‘I’m voting for Trump but my dad thinks he is a nutcase’: US families clash over election views

In the run-up to the election, The Telegraph spoke to four pairs of US readers who are clashing over various political issues

Joe Biden is out. Kamala Harris is in. Donald Trump is on the attack, and the polls are tighter than ever.
As American families gather for the Labor Day weekend, talk of the US election will be inescapable around dinner tables across the country. Many are disagreeing with each other.
The Telegraph has spoken to four pairs of US readers who are clashing over various issues – from the candidates themselves to policy platforms which will shape the future.  We will check back with our readers following the televised debate on Sept 10 to see if their views and voting intentions have changed. 
Kenn and Kathy, both 74, first met 52 years ago in law school. Over the years, they’ve lived in Kansas and Colorado before eventually settling in Arizona. Despite a lifetime together, their political views remain deeply divided.
While Kenn wouldn’t “pick Donald Trump as a best mate,” he believes it’s important to separate the policies from the person. 
He explained: “I agree with Kathy that Trump isn’t very likeable, but his economic and immigration policies are far stronger than Kamala Harris’s.
“He believes in a more free-market approach, except for tariffs against China. Harris, on the other hand, seems to think she can determine the price of peaches better than the local market can, which I find crazy. 
“That kind of policy has failed in many countries, and is partly why Venezuelans are fleeing to the US after their economy was ruined by similar measures.”
For Kathy, however, her dislike for Trump is a firm line in the sand: “Much of my support for Harris stems from my opposition to Trump. I believe he’s a dangerous person, his policies are dangerous, and the people he plans to bring into his administration are dangerous. 
“Last time, Trump had guard rails which kept him from doing crazy things, but if gets re-elected, he won’t have people standing up to him as he will be surrounded by his cronies. Worst of all, he has shown blatant contempt for the law – stealing classified information is, to me, absolutely inexcusable.”
Kenn is also wary of Ms Harris’s lack of transparency and prefers Trump because he has a track record from his previous term. 
He explained: “Harris is like a deaf-mute candidate – she doesn’t discuss her policies and her website is devoid of details about them. If she’s avoiding the press now and managing to evade questions and news conferences, it sets a troubling precedent.”
Although Kathy thinks Ms Harris’s silence is a strategic move, she is concerned about potential fallout: “I think she is just trying to run a careful campaign in the remainder of the approximate 90 days she has left, but the press is likely to grow increasingly frustrated with her, and any misstep could result in a significant backlash.”
For father and son James, 55, and Tom, 25, the typical tropes of elder conservative and young liberal do not apply. 
James, who was born and raised in the United Kingdom, identifies strongly as an independent: “I became a US citizen in 2005 and have voted for both the Democratic and Republican parties since.”
His son, Tom, although residing in the historically blue state of California, is described by his father as “the most conservative of my three kids”.
“Back when I was in school I leaned more to the Left politically,” says Tom, “but now, I would put myself centre-Right. I voted for Trump in 2020.” 
James, on the other hand, says there is no way he can vote for Trump, describing how the former president’s attitude and propensity to invoke conspiracies when things don’t go his way makes him nervous. 
“I think he is a nutcase,” James explained. “My dislike of Trump is less about policy and more about election denial. It appears as if Trump’s setting things up so that if he loses, he’ll start talking about the ‘steal’ again. It’s just scary to me.” 
Tom understands where his father is coming from, and agrees that Trump is a “crazy man”. He even goes as far as saying that Trump’s rhetoric is “not appropriate at all”. But unlike his father, Tom feels that Trump is the right man for the job. 
A key reason for Tom’s support of Trump is the former president’s track record on foreign policy. Tom argued: “His administration brokered the Abraham Accords, a significant achievement given the region’s history of conflict.” 
This stands in stark contrast to what Tom refers to as foreign policy failures under the Democrats. 
“Benghazi, the Afghan withdrawal, and early Ukraine war negotiations all warrant an ‘F’ on their report card. I have significantly more confidence in Trump to navigate global diplomacy effectively,” he says. 
However, putting aside his support for the Republican nominee, Tom said that you don’t have to vote for Ms Harris just because you won’t vote for Trump. 
He said: “I disagree pretty fundamentally that you have to vote against ‘the lesser evil’. My dad believes that he has to vote for Kamala because she is the other major party candidate.”
James disagrees with his son and argues: “You have to pick one horse in the race. I’m picking that horse not because I’m especially eager, but because I don’t want the other one to get in, because he is dangerous.”
Mike, 68, and Ava, 41, are a married couple from New York. Both share a vocation, performing arts, but hugely differ when it comes to politics and whom they’ll be voting for in the upcoming presidential election. 
Mike is backing Donald Trump because of the former president’s stance on immigration. He recalls that his grandparents did not speak very good English when they emigrated to the US, yet tried hard and successfully integrated. 
“You could argue that everyone’s grandparents in the US came from elsewhere. But they learned the ways and means of this place, tried hard to fit in, and went off to war for it – even if it involved fighting their old homelands,” he said
“Now, however, you have got this ridiculous business of identity politics, in which everyone develops his/her own chip on their shoulder and wants to keep the odious things that forced them to leave their countries in the first place and reproduce them here. Why leave home if you are bringing home with you?”
Mike believes migration should happen “in digestible amounts,” which is why come November he is planning to vote for Trump. 
“You have to be able to assimilate, which means a digestible amount of people. And I believe that is Donald Trump’s and the Republican stance,” he says.
He also admires Trump’s strength in character when it comes to foreign affairs: “Yes, the man can be a total prick, but given the leaders who he is facing, I think he has to be!”
On the other hand, Ava is almost 100 per cent sure she will be voting for Ms Harris. She says she was planning on voting for Joe Biden – although she had concerns about his age – because she could never vote for Trump because of his stance on women’s reproductive health rights.
She also expresses her dislike for Trump’s running mate JD Vance: “He makes me embarrassed to be a millennial, he should know better.
“His comment about childless cat ladies has galvanised the other side. I am a child-free cat lover, and let’s just say his comments did not help him at all.
“There is nothing that could happen, or that Trump and the Republican Party could do, that would make me vote for him.”
Another important issue for Ava is “a push towards universal healthcare” as she believes “it is ridiculous that people can go bankrupt over medical bills” in the US.  
“The Democrats are better when it comes to, if not universal healthcare, leaning in that direction – like with the Affordable Healthcare Act,” she states. 
Ava also says she is “happy with the candidate switch,” from Mr Biden to Ms Harris “as my main issue beforehand was the age of both candidates. I don’t think someone should be running for the top job in the country when they are more than 10 years over the retirement age”.
Telegraph reader Keith Dookeran, 63, and his son Zach, 32, regularly discuss politics as a family. They describe how no topic is off-limits: “There’s always something new and crazy to discuss because the world is just going nuts,” Zach said.
However, the key political policy where their opinions diverge is Ukraine aid. 
Zach is based in California’s Bay Area and is in favour of sending aid to the war-torn country. He says he believes in support for the defence of liberal, democratic, capitalist societies – particularly as the US reaps the benefits of other countries holding those values. 
“If a free, democratic society gets invaded by an autocratic neighbour, that just can’t fly,” he states.
However, Keith, an Illinois resident, suggests that “youth is optimistic” when hearing his son’s views. Keith argues: “America’s only responsibility to Ukraine should have been the evacuation of civilians to the EU.”  
Keith feels the US’s involvement was too little, too late – and if it was up to him, he would have opted for a policy of deterrence from the first sign of Russia’s hostilities. Now, it was for Europe “more so than the US to get up and have that fight”.
Before Ms Harris became the Democrat nominee, both Keith and Zach were undecided as to how they would like the election to pan out. They were disappointed by Mr Biden’s foreign policies and wary of the direction Trump would take.
However, following Mr Biden’s decision to stand down from the presidential race, Keith’s support has swung to Trump.
He explains he’s voting based on policy preference: “We need a change in direction and, in general, I prefer Donald Trump’s policy positions on the economy, migration, and foreign affairs.”
Both father and son are deterred by Ms Harris’s “‘low information’ candidacy”, and Keith did not expect that her policies (when they become clear) would plausibly vary much from Biden’s.
“I also have no idea about Harris’s stance on Ukraine. The Harris campaign has so far been largely superficial and vacuous,” Keith says.
Zach reasons: “While I appreciate [Harris’s] willingness to dump old progressive shibboleths like fracking bans, she will have to, at minimum, answer for the Biden administration’s many faults, and in particular, the handling of the border crisis.”
On Ukraine, he suggested if Harris’s stance was to “continue dribbling out material long after they request it, and then tell them they can’t strike Russia with it, I am strongly against it”.
When it comes to the possibility of Trump becoming president, Zach is not particularly enthused. He says: “I don’t know who I want to win between these two candidates, but I’d be thrilled if it was somehow neither of them.”
The Telegraph readers interviewed were asked to score their voting intention on a scale of 100, where 0 is Ms Harris and 100 is Trump.
*Names have been changed