The Necessary Conversation Podcast

Billed as "Family therapy through politics", The Necessary Conversation is a show (YouTube, Apple Podcasts, TikTok, or wherever you get your podcasts) where a brother and sister, Chad Kultgen and Haley Popp, talk with their parents, Mary Lou and Bob Kultgen, about all things politics. It's been running since 2022 as far as I'm aware, but this is the first time I've come across it in any way.

Without listening to an episode, you can probably guess how a conversation with this family might sound:

• Chad & Haley are various degrees left leaning politically
• Mary Lou & Bob are full on kool-aid drinking MAGA Trump supporters.

As a Canadian, it's still wild to me to see and hear someone who's actually so far on the MAGA train that they're willing to throw their own kids under the bus. It feels like I'm watching what my brain wants to say is people playing characters of the stereotypes I hear about in the States, but my heart wants to believe they're not actually really that far gone.

From the 10-20 minutes I've heard plus various clips on TikTok, I can't tell if the show is worth listening to on an ongoing basis. On the one hand, it's important to try to understand where other people are coming from in their views, why they'd vote to support someone like Trump, and how the world looks from their eyes. It's admirable that Chad and Haley keep trying to have a rational conversation with their parents. But it's infuriating to hear Bob spew anger, ignorance, and hate. And when the kids try to push their parents on literally anything at all, they double down on the only truth that matters being whatever Trump is saying.

Chad does a decent job of trying to simmer down the anger by bringing in real life moments and emotions, and sharing family memories. It's a beautiful way of recentering a family conversation—even if Bob just seems to tune out and roll his eyes at everything remotely heart warming.

But I think I'll stick to whatever random clips I end up seeing by accident because I don't think listening to it regularly will help my mental state.