervention in the economy, well, that’s what leaders did in the Soviet Union and communist China, not in the land of Uncle Sam.

And then Donald Trump seized the reins of the Republican Party. Trump has dispensed with numerous federal customs and rules, so it’s not too surprising that he is now turning his administration into the most business-interventionist government ever in American history. Contrary to Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” in the economy, suddenly, the signs of the White House’s “visible hand” are everywhere.

Keep ReadingShow less
Cuando El Idioma Se Convierte En Blanco, La Democracia Pierde Su Voz

Hands holding bars over "Se Habla Español" sign

AI generated

Cuando El Idioma Se Convierte En Blanco, La Democracia Pierde Su Voz

On Monday, the Supreme Court issued a 6–3 decision from its “shadow docket” that reversed a lower-court injunction and gave federal immigration agents in Los Angeles the green light to resume stops based on four deeply troubling criteria:

  • Apparent race or ethnicity
  • Speaking Spanish or accented English
  • Presence in a particular location
  • Type of work

The case, Noem v. Vasquez Perdomo, is still working its way through the courts. But the message from this emergency ruling is unmistakable: the constitutional protections that once shielded immigrant communities from racial profiling are now conditional—and increasingly fragile.

Keep ReadingShow less