We Don’t All Have to Like One Another—but We Can Have Compassion. Political Analyst Kirsten Powers on How to Stay Centered around Those Who Drive Us Nuts
To know of Kirsten Powers is to understand the public context in which she has long been center: scorching political debates and fiery societal disagreements. The senior analyst, columnist, and best-selling author voices her opinion—both on-air and on the page—on our nation’s most pressing issues, often in the company of people with whom she vehemently disagrees.
It might be easy to dismiss Powers’ ability to stay centered amidst contentiousness as an innate talent. But she is forthcoming of the efforts she’s consistently made to remain steadfast and centered. Now, in her new book Saving Grace: Speak Your Truth, Stay Centered, and Learn How to Coexist with People Who Drive You Nuts, Powers shares how she practices radical grace in the hardest of situations, drawing on personal stories from her life, as well as learnings from some of the world’s most inspiring therapists, social activists, social scientists, and faith leaders today.
Powers writes with frank insightfulness about the challenges we each face in our polarized world—“It’s this dehumanization and demonization where people who belong to the other group become subhuman,” she tells us—and how practicing grace can be a cathartic and transformative key. She also pinpoints what we too often get wrong about grace: It is not a means of weakness or concession, she says, but rather an empowering way to own what is ours and not allow other people to draw us into the demonizing or dehumanizing behavior in which they are engaging.
Powers chatted with The Sunday Paper to talk about the bounty we gain when we practice grace, how it’s possible to engage with people we dislike, and some tools to move forward with humanity. As she tells us, “If I could figure out how to practice grace in the environment that I’m in, and frankly with the kind of temperament that I have, I think anybody can.”
A Conversation with Kirsten Powers
You write “There is no question that we were in the midst of a critical period in American history.” What is causing you the most concern around how people are communicating, or not communicating, these days?
It’s the contempt and the dehumanization and the demonization. One of the surveys that I cite in the book, which was from 2019, shows Democrats and Republicans describing people in the other party as downright evil, even saying we’d be better off if large numbers of people in the public who belonged to the other party died. In the 1990s and 2000s, there was never this thinking about whether we’re going to get into a civil war. Whereas now, I think about it all the time, and it’s something that I’ve interviewed peace and reconciliation experts about. It’s this dehumanization and demonization where people who belong to the other group become subhuman. And they become nothing more than the way they voted or who they support.
Grace is the grand theme of your book. You write that many people have confusion over what grace means. You also tell readers that practicing grace does not mean being weak or relinquishing power. Walk us through this.
I originally thought that that’s what grace meant, as well. Grace has been weaponized and used that way. When people have complained and said they’ve been mistreated—especially people in church environments—they have been told: ‘You just need to have grace for people. We’re all human.’ This response excuses abuse or mistreatment. Grace became this one-way street where it was repeatedly telling people who were being harmed to stop complaining or expecting accountability. So there’s a reason we think of it that way—but that’s not what grace is.
In looking at grace I use the Christian paradigm, even though the book is accessible to anybody. This is a counter-cultural paradigm of unmerited favor. If we extend that to each other that means that grace is not based on anything another person does. It means that grace is something they don’t have to earn. It is just there. So grace is for the person you don’t like. It’s for the person who’s making you angry. That is the point. It’s critical to note that grace does not mean “no accountability.” There are consequences for harmful behavior. But sometimes what we call accountability is annihilation. Our criminal justice system is rife with this kind of ungrace.
The holidays are coming up. How can we stay centered and protect ourselves in contentious settings?
Let’s say your uncle has all these opinions that are very offensive and upsetting to you. Now, he gets to think what he thinks. But what you can do is see that and name that as a problem. You can decide if you want to have a conversation with him or if you want to confront him. You can use boundaries and say, ‘I’m not having this conversation.’ But again, your uncle is allowed to do, think, or say what he wants and not be demonized and dehumanized, and not be held in contempt. As I say in the book, ‘grace is creating space for people to not be you.’ The person who benefits the most from you using grace in that situation is you. That is because the minute you go down judging him, holding him in contempt, and doing all these other things, you have now taken his stuff and made it yours. So now you carry this around with you, and you think about it and be mad about it. But when you use grace, and you use boundaries, you realize what is not yours to carry.
I used to go on air with people and after I’d be in the car raging about them. I’d come home and would be talking about them, and I’d lay in bed and would be ruminating over them—meanwhile, those people were likely off sleeping like a baby.
By not practicing grace, who’s it hurting? You.
How have boundaries helped you? And will you take us through ways we can practice them?
Boundaries, to me, have been transformative. You can have external boundaries and internal boundaries.
External boundaries are when your uncle is saying something problematic, and you say, “Hey, it sounds like we don’t think about this the same way. Let’s talk about something else.” You’re not judging him. You’re saying: ‘You’re thinking what you think, and I’m thinking what I think, and let’s not talk about it. Or let’s talk about it another time, just not over Thanksgiving dinner.’ You could also say, ‘I would really like to talk to you about this, but can we set some boundaries around how we have this conversation because it’s a difficult topic. Can we agree that we won’t speak to each other with contempt? Can we agree to listen to each other and not interrupt?’ You can set these different kinds of boundaries around it and the minute it goes off-court or if it gets too heated, you’ll take a break. There are different ways that you can do it.
I use the example that I have a family member that likes to gossip. I say, ‘Hey, it sounds like you need to talk to so-and-so about whatever.’ By using boundaries, you don’t judge the person. You don’t put them down. You just say, ‘Hey, I’m not here for this conversation.’ I do it with people who attack me online. I’ll say, ‘It sounds like I’m not for you. Have a great day.’ Or ‘It sounds like my book is not for you, thanks.’
Then there are internal boundaries, which is what really helps me. This is when I recognize I’m a “no” to something or someone’s behavior, but it’s not externally expressed. For example, if there is someone on the news saying things that I know are wrong and I don’t want to be gaslit, I just turn off the television. I don’t judge them or demonize them. I just say no to them hijacking my emotional state and move on to doing something that might help the situation, like writing a column. Or if someone is talking to me and saying something that I find problematic and I assess that they are a “high conflict person” – to borrow the journalist Amanda Ripley’s phrase—I recognize I’m a “no” to this conversation and change the topic or remove myself so I can focus on something more productive.
You’ve said that grace is hard. What do you mean by this?
Anybody who thinks that grace is easy has never practiced grace—because grace is hard to do. To take that moment to step back and see the humanity in someone. To see that they are more than this. To see the potential in someone, and—if you’re a believer—to see God in them. That is a hard thing to do. The easy thing to do is judgment. The easy thing to do is hatred.
It’s like breathing. We can do it so easily without a thought and feel very righteous about it. It’s hard to practice grace. But, like any practice, it gets easier the longer you do it.
This opens the conversation around loving and liking people. The reality is, we may not like everyone. Why is this important to understand?
That’s why I like grace. I quote Richard Rohr in my book saying, “loving is not liking.” Even the idea of love gets misconstrued because in English we only have that one word: love. Whereas, in the Bible it was Greek and there were all these different words for love—for your partner, your spouse, your wife, your husband, your girlfriend, your boyfriend, whatever. And then there’s a love that transcends feelings. It’s a love for humanity and humankind. And that love doesn’t mean you have to like the person. In fact, you probably don’t like them and that’s fine. But you treat still them with humanity, even when they’re driving you nuts.
You write that “when engaged properly, conflict is an act of peacemaking.” How so?
If we can have conversations around these hard issues, we should because people are relying on us to protect their humanity—and that’s when we embrace healthy conflict. Healthy conflict creates intimacy, healthy conflict creates understanding, and healthy conflict creates peace. It is an active thing where you are laboring to create peace and wholeness, not just in your relationship with this person, but in the world.
And if you don’t feel like you have the capacity to do that then I say to find somebody—an ally—who can have the conversation for you. For example, if you’re a gay person in a family with parents who are telling you that they think you are going to Hell, maybe you have a sibling or a pastor or somebody else have the conversation with your parents for you. I have a lot of friends who grew up in evangelical households who are gay, and it’s been interesting seeing the different ways that they deal with it.
The big thing is to not take on other people’s stuff. When I used to go down on the road with people who were saying harmful things and I would get completely consumed in it, this was taking my time away from doing things like writing a column or things that could help the situation. Rather than getting caught up in a screaming match with your family member, go donate some money, volunteer, write a letter to the editor—there are all these things to do that don’t include browbeating someone in your family.
How can someone recognize that there may be a healthier way to deal with something?
It’s the question of: How’s this working for you? Do you love going home at Thanksgiving and screaming with your family or not talking to each other? Is there another way to do it? Can you call ahead and say to your family, ‘I want to set some boundaries around what we’re going to talk about. If we are going to talk about politics, these are the boundaries we should set around it. I highly suggest if alcohol is involved, to not have complicated conversations. If your family likes to drink, that is not the place to be talking about how mad you are at them for how they voted. You set these kinds of boundaries around these situations, and you take care of yourself.
The only thing we have control over is ourselves. You can remove yourself from the situation. You don’t have to sit there if it’s becoming disrespectful or emotionally unsafe. You don’t even have to go home if you don’t want to. A lot of people don’t realize that they can have grace for themselves and say, ‘There’s only so much I can take.’ But most people I know want to stay in a relationship with their families and they want to stay in a relationship with their long-time friends that they feel betrayed by because of their political beliefs or who they voted for.
This book is not me saying that everyone must always get together and be together. These are serious issues that divide us. That’s why I look at the paradigm of grace versus unity. Grace doesn’t mean we all have to all come together and agree. Grace says that we can get angry, and we should get angry when we see injustice or people being harmed, or we feel like our country has gone off the rails. Anger tells you something’s wrong. The question is: What do you do with it? What I’m saying is instead of demonizing and judging other people, there are other things that you can do that will be better for our culture and our society, and the people who are being harmed. And it will be way better for you.
Kirsten Powers is a New York Times bestselling author, USA Today columnist, and senior political analyst for CNN, where she appears regularly on Anderson Cooper 360, CNN Tonight with Don Lemon, and The Lead with Jake Tapper. Her writing has been published in The Washington Post, The Daily Beast, Elle, The Wall Street Journal, The Dallas Morning News, The New York Observer, Salon, the New York Post and The American Prospect online. A native of Fairbanks, Alaska, Powers lives in Washington, D.C, with her fiance, Robert Draper, and their two fur children, Lucy and Bill. You can order her new book, Saving Grace, here.
