Jimmy Kimmel and Molly McNearney at the Emmy Awards on Sept. 15, 2024, in Los Angeles.

For years now, we’ve heard about growing political polarization and partisan divides.

Despite all the attention to it, it’s not gotten any better. If anything, it’s worse.

This is why I was discouraged to hear Jimmy Kimmel’s wife, Molly McNearney, talk recently about ostracizing her family members with conservative views. She spoke about it as if it were a badge of honor.

Thanksgiving is around the corner, with Christmas to shortly follow. It’s a time to put differences aside and enjoy the company of family and friends. Or it should be, at least.

McNearney can't fathom why anybody would support Trump

McNearney, a producer and writer on her husband’s late-night show, and Kimmel were recently on the podcast “We Can Do Hard Things.” They spoke with the three hosts, who include author Glennon Doyle, about the “trauma” of Kimmel’s show being temporarily suspended in September, after Kimmel made hurtful and untrue comments following the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk (conveniently, no one on the hour-long podcast mentioned the reason for his show’s suspension).

When asked how she handles the holidays given her unenlightened conservative relatives, McNearney told the hosts she feels “a little bit of sympathy” for the conservatives and Trump voters in her family who are “deliberately being misinformed” – because why else would anyone support President Donald Trump?

If you hold the 'wrong' political views, are you a bad person?

Despite her pity, she still doesn’t deem them worthy of her company.

“It hurts me so much because of the personal relationship I now have where my husband is out there fighting this man (Trump),” McNearney said. “And to me, them voting for Trump is them not voting for my husband and me and our family. And I unfortunately have kind of lost relationships with people in my family because of it."

“It’s like this is not just Republican versus Democrat for me anymore,” she continued. “To me, it’s family values.”

McNearney is far from alone in viewing political differences through the lens of morality.

A Pew Research Center survey from 2022 found a significant increase in contempt for those with opposing political views: 72% of Republicans and 63% of Democrats viewed the opposing party as more “immoral” than other Americans. That was a sharp rise from 47% and 35% respectively, in 2016.

This follows a trend of viewing those with different views as not just wrong, but bad.

A 2020 Public Religion Research Institute poll titled “Dueling Realities” found 81% of Republicans believe the Democratic Party is composed of socialists. For Democrats, 78% of them believe the Republican Party is teeming with racists.

A 2025 Pew poll “overwhelmingly” continues to show both Republicans and Democrats expressing negative views of the opposing party.

Sydney Sweeney and Zendaya are no longer friends? That's sad.

There’s no shortage of examples of this mutual distaste in real life.

The Daily Mail reported Nov. 11 that actresses Sydney Sweeney and Zendaya, who used to be friends, are now estranged because of politics. Zendaya reportedly is refusing to do events together to promote Season 3 of “Euphoria,” in which they both star. Sweeney’s alleged Republican leanings and her refusal to apologize for an American Eagle jeans ad campaign are apparently beyond the pale for her old pal.

McNearney is similarly angry at her relatives for their support of Trump.

“I personalize everything now,” McNearney said. “When I see these terrible stories every day, I’m immediately mad at certain aunts, uncles, cousins who put him (Trump) in power. And it’s really hard.”

It shouldn’t be that hard, however, to see the humanity in those we love over the views they hold.

As Chloe Carmichael, a clinical psychologist and a visiting fellow with Independent Women, observed in June: “Part of being human is disagreeing, but when we treat disagreement as abuse and discomfort as danger, we destroy the bridges we need to keep our families and our country together.”

That’s something we should all think about this holiday season.

Ingrid Jacques is a columnist at USA TODAY. Contact her at ijacques@usatoday.com or on X: @Ingrid_Jacques

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: It's the holidays. Don't ditch family over politics like Jimmy Kimmel's wife. | Opinion

Reporting by Ingrid Jacques, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

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