Can friendship be bipartisan? Ask the Janets.
Janet Breslin (left) and Janet Nelson (right) live on different coasts and have very different politics. But they haven't let that derail their lifelong friendship.
Ann Hermes and Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff
鈥淚 am prepared to give Trump the benefit of many doubts.鈥
It was Thanksgiving weekend 2016, and amid visiting with grandchildren at her lakeside New Hampshire home, Janet Breslin had just found a few quiet moments to reflect on the recent election in an email to Janet Nelson, one of her sorority sisters, in sun-christened California.
The two had met at the University of Southern California in the 1960s when some guys from a nearby town had recently launched the Beach Boys, 鈥淭he Endless Summer鈥 felt like a neighborhood documentary, and everything was looking up in the Golden State.聽
Why We Wrote This
As the nation goes to the polls during one of the most fractious moments in U.S. history, two longtime friends who are ideological opposites show how a country can disagree with civility and respect.
One an international relations major, the other studying art, they bonded over building a papier-m芒ch茅 volcano for sorority pledge week. It was the beginning of a lifelong friendship that would buoy them through personal crisis and political upheaval. They shared similar backgrounds: Each had roots in the Midwest, devout 海角大神 parents, and similar arcs as young mothers. Yet their outlooks diverged dramatically as they settled on separate coasts.聽
So when the U.S. political scene erupted with the election of Donald Trump as president, the two Janets had much to discuss 鈥 and disagree about. Dr. Breslin, a Democrat who had lived through the 1973 military coup in Chile, taught at the National War College, and represented the United States alongside her husband when he was appointed ambassador to Saudi Arabia under President Barack Obama, was not immediately dismissive.聽
But she had a number of concerns that she laid out for Mrs. Nelson. 鈥淚 can debate his policy positions ... but the chants and his own style and use of his wealth worry me,鈥 she wrote in an email.
Mrs. Nelson, for her part, supported Mr. Trump in 2016 and still does today. An independent voter and business owner, she admires how Mr. Trump stands up for America internationally and bucks political conventions at home. She also likes that he鈥檚 not a career politician like Joe Biden.聽
鈥淲hen Trump says he wants to clean up the swamp 鈥 I do, too,鈥 she says, though she dislikes the way the president talks and wishes he would be a better role model.
On the eve of arguably one of the most consequential elections in U.S. history, the two Janets tell a story of America in a divided age.聽
Many people across the country who hold opposing views have found it difficult to preserve their relationships with friends, family, and even spouses. Some have cut off ties with acquaintances altogether. Others have unfriended people on Facebook or reached an uneasy peace by tacitly agreeing not to discuss politics. Forget about holding a thoughtful conversation about issues convulsing the republic.
A 2019 study revealed that fully 20% of Americans have experienced damage to a friendship as a result of political differences 鈥 and that鈥檚 based on data collected only a few months into President Trump鈥檚 administration.聽
The Janets, however, have navigated more than half a century of friendship as their careers, life experiences, and ZIP codes have caused their political viewpoints to evolve in different directions. 聽
Over that time, the U.S. has seen a dramatic increase in polarization 鈥 more than many other major democracies. One 2020 study from Brown University attributes this to partisan cable news outlets and a political realignment over the past 50 years along racial and religious lines, which have resulted not only in greater differences between Democrats and Republicans ideologically but also in terms of identity.
Yet Dr. Breslin and Mrs. Nelson illustrate how two people can withstand the centrifugal pull of politics. Over more than half a dozen lengthy conversations with the Monitor, they offer insight into how they鈥檝e preserved their friendship 鈥 and gained a deeper understanding of each other鈥檚 political views 鈥 even as they still wrestle with key issues and the man up for reelection on Nov. 3. While political disagreements, at times heated, have contributed to Dr. Breslin falling out of touch with other sorority sisters, she and Mrs. Nelson have maintained a strong bond. 聽
鈥淚 don鈥檛 ever remember Jan and I ever being mad at each other about our different political views,鈥 says Mrs. Nelson.
As the nation goes to the polls during one of the most fractious moments in history, the two Janets offer a template for how a country can disagree civilly.聽
鈥淎 good time to be alive鈥
Going to the University of Southern California was 鈥渓ike going to Mars鈥 for Mrs. Nelson. Her parents came from Nebraska, where her grandfather was known to wrestle bears when the circus was in town to make an extra $50. In the hardscrabble farming community of Naponee, only one of his children made it past eighth grade 鈥 Mrs. Nelson鈥檚 father.
Her other grandfather had a stack of National Geographic magazines in his closet and a mind full of poems, which he would recite to little Janet as she followed him around the farm on extended visits. She and her cousins would jump into bins of cool corn kernels on hot days or play in the nearby stockyards and pretend to auction off the littlest kids and herd them into chutes.
Her parents settled in California and started a mobile home business. Their hard work paid off: Mrs. Nelson鈥檚 father went on to become one of the biggest West Coast dealers of mobile homes and would come back to visit Naponee in a shiny new Cadillac. But otherwise their life was modest, revolving around their Lutheran community, made up of bedrock people 鈥 plumbers, car salesmen, and insurance agents. By the time Mrs. Nelson entered USC, she didn鈥檛 know anybody who had been to college but her doctor, her pastor, and teachers in her Lutheran high school.
鈥淚 didn鈥檛 apply to college; my dad did,鈥 says Mrs. Nelson. 鈥淗e said, 鈥榊ou鈥檙e going to go to the best school I can afford.鈥欌
At USC, she would meet another Janet with roots in the Midwest.聽Dr. Breslin was born in St. Louis, the oldest grandchild of Main Street Republicans. Her mother鈥檚 father was a civic booster who, apart from his beloved Oldsmobiles, put his money into supporting local projects like building a baseball field.
Her father鈥檚 mother went by the name Honey Bunch. Widowed as a young mother during the Depression, she started a boarding house after her husband died, bringing in enough income to support her four children.聽
In seventh grade, Dr. Breslin鈥檚 parents moved to Gardena, in Southern California, where her parents were active in their local 海角大神 Science church. Her mother worked as a high school math teacher, and her father managed a savings and loan. He was a stalwart Republican. When President Richard Nixon was impeached and forced to resign over Watergate, he went to the airport to welcome him back to California.
She grew up thinking of Democrats as union people 鈥 and different from her. Then John F. Kennedy burst onto the national stage. He was 鈥渉andsome as could be,鈥 and in her eyes represented youth and the future.
鈥淚f I could vote, I would vote for Kennedy,鈥 Dr. Breslin recalls telling her mother while watching the Democratic convention in the summer of 1960.
鈥淚 felt like we were on a roll,鈥 she says. 鈥淲e were going to go to the moon. It was a good time to be alive.鈥
A powerful bond
Dr. Breslin liked Mrs. Nelson the first time they met. She was fun but also sensible. She was creative 鈥 something Dr. Breslin admired because she wasn鈥檛 particularly creative herself. They quickly bonded and found in each other the sister neither of them had ever had.
After graduating from college, the two took different paths. Mrs. Nelson moved to Colorado to complete her student teaching, and her sorority sister went on to get a Ph.D. in political science at the University of California, Los Angeles. Dr. Breslin then moved to Chile for a year with her husband. They lived through the 1973 military coup orchestrated by Augusto Pinochet that led to the torture, disappearance, and execution of thousands of Chileans over 17 years.
鈥淩ule of law went away. Congress went away. Newspapers closed. The government implemented the use of torture,鈥 says Dr. Breslin, who came away from the experience with an acute sense that liberty is fragile. 鈥淲ithout the constraints of law, the depths of action are almost unlimited.鈥
Dr. Breslin had a hard time conveying the brutality of what she saw in Chile to people in carefree California when she returned home.聽
鈥淚 felt the same way when I came back from Austria,鈥 says Mrs. Nelson, referring to a University of Vienna program she participated in, during which she lived with an Austrian woman who had been forced to share her one-bedroom home with a Russian military family after World War II. 鈥淭o have her describe what it was like to be on the other side of the Iron Curtain ... how do you explain that to somebody who is in college in California with the Beach Boys?鈥
Dr. Breslin decided to get a job on Capitol Hill to help keep America鈥檚 democratic system strong. She worked for a series of Democratic senators, focusing in part on a rising issue at the time 鈥 immigration.聽
Back in California, Mrs. Nelson was dealing with the same issue in a different way. She was on the front lines of Hispanic immigration in public schools. On Dr. Breslin鈥檚 visits to California, she would ask who would work in the agricultural fields if not immigrants.聽
But Mrs. Nelson, who taught art and then went on to work in special education after getting a master鈥檚 degree, told her friend that many of her low-income students couldn鈥檛 get jobs. The entry-level positions were being taken by immigrants who had crossed the border illegally. And families from Mexico and Central America who had gone through the legalization process were adamantly opposed to the surge in illegal immigration.
鈥淚n California, we鈥檝e had a huge problem forever, which Jan didn鈥檛 really understand. She still thought of California as being like when she was growing up here,鈥 says Mrs. Nelson, who taught at a high school in Westminster where students spoke 27 languages. 鈥淏ut it had started to change. She just didn鈥檛 have a clear picture of what we were going through.鈥
During one memorable lunch, one of their other sorority sisters told Dr. Breslin she was prepared to defend her beach town against the influx of immigrants.
鈥淪he sounded like a Bosnian, talking about it. I鈥檓 speaking lightly of it, but that鈥檚 a powerful feeling,鈥 says Dr. Breslin, who says her time in Saudi Arabia gave her a greater understanding of how powerful culture can be, especially when people feel it鈥檚 being invaded. 鈥淚 stand in respect for how powerful those feelings are. And I didn鈥檛 respect it at the time, because I didn鈥檛 understand it.鈥
But even as the two Janets鈥 political views were moving in different directions, when personal crises struck, they turned to each other. At one point, Dr. Breslin confided in her sorority sister about the dissolution of her marriage, which left her with a baby, a 4-year-old, and a demanding job in a fast-paced and at times unforgiving Washington, D.C.
Mrs. Nelson could relate to her ordeal. Her husband, who had been her high school sweetheart, had come home one day and, as she recalls it, announced, 鈥淚 don鈥檛 want to be a father, and I don鈥檛 want to be married, and I don鈥檛 want to be here.鈥 He packed a suitcase and left. She says she was totally blindsided.
鈥淪o that鈥檚 a powerful thing to share with each other,鈥 says Dr. Breslin.
Decades later, their devotion to each other remains strong. 鈥淚f I have a personal problem, Jan is going to be the first person I鈥檓 going to talk to,鈥 says Mrs. Nelson.
Tough conversations
The closest their relationship ever got to a breaking point was over a series of chain letters. Mrs. Nelson would frequently forward to Dr. Breslin emails she got that included false information and breathless assertions in all-caps, setting off a flurry of frank exchanges.
Bill Clinton wants to take away all your guns, claimed one. 鈥淚 would dutifully do research and go, 鈥楯anet, President Clinton does not want to take away your guns,鈥欌 says Dr. Breslin. 鈥淲hatever the rumor was, I would do all this research.鈥
Another chain message, with the subject line 鈥淕ood Info,鈥 asked whether a series of statistics were about the NBA or the NFL:
14 have been arrested on drug-related charges; 8 have been arrested for shoplifting; 21 currently are defendants in lawsuits. And 84 have been arrested for drunken driving in the last year. 鈥淐an you guess which organization this is?鈥 it asked. 鈥淕ive up yet? Neither, it鈥檚 the 535 members of the United States Congress. The same group of Idiots that crank out hundreds of new laws each year designed to keep the rest of us in line.鈥澛
Dr. Breslin鈥檚 reply was brief this time. 鈥淣o no no.鈥 She saw in the emails a troubling pattern of undermining trust in America鈥檚 democratic institutions.
Then came the emails claiming that Mr. Obama鈥檚 birth certificate from a hospital in Hawaii was inauthentic 鈥 a topic Mrs. Nelson took particular interest in since she, too, had been born in Hawaii. Her father had helped recover the bodies of American soldiers after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.聽
鈥淚t made me really sad that Jan would believe that,鈥 says Dr. Breslin, who continued to refute such emails. 鈥淛an is a reasonable, thoughtful, smart woman. But whatever I did had no impact. None.鈥
Mrs. Nelson disagrees, emphasizing how much she valued her friend as a sounding board. 鈥淥ne of the reasons I sent you the chain mails that I was getting,鈥 says Mrs. Nelson in a joint interview, 鈥渋s because I respect hugely your political knowledge and also to have you see what鈥檚 happening with our friendships and the things we鈥檙e dealing with on our end of the world.鈥 Mrs. Nelson would sometimes share Dr. Breslin鈥檚 responses with mutual friends who had forwarded her the emails.
Indeed, as frustrating as such exchanges have been at times, they have pushed both women to better understand the other鈥檚 point of view.聽
鈥淲hat I thought about and I鈥檓 still thinking about ... is what are those things that were touching something deep in [you], either your experience by teaching in the LA city schools or that you saw culturally happening in Los Angeles that I needed to be more attentive to?鈥 asks Dr. Breslin.
She was gaining a better appreciation for why some people in California were so resentful of the latest surge in immigration. She wasn鈥檛 surprised when Mr. Trump made it such a central part of his campaign in 2016. 鈥淗e has great political instincts,鈥 Dr. Breslin admits.聽
His tough stance on immigration is one of the things that first resonated with Mrs. Nelson. 鈥淲hen I look at our president and the things that he does 鈥 it irritates the heck out of me, but at the same time, I appreciate him being firm in ways that other presidents were lax,鈥 says Mrs. Nelson, who runs an oral hygiene education company, Toothfairy Island, whose materials are used in schools across the U.S. as well as in a number of other countries. 鈥淚 think we need more firmness.鈥澛
At Dr. Breslin鈥檚 urging, Mrs. Nelson researched more than two dozen Democratic candidates running for president early in the 2020 campaign to see if she could support any of them. But she found that none was willing to put what she considered meaningful boundaries on abortion, which was a deal breaker for her. As someone who lost two children to miscarriages, she says she would never want any other mother to hurt the way she did, ending up without that child.聽
鈥淵ou don鈥檛 want anyone else to go through that pain and regret,鈥 says Mrs. Nelson. 鈥淓specially when they鈥檙e young and they make decisions, they don鈥檛 really understand the impact it has on them.鈥
For Dr. Breslin, who now attends a Lutheran church and chairs her local Democratic committee, the challenges of the Trump era go beyond personality to an erosion of founding principles and shared values. She worries he could destroy the delicate balance of power designed by the framers to prevent tyranny.
鈥淚t鈥檚 not just President Trump. It鈥檚聽what he has touched in people that made them abandon the values I thought we were all raised with,鈥 says Dr. Breslin, who describes deep anger and a gradual toughening 鈥 on both sides of the aisle. 鈥淚 think we鈥檙e both addicted to it, or stuck. We鈥檙e in a rut. A dangerous rut.鈥
Across the nation, that polarization is not only affecting personal relationships, but also dividing communities and professions, says Dr. Breslin. And she feels that President Trump is exacerbating those divisions by caricaturing people like her.
鈥淗e鈥檚 telling people ... [Janet] hates this, and she鈥檚 against this, and she鈥檚 a lefty, and all these things 鈥 and I feel like saying, 鈥楴o I鈥檓 not,鈥欌 says Dr. Breslin. 鈥淚 don鈥檛 hate [Mr. Trump] at all, but I really, truly believe he feels it鈥檚 useful to hate me.鈥
Mrs. Nelson, for her part, has refused to play into such rhetoric. 鈥淲hat keeps me going and being hopeful always is I believe that God is in charge,鈥 she says.
Even so, neither of them plans to stop sending missives about policies and politicians they see differently.
鈥淛an and I are some of the few people who kind of keep working this. A lot of people are like 鈥 forget it,鈥 says Dr. Breslin. 鈥淲e keep trying to convince each other.鈥