Molineaux is president/CEO of the Bridge Alliance Education Fund, and Nevins is its co-founder and board chairman. They are co-publishers of The Fulcrum.
The last few years have been especially hard on our families. Most of us, in one way or another, have suffered loss — of faith, of friends, of family members. And these moments of loss are especially poignant during the holidays. While Hollywood has lifted our expectations of happy family gatherings, few of us experience the Hollywood version.
The holidays are normally frantic and stress-filled as we feel pressure to be more accommodating and offer more grace to family and friends. We need grace ourselves. We have extra obligations and extra worries, and many of us face the stress of travel.
And through it all we want to uphold our family traditions and recreate the way they used to be. But we are conflicted because the way it was is not the way it is today. Instead, we should let go. Let go of our expectations of each other, of recreating a happy past. Let's create a happy future by starting exactly where we are.
We are not the same people we were. Our families have changed. We've lost people and added others as we grow older and the next generation adds to the family tree. Some families have grown closer while others have grown apart. We are more strident in our tone with each other.
Many families feel the stress of economic change and uncertainty, of the pandemic, of divisive politics and the shifting culture. As the world seems to be changing at a faster and faster pace, many families in America are showing signs of stress. There is fear of splintering because of hurt feelings, harsh judgements and unyielding self-righteousness.
We offer this as prayer for us all.
Let us take a holiday from our troubles and just be family. For a few days this year, let us look for the best in each other. Let us love unconditionally because of our shared humanity. Let us be vulnerable and fragile as humans doing the best we can, during this extraordinary time of change. Amen.
We offer these thoughtful pointers for families from Living Room Conversations:
- Ask thoughtful questions, inspired by whatever honest curiosity you feel.
- Try to understand, not convince or persuade.
- Share personal stories and experiences, not data points.
- Use humor, if possible. Be willing to laugh at yourself when and where appropriate. Humor can lighten the mood and make the conversation enjoyable.
- Use first-person language. Own your feelings and express them as "I felt ______ (feeling) when you ______ (describe specific behavior and when it occurred)." For example, "I felt frustrated when you said I was unrealistic this morning."
- Explore and reflect rather than disagree directly. For example, starting sentences with "I am wondering ..." can be very productive if it is sincere.
The winter season in the northern hemisphere is filled with bright celebrations during short, dark days. The light in our loved one's eyes is especially needed this year — that bright and welcoming gaze. Let's welcome each other home for this holiday season.
A view of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on June 25, 2026. President Donald Trump jolted Republicans during a fiery appearance at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, scrapping a housing bill signing ceremony and clashing behind closed doors with a party rebel who challenged him over the Iran war. Trump had been expected to sign the bipartisan housing.
Only Trump doesn’t care about housing
It was August 15, 2024. Then candidate Donald Trump stepped out of his Bedminster, New Jersey, golf club’s columned clubhouse to a gaggle of reporters. He was flanked by tables of groceries and signs showing the rising cost of food. Also on one of the tables was a dollhouse, meant to represent the equally alarming rise in housing prices.
It was a speech about the economy, the single most important issue of the 2024 election cycle, full of promises that went right to the heart of Americans’ anxieties. While former President Joe Biden and then Vice President Kamala Harris were contorting themselves to posture a good economy that just needed more time to recover from the pandemic, Trump was preying on voters’ very real fears of unaffordable gas, groceries, and homes. It was obviously a winning message.
In that speech, Trump promised, “We’re going to open up tracts of federal land for housing construction. We desperately need housing for people who can’t afford what’s going on now.”
As of mid-2023, there had been a housing shortage of nearly four million homes, according to the National Association of Realtors. Americans all over the country were either priced out of buying new homes due to low inventory, trapped in their existing homes by sky-high mortgage rates, or facing exorbitant rent hikes thanks to corporate investors buying up rental properties. Americans needed help, and Trump promised it.
Cut to March of 2026, when Trump reportedly told House Speaker Mike Johnson, “No one gives a sh*t about housing.”
That kind of thinking may explain why Trump this week suddenly announced he was canceling a signing ceremony for the bipartisan “21st Century ROAD to Housing Act,” a housing bill co-sponsored by Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Tim Scott that passed the House 358-32 and was approved in the Senate on Monday.
Trump instead demanded Congress pass the SAVE America Act, his controversial election grievance bill that doesn’t have enough Republican support to get passed in the Senate.
It’s just the latest in a line of policy self-owns where Trump has seemingly intentionally made life more difficult for Republicans hoping to keep their majority. Despite midterm elections occurring in the midst of a blistering economy and an unpopular war, they were surely hoping the housing bill would give them something — anything — to brag about when they returned home to their districts.
And very much to the contrary, Americans do give a sh*t about housing. According to a recent survey by the Bipartisan Policy Center, a whopping 79% say the cost of housing is extremely or very important to them. Eighty-three percent say Congress should take action on the issue — like it just did. Eighty-nine percent say the House and Senate need to work together to pass affordable housing legislation — like they just did. And 63% say they would be more likely to vote for a lawmaker if they helped pass legislation to build more affordable homes and lower housing costs — like they just did.
There aren’t many issues that unite Americans like housing does, and very few bipartisan policy wins Congress can point to, and yet, Trump is holding that bill hostage in order to get his pet project — which doesn’t even have the support of his own party — pushed through.
If you’re trying to make sense of something so nonsensical, as I’m sure many Republican lawmakers are, it’s certainly sad but not actually all that complicated. Trump said what he needed to get reelected and then promptly abandoned his promises in order to pursue his own self-interests, even if those interests are bad for Republicans and bad for voters.
That’s just the kind of guy he is.
S.E. Cupp is the host of "S.E. Cupp Unfiltered" on CNN.