We must not become a party that rejects my best friend

In early October, former President Barack Obama stepped into a Pittsburgh house party and, with cameras rolling, suggested that Black men might be seeking “alternatives and other reasons” to vote against Vice President Kamala Harris for president.

My best friend of 30 years told me over dinner recently that he had voted for Barack Obama — twice — and Hillary Clinton. “But Democrats kept telling me how to live, and they just went too far, Mike,” he said.

He voted independent in 2020, and then for Trump in 2024. My party lost him.

Obama’s message to voters in Pittsburgh resonated negatively with people like him, he said, but his frustration isn’t with a woman at the top of the ticket or with equality.

“It’s how (Democrats) force it on you — in our movies, economic policies, corporate processes, how to love, how to talk — all of it, instead of letting us get there on our own,” he told me.

While my gut instinct was to say, “You’re wrong,” I kept listening.

You see, I work with non-white elected officials, organizers and activists. I’ve seen and felt their frustration and pain as they tirelessly work to undo years of redlining, unlawful labor practices, corporate malfeasance, discriminatory hiring and lending practices, barriers to voting, and the unjust fear that stepping outside might mean not coming back.

My friend’s wife then told me her own friend stopped talking to her after learning she, too, had voted for Trump. Sadness gripped me.

The Democratic Party asks voters to rely on the federal government to solve large, looming problems, only to pull away from voters who disagree with us? That’s unsustainable if you view the relationship between voters and government as a family affair, as I do.

I don’t believe that most Trump supporters want chaos and mayhem in the streets. What they do want is for the Democratic Party to drop its “for the people” charade, especially when it’s willing to disavow so easily one-time neighbors and friends in the name of the country.

In 2007, then-Sen. Obama, in his announcement speech, asked us to “be one” to reject the “face of a politics that’s shut you out.” At the time, I was filled with deep cynicism, uncontrollable anger and emotional isolation after my mother died. I found the world to be unfair, but Obama and his campaign challenged me to rise to the occasion, to bring people together in the name of service and hope.

I continue to reject politics that reject people.

You have to understand, my mother suffered from bipolar disorder and struggled with drug addiction to self-medicate. I was removed from my home multiple times to live in the publicly funded California foster care system and with neighbors.

I remember a Republican keeping my mother in her home when she was too debilitated to work. Former Rep. David Dreier (R-Calif.) pushed Section 8 paperwork through the bureaucracy to keep her housed and safe.

I remember group home counselors, neighbors and friends who clothed, fed, housed and loved me. They taught me to read and to be curious.

And I remember my best friend and his immigrant parents, who had traveled from Mexico to the U.S. in the 1970s, as part of the community that cared for me and taught me to respect the experiences of others.

Now, I want to be clear: my best friend isn’t storming the Capitol. He has never condoned Republicans harassing gay people, women, transgender individuals, Asians, immigrants or Black people.

He knows that supporting Trump’s improprieties is difficult to reconcile, including the 34 felonyh convictions. But he strongly believes that Democrats cloak bad behavior, whereas Trump does not. Choosing between these options, he’d rather support the devil he knows.

In 2020, I was thrust into the middle of the George Floyd protests when I decided to run for Claremont City Council in California. My district, a quarter Latino and 10 percent Black, was at odds. The majority of Latino residents believed the defund movement was wrong and supported the police, while the majority of Black residents believed we needed to reduce the police force, which was telling.

More telling, though, were the mostly White liberals with Biden signs in their yards who supported the national defund movement yet spoke out against increasing housing stock to include low-income families and reducing homelessness through comprehensive care programs. To me, this was coded language to keep poor families — mostly Black and Brown — out of their community.

My friend moved to Clark County, Nev., after being priced out of California. His neighbors are Black, Brown and White — Democrats, Republicans and Independents. His kids play with their children; his wife has found new friends; and they have a community that accepts them.

Democrats, he argued, use inclusive language until the issue lands in their backyard, then they obstruct progress to protect the status quo.

After Obama’s comments in Pittsburgh, we watched Democrats pounce on President-elect Trump with attack after attack, citing everything we know is wrong with him while telling the nation we are the party to trust. We folded in the face of anger and adversity.

Last week, President Biden met with President-elect Trump in the Oval Office to discuss a peaceful transition of power. This is the first of many steps for the Democratic Party to rebuild generational trust with the voters we lost.

In the coming weeks, the Democratic Party should call for a unity summit with Republicans to discuss policy solutions for everyday Americans. Compromise can be reached, and a nation can see the opposition parties sitting together, discussing solutions to improve the lives of every American.

Our government is like a family Christmas dinner, filled with opinionated uncles and aunts, sometimes saying outlandish things to provoke a negative reaction. However, we need patient leadership to navigate through those destructive tendencies and bring us together, or the next four, eight, 12 years will be the same as the last eight.

Democrats have been isolating half the nation for nearly a decade, and it hasn’t worked. It’s time to write a new script.

After dinner, I asked my best friend if he ever considered not being my friend because of my politics. Sensing my insecurity, he said no, “because family sticks together, no matter what.”

Michael Ceraso is a Democratic strategist who served on four presidential campaigns, including those of President Barack Obama, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Pete Buttigieg. In 2017, he founded Winning Margins, a communications firm focused on amplifying emerging voices in the media, as well as Community Groundwork, a nonprofit supporting two-year students interested in civic careers.