By Michael Patrick O’Brien–
My wife and I had amazing existential bookends in Arizona near the beginning and at the end of 2024.
In December 2023, we visited Tucson and enjoyed a few minutes of serenity at the secluded Santa Rita Trappist monastery for women and at the historic Mission San Xavier del Bac.
Then, in nearby Tombstone, we watched the gunfight at the OK Corral. Unfortunately, it was the contentious gunfight and not the peaceful abbey or mission that set the tone for the difficult election year of 2024 that followed.
Although by no means an expert, I’m a diligent student of American history. I think I can say, with some credibility, that the recent United States presidential election was one of the most difficult and acrimonious ever.
I am not alone in this opinion.
A 2024 study from the American Psychological Association found more than two thirds of us had high levels of anxiety over the election. In fact, 1 in 4 Americans have said the election was the most stressful event of the entire year.
Here’s a short list of words and phrases to refresh your recollection about why it was so stressful. (I apologize in advance if this list causes a bout of PTED, post traumatic election disorder.)
Assassination attempts. Weird. Project 2025. Assaulting Arlington cemetery employees. Threats to Democracy. Lying. Cat ladies. Petty tyrant. Enemies within. Hulk Hogan. We beat Medicare. Shooting dogs. Eating pets. Hitler. Dobbs. Unhinged. Felony convictions. Hannibal Lecter. Bathroom and pronoun battles.
Coconut trees. Let’s go Brandon. Dropping out at the last minute. Golf handicaps. Penis size. Floating garbage. Garbage people. Garbage trucks. Brain-worm. Dead-bear-cub-in-Central-Park. Sex with a couch. Poisoning the blood. They/Them. Infested with vermin. McDonalds. Transgender operations on illegal aliens. I hate Taylor Swift. Elon Musk jumping.
If none of those summaries of the “great issues” of our day triggered you, likely one of these names surely did or will: Walz. Vance. Biden. Trump. Harris. Musk.
Americans sure found lots of ways to hate and insult each other in 2024, didn’t we? Frankly, it was a lot to endure…for Republicans, for Democrats, for Independents, and for everyone in between.
Here are just a few of the comments I heard during last year from friends and neighbors residing all across the political spectrum:
“I’m so disgusted with the political environment we live in today…”
“So much collective anxiety!”
“I’m so disgusted with this election.”
“It’s torture.”
“I just want it to end.”
That’s why it was so nice, during a recent Arizona weekend in early December 2024, to get away from all that. Surprisingly, I did it with a group of people who hold polar opposite views from each other about who should’ve won the election.
The occasion? My wife’s Uncle Bernie turned 80 years old.
Bernie has dealt with a lot of recent health problems, which made it especially important to celebrate this birthday with him at this time. So, my wife and I travelled to Phoenix to be with him and his family.
Bernie’s older brother Robert, who passed away in 2014, was my wife’s father and my father-in-law. Robert and Bernie were very good friends.
As a result, over the years we often saw Bernie and his family and the related large group of their siblings, nieces, nephews, cousins, in-laws, and out-laws.
As is true in most American families, there’s always been a wide diversity of thought and variety of opinions within Bernie’s and Robert’s extended family. Even Robert and Bernie disagreed about a lot of things.
They rarely voted for the same person.
They had some knock-down drag-out verbal battles over candidate A, issue B, and/or proposition C.
They probably even wondered from time to time how or why someone raised in the same household—and whom they loved dearly—could see things so passionately differently from them.
None of that, however, ever stopped them from getting together whenever they could, even though Bernie lived in Phoenix, and Robert resided in Las Vegas.
Once together, in addition to arguing about politics, they travelled, played cards with each other, went fishing, snuck into college football games, gambled, and worried about supporting their growing families.
They laughed and enjoyed many memorable moments and good times together.
Although I got to know them when they were middle aged and long after their relationship patterns had developed, I did witness some of its dynamics firsthand.
One spring day Robert and Bernie gave me an extra ticket to join them at the first round of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament hosted by the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, where I live.
I could not attend all the scheduled games, but I met them for two. On the day in question, I drove to the campus, parked, and walked to our assigned upper arena seats in the Jon M. Huntsman Center.
Neither Bernie nor Robert were there.
A few minutes later, Robert whistled, hollered my name, and waved me down to where they were sitting…in the lower arena in the middle of the section designated for fans of the University of Vermont, another team in the tournament.
I doubt that either Robert or Bernie ever went to that particularly lovely New England State, but they were settled in comfortably with the UVM fans surrounding them. They all chatted on a first name basis as if they’d known each other for years.
During the next couple of hours, I sat between Bernie and Robert. Between glimpses of two basketball games, I heard a loud and heated argument about how unions were either saving or ruining the country.
They also took completely opposite positions about the coaching strategies of the teams playing on the basketball floor.
About the only thing they agreed upon was, and I quote, “the referees suck.”
I’m quite certain they had this exact same type of conversation two days later during the second half of that regional play. And then they repeated the process year-in, year-out, no matter who they were with or wherever the next NCAA regional was held.
For them, it was fun and relaxing. A little bit of Heaven on earth.
When Robert passed away ten years ago, Bernie wept at his funeral and graveside, still vehemently disagreeing with his dearly departed older brother about pretty much every major political issue of the day.
Knowing just how strong opinions ran in this family into which I’d married, I was a bit wary about attending the big December 2024 Arizona gathering to celebrate the beginning of Bernie’s eighth decade of life.
Why?
Just about every political opinion possible would be wandering around that party room. There was going to be an open bar and free flowing alcohol. And it was just a few weeks after one of the most contentious elections in American history.
During the past twelve months, people in that room probably had heard or said things like “You can’t be a good Catholic if you vote for Harris” or “You’re a racist if you vote for Trump.”
It was a recipe for disaster. But nothing bad or ugly happened. What occurred instead? Joy.
Rather than talking about politics or politicians, people shared their favorite stories about Bernie, and about Robert, and about their three other living siblings—Carmella, Paul, and Jerry.
Cousins who saw the world in very different ways smiled and hugged when they saw each other, and remembered wonderful things like how as kids, they caught fireflies and let them loose in the house on hot summer nights.
People who’d never be caught dead at each other’s political rallies or wearing each other’s political garb happily joined arms, posed for photos together, and proudly posted them on social media.
Most of the time, American politicians from both sides of the aisle do everything they can to demonize and create fear of those not within their ideological tent.
Only once in a while, and not nearly often enough, a politician reminds us that we Americans have a lot more things in common than we do things that divide us.
It’s true.
In December 2024, as another new year drew near, something about the warm Southwestern air and the red, orange, and yellow Sonoran desert sunset brought that truth to the surface at Bernie’s 80th birthday party in Arizona.
I’m not so naive as to think that political angst, bitterness, and name-calling won’t all start up again soon in 2025. But when it does, I’m now armed with a question I can ask myself to try and help me keep it all in perspective.
What would Robert and Bernie do?
*Mike O’Brien (author website here) is a writer and attorney living in Salt Lake City, Utah. Paraclete Press published his book Monastery Mornings, about growing up with the monks at the old Trappist monastery in Huntsville, Utah, in August 2021. The League of Utah Writers chose it as the best non-fiction book of 2022.
