André LaTondresse has great affection for his adult son, Chris, the general manager of Beacon Interfaith Housing Services.
“I’m so proud of him. And I tell people he’s the most amazing person I’ve ever met,” André said.
Chris reciprocates the love. But both felt that the political divide between them created a certain distance.
Much of the tension comes from Andre’s support for President-elect Donald Trump, towards whom Chris has strong, negative feelings.
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Chris, a Democrat who served in the Obama administration and as a Hennepin County commissioner, supported Vice President Kamala Harris in the recent election.
“It often feels like there are times in our relationship where we can’t talk about things that we care deeply about, for fear of hitting a landmine,” Chris said of his father. . “And I don’t want that to be true during our time together.”
The father and son decided to take the opportunity to get coaching on political discussions from marriage and family therapist Bill Doherty, co-founder of the political transition organization Braver Angels.
Chris LaTondresses shows a photo of him and his sister in Moscow during a time of upheaval in the 1990s, when the LaTondresses family was serving a Christian mission.
Nicole Neri for MPR News
On a recent afternoon, the three met at MPR News headquarters in St. Paul and allowed their conversation to be recorded.
“So what happens when you talk about politics? » asked Doherty.
“Usually that’s not the case,” Andre said. “But it kind of feels like a wall, and you can go around this side of the wall and talk, you can go around this (other) side of the wall and talk. But when you’re on the other side of that wall, you’re like, “Well, let’s just be happy that we’re protected by the wall.” »
André is politically conservative and deeply committed to his Christian faith. In the 1990s, he moved his family to Siberia for a few years to serve as a Christian missionary.
At first, he was wary of Trump, but eventually ended up supporting him in two elections.
Chris wanted to understand why his father had changed his mind.
“I choose, in this moment of incredible change in our country, and I would say alarming change, to try to follow the path of curiosity rather than that of contempt,” he said. “I believe that if we are to move forward as a nation, and if I can’t do it with my own father, what hope is there for any of us?
Chris LaTondesses and his father Andre LaTondesses play cribbage together at Chris’ house.
Nicole Neri for MPR News
As their coaching session began, it became clear that there was much more at stake than Andre’s support for Trump.
Father and son tended to old wounds and raised them.
Chris recounted the time his father said he was “brainwashed” by liberal Christian thinkers. “It’s like, really? They’re brainwashing me at a Christian university?
And Andre shared that he felt offended when his son sarcastically criticized a book he was reading. Chris said the author was a “bad historian” and told his father, “You shouldn’t read this book.” »
The discussion seemed like a long warm-up before talking about Trump, but Doherty said there were many other dynamics at play.
“When people have very strong political reactions like this, there is a story that is not about Republicans, Democrats, Trump and never Trump,” he said.
When they got to the topic of Trump, Chris struggled to ask his father a question without passing judgment.
“I feel like the most open-minded, open-minded, curious approach would be to look my dad in the eye and say, ‘How did you end up voting for Trump one day? second time?’” he said.
Chris LaTondesses and his father Andre LaTondesses at Chris’s home.
Nicole Neri for MPR News
He admitted the temptation to launch into a preamble asking how his father, as an American and a Christian, could support Trump.
Finally, he asked a more neutral question. And Andre explained that he came to view some of Trump’s most outrageous statements as a kind of act.
“As I watched Trump over time, I realized he had a persona that he was pushing,” he said. “It’s quite unattractive. But also, at the same time, I hear people who know him personally tell me, ‘Well, no, that’s not him at all,'” he said.
André then detailed a widely controversial opinion that Trump was the rightful winner of the 2020 election.
“I will go to my grave believing that the 2020 election was stolen,” he said.
As the conversation continued, father and son discussed the role of their Christian faith in their respective lives. Chris emphasized how central this is to everything he does.
A few weeks later, both men said they had learned positive lessons from the conversation.
Andre LaTondesses shows his son Chris LaTondesses a card trick at Chris’ house.
Nicole Neri for MPR News
“The fact that in what is otherwise a secular context, it was Chris who brought the role of Christ in his life into the conversation… nothing could have made me happier,” Andre said.
And Chris felt like he learned something really important about politics from his father. The most telling moment was when his father said he believed the 2020 election was stolen.
“If he had shared that with me, without Bill (Doherty) sitting there, I probably would have immediately gone, ‘How can you believe that?’ “, he said.
But this experience allowed Chris to stop and ask himself, “If I believed this to be true, how might this affect my politics?” »
Chris said he and his father went out to dinner after the coaching session and had a deeper, richer conversation about politics than they had in years. He said he suspected they finally had permission to broach the topics and show curiosity about each other.