A week after his inauguration, President Donald Trump has already made controversial waves with his actions. Signing over 20 executive orders on Inauguration day, more than any President previously, which includes withdrawing from the Paris Climate Agreement and the World Health Organization, and also proclaiming that the United States will only recognize two sexes, male and female, Trump has made a statement, which has caused the already tense division in the United States of America to exponentially increase in such a short time.
Politico senior staff writer and writer of the article “The Breaking of An American Family” Michael Kruse, visited Cullowhee last Thursday, Jan. 23 to discuss how the country should have civil discussions with each other in this increasingly hostile political climate. He talked with Blue Ridge Public Radio senior regional reporter Lilly Knoepp about the process behind creating such a personal article and asking what the result of it was. The event kicked off the 2025 Haire Institute for Public Affairs Speaker Series.
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“I’ve done this work to pay my bills for 25 years,” Kruse said in his opening remarks. “And somewhere along the way, reporting on and in this country started to feel, does feel, at least very often can feel like reporting not in one country, but two.”
Kruse published the article on Nov. 1, 2024 , and it discusses the division between two brothers, Ted and Fred Johnson, from Centralia, Illionois. Ted is an avid Trump supporter, while Fred is vehemently against the 45th and now 47th president of the United States. The politics is not the only factor in the split between the two, but the article explores the family history while also taking into account the different political stances and combines them to tell a tragic story about two brothers who want to talk again, but feel like they simply can’t.
“The more I learned about their lives and the evocative history of the place they were from, the more I needed to know what broke them, and whether this breach could be fixed.” Kruse said. “They wanted to heal and they didn’t know how.”
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The story of these two brothers and the story of this country since 2016 is very similar, and that’s what Kruse aimed to deconstruct with his article. He wrote that there is “scant equivalence” between two candidates for this past election.
“Trump wins, and this is one kind of country. Kamala Harris wins and it’s entirely another,” Kruse said. “But neither outcome solves the problem at the root of how we got here. The most important question for the Johnsons of Centralia is the most important question for us all. Can they talk again?”
Kruse started to open up to the audience, who filled up the first few rows at the University Center Theater, saying that people were texting him the day after the election, asking if he wanted to “change careers.” But the question for him wasn’t if he wanted to continue reporting, but how did he want to continue? He discussed how this political climate has introduced a different way to write. He asked how to do work that is as interesting to one side as it is to the other.
He then went on to talk about one of his favorite things about being a reporter is that it makes him a more “interested person.” He brings this up to introduce someone he met on Pennsylvania Avenue on Inauguration Day named Tristan. Tristan is a Trump supporter, sporting a beanie with “Trump” on the front, and they talked as his phone played Trump’s speech, which they would listen to from time to time. Kruse learned about his personal life and his struggles, including losing both of his parents at a young age. Kruse also learned Tristan was from a suburb in Seattle, and that it was small enough for people in the town to know who he votes for.
“But he said it’s okay,” Kruse said. “Because that’s not all they know. They know him. They know his story. Not all of it, but maybe enough of it.” Kruse and Knoepp then followed up these opening remarks with discussion about the article and how it relates to the country at large. Their discussion and the several questions asked by Western Carolina students and the surrounding community helped round out an event that not only gave more perspective into the writing of this article from Kruse, but how the country should talk to each other about something as divisive as politics is now.
Trump is in his second week of being president for the second time, and most likely to continue making polarizing decisions in the next four years. What Kruse wants to emphasize through his work is that the country should continue to have discussions about politics and not separate themselves because of opinions.
“Maybe it’s not possible,” Kruse said. “But if it’s not possible, if this divide is just going to continue to be this and continue to get worse, that’s a wrap. The only question is when and how we literally split apart.”
The country as a whole could take something from American author and educator Stephen Covey, who once said that most people “do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.” To prevent more situations like the Johnson brothers, maybe it’s time America attempts to understand each other, rather than despise each other.
A version of this story was published in The Sylva Herald Opinion page in Jan. 29 edition.