By David Bittinger

May 20^th, 2026

If you believe that socialism always turns undemocratic and capitalism nurtures liberty, you’re disproportionately likely to have experienced a problem: loved ones who seem to have decided you’ve become unloveable. Maybe you shouldn’t click on that link. Or this one.

How do you deal with a cold vibe from an old college pal or a disinvite to your family’s July 4th? You don’t want to miss the upcoming 250th celebration, of course. Maybe you could volunteer not to make any overly patriotic comments.

Star-spangled occasions aside, caution can help, risk/reward calculation can help, sometimes just keeping quiet when others say a lot can help. It’s possible for a perceived heretic to stay on good terms with progressives. Start by never asking why the progress they believe in is all government-based.

Political fights in personal settings produce nothing but losers. Though I’m not “Minnesota Nice” — as it used to be called — I dislike such fights. Forget hair-trigger-belligerent adults; I don’t even like getting in one of those hopeless arguments with an enraged child.

The enraged-child phenomenon has grown up. In the decade since Hillary Clinton was denied her assumed coronation, Democrats have grown furious as a spoiled toddler denied a Gummy Bear. They get furious because of their own historical illiteracy or political hallucinations. Because they can’t admit that Biden and Harris were, let’s say, cognitively challenged. Because of a ballroom. Because they deny they’ve been encouraging presidential assassination. (They were really just encouraging peaceful assassination.)

Leftists increasingly say things in public they used to say only in “safe spaces” like a faculty lounge or a TV news studio. In the aggressively woke environment of 2026, such declarations — “just like Hitler!” — can be shouted at you directly. You’re lucky if you don’t get a spittle spray.

An example: Your sister-in-law says: “How can you sympathize with that Nazi president? Or do you consider him just a fascist?”

Don’t take the bait. Try something like this:

“Y’know, I recently switched from regular coffee to decaf, and I feel less agitated. Have you tried it?”

Their charges can sometimes be parried with strategic misdirection:

“Who do you MAGA people hate more? Is it black people or Muslim people or trans people?”

“I did notice that the local transit system is having problems. Sure, admire those transit employees trying to work through it.”

“Greedy rich people and corporations don’t pay their fair share! Not in income taxes, not in property taxes, not in any taxes! How can you live with yourself?”

“Uh, it’s not easy. I’m just a struggling writer with little income, and I still pay over $5,000 a year in income and property taxes. Is that OK?”

Serious misinformation requires serious replies. (But notice if it’s delivered with bulging veins.)

“I read that over three million people were deported by this president. Dragged from their homes by ICE and sent back to live in poverty and hopelessness! And that’s with his second term having more than two years to go!! OVER THREE MILLION PEOPLE!!!”

“Yes, I saw that statistic too, and ‘over three million deportees’ are accurate. But that’s actually the number of illegal immigrants (excluding self-deportations) deported during the Obama presidency — Obama’s, not Trump’s. And here’s news you’ll welcome. Forced to work through the 2025-26 resistance to law enforcement by street mobs and authorities in Democrat cities, Trump’s ICE is on a pace to deport about half a million fewer illegal immigrants than Obama’s ICE did.”

You can’t reason with them using their circular reasoning. Amnesiac, they’re recycling the collectivist model that shackled Russia and its slave states, then China, North Korea, Cuba, and other “People’s Republics.” All they have that’s new is a Politburo in New York. Good luck with that.

Tough to have a reasoned discussion on such topics as Hope and Change, The People United Will Never Be Defeated, No War But Class War, When We Fight We Win, Defund The Police, No Human Is Illegal, and No Kings.

What can you do? I’m not sure. I’ll make a little suggestion or two, but progressivism is hard to deal with. Hey, Barack has trouble dealing with Michelle.

Maybe start by acknowledging their death grip on political anger — from the social-network loners living in their parents’ basement to the gilded elites flying private jets to their climate conferences.

We conservatives have our own anger problems. We get riled up by petty offenses like CNN and MS — what is it now, MSDNC? Silly of us, since their tanked ratings now are similar to the Hallmark Network, and their drama is similarly predictable.

If you’re now regarded as an ideological villain by people you grew up with or a once-friendly schoolmate, it might help to realize you’re not alone.

That 2026 study noted earlier confirmed what you’d expect: Among those who reported a political split of close relationships, 66% of Democrats said they were the one who ended the relationship, compared to only 27% of Republicans. (That study was made by a California university, so it might reflect regional dysfunction.)

The late conservative journalist Andrew Breitbart once coined a shrewd truth: “Politics is downstream from culture.” A more perilous stream might be flowing now, with personal relationships being downstream from politics.

I’ve actually done pretty well on this front, though most of my family and friends still worship at the First Church of Obama. (I’m working on a little column on this topic: Questions About Chicago’s Soon-To-Open Obama Center and Its Spooky “Death Star” Building.)

Luckily, I had a literary (regrettably never met him) mentor on the topic of stressful personal dilemmas: Austrian neurologist/psychiatrist, later a worthy PhD in Philosophy, Viktor Frankl.

Born in 1905 to a middle-class Jewish family in Vienna, Frankl was a brilliant young student who at just 15 began lecturing throughout Europe on “the meaning of life.” In 1943 he was sent to a Nazi concentration camp, later to three others. His young wife, parents and brother died in three different camps. Managing to survive while cherishing a sustaining belief in life’s purpose, prisoner Frankl secreted scraps of paper preserving key elements of his new theory of psychiatric therapy, which he called logotherapy. This was a revolutionary treatment theory based on recovery through focusing on one’s most important values, rather than the injury/illness focus of Freudian therapy.

Of course, Frankl’s devastation at the loss of his loved ones was incalculably deep, but he never lost his belief in values as the key for recovery from loss. Incorporating his own experiences in the camps, he adapted Nietzsche’s “He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.”

Born in 1905 to a middle-class Jewish family in Vienna, Frankl was a brilliant young student who at just 15 began lecturing throughout Europe on “the meaning of life.” In 1943 he was sent to a Nazi concentration camp, later to three others. His young wife, parents and brother died in three different camps.

Managing to survive while cherishing a sustaining belief in life’s purpose, prisoner Frankl secreted scraps of paper preserving key elements of his new theory of psychiatric therapy, which he called logotherapy. This was a revolutionary treatment theory based on recovery through focusing on one’s most important values, rather than the injury/illness focus of Freudian therapy.

Of course, Frankl’s devastation at the loss of his loved ones was incalculably deep, but he never lost his belief in values as the key for recovery from loss. Incorporating his own experiences in the camps, he adapted Nietzsche’s “He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.”

Frankl intended to publish his definitive work anonymously, but was persuaded to give his name to it. First published in 1946, 16 million copies were eventually published in over 50 languages, including the English translation Man’s Search for Meaning. One of those copies found me at a difficult time, though I sure could have used it sooner.

Relationships are more fragile than politics. You might want to elect a Chicago mayor who will reverse the city’s destruction. You might want to elect a president who will refuse to keep feeding our malignant national debt.

But some political aims are more elusive than others, and people in your family and circle of friends might see them through a different lens.

Frankl learned and taught from his carefully observed experiences with fellow prisoners and even prison guards of various character, and from patients whose hopelessness could be relieved by re-examination of their own deepest values. If he could find those lessons in the dystopia of Auschwitz, we should be able to find them alongside family enjoying the July 4th fireworks.

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Bittinger lives in Wisconsin as a long-time refugee but glad grandfather, misses the Chicago and Glen Ellyn he recalls, admires fellow JKN readers brave enough to still live in Chicago and Mahler fans who still go to the CSO. He’s working up the nerve to go to a White Sox game this year.