Can we all just get along? Fox News' Kat Timpf says yes, even in a divisive election year.

Most days I’ll get at least one email telling me I should go work at Fox News.

It’s not usually said in a nice way.

It’s a knee-jerk response I get when I write critical columns about President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris or other Democrats, which is often. The assumption seems to be that if I don’t have glowing things to say about the folks running the White House then I must be a raging MAGA fanatic – even if I’ve said nothing about former President Donald Trump. You’re either on one team or the other is the common theme of this criticism.

What if you’re not?

This phenomenon is something comedian and New York Times bestselling author Kat Timpf has thought a lot about. (And Timpf actually does work at Fox News, as the co-host of the top-rated late-night show “Gutfeld!”)

Timpf is a small-“l” libertarian and independent voter, so she is used to getting a lot of pushback from viewers who expect a more traditionally conservative perspective from a Fox personality. Yet, Timpf’s consistency in her views has earned her respect and loyal followers.

I recently spoke with Timpf about her new book, “I Used To Like You Until ... (How Binary Thinking Divides Us),” which releases Tuesday. I’ve known Timpf a long time and was her journalism teacher at Hillsdale College, my alma mater as well, many moons ago. I’ve loved following her success.

Our interview has been edited for length and clarity.

It was less than a year ago that I talked to you about your first book, 'You Can't Joke About That.' Now you have another one. Are you a workaholic?

Yeah, I definitely am a workaholic for sure. This book was inspired in large part by the tour that I went on last year, just meeting all these different people, going to all these different places and seeing how much more that we seem to really have in common than I think the prevailing narrative wants us to think.

I was inspired to delve into this topic and found out that my hunch here was right. I’ve been asked, “Why come out with this book during the most contentious time during this election?”

And it’s not in spite of that, but it’s really because of that, because we really can’t allow politics to keep us from seeing the humanity in one another.

In your book, you spend a lot of time talking about binary thinking and how it has led to our current state of polarization. For instance, you mention how people assume if you criticize Trump, you're a crazy liberal. And if you criticize Biden or Harris, you're a MAGA fan. How do we start breaking through those binary stereotypes?

We would be better with more independent thinking, but as you point out and as I point out in the book, we’re at the point now where people not only aren’t thinking independently, they can’t even perceive independent thinking. If you make fun of Biden or Kamala, that must mean you’re MAGA. If you make fun of Trump, that means you’re a communist instead of just perhaps being a person who has this view about this policy or this thing that this person said. And having that view does not mean you have this whole list of other views.

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Binary thinking is the enemy of critical thinking. Once you pick your side, you don’t have to think because all the thinking has already been done for you, and that’s attractive in some ways. If all the thinking is already done for you, you just kind of go along with whatever your side is saying and then that’s it.

And you have this whole team backing you up all the time, and it’s comfortable, but when you’re not thinking that’s how stupid things happen.

You mention how the government is often to blame for trying to turn us against each other through politics and manipulative narratives. What's gained by doing that?

It’s easy to see what the government gains if you think about it. Politics is kind of dry. It’s kind of boring unless you make it a battle of good versus evil, which is essentially what people have done now on both sides.

In the election, if the vote for you is not simply a vote for your beliefs and your policies, but a vote against evil, that’s not only more motivating to get people to go out and vote, but that gives people the sense of, “I’m a warrior for goodness.”

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But then, once people are actually in power, it also can motivate them or it can be a good tool to gain more power. When people are all emotional about it and they’re afraid of the other side and the other side is evil, they’re going to be more willing to give up their rights.

I learned a lot about your life the past few years reading this book. You are open about some extremely personal things, from the death of your mother, to your past relationships to your struggles with depression. When people are so quick to be hateful and mean, why are you so willing to be vulnerable?

I do think that vulnerability in the face of hatred is a way out of this mess. I open up about things in this book that are difficult to talk about, like the abusive relationship and the mental health struggles that I haven’t talked about publicly before, because I’m not the only one who’s gone through that stuff and everybody has their stuff.

Every person that you’re talking to has had times in their life that have been ugly. They’ve done things they’ve been ashamed of or that they’re embarrassed by, or they needed help. And I think that the more vulnerable you’re willing to be, I think that it really can disarm people.

If you want people to see you as human, and I want people to see me as human, I have to be willing to show people that I am a human. You never really know what a person’s going through.

So both the epigraph of your book and the last chapter feature a quote from John Updike about how in effect hate is a shelter. Can you talk about how that concept relates to your book?

So research has shown that when people fuel outrage about an issue, they actually also feel better about the problem if they direct that outrage at someone else, and the problem with that, of course, is you've done nothing to make the problem better. But I understand how it can make people feel better, right?

Let’s just say you’re a Democrat and the Republicans are bad. And people on both sides do this, so I'm not just saying this is something Democrats do. But if you’re a Democrat and Republicans are bad, then you’re good just because you’re not a Republican. By the very nature of being a Democrat, you’re automatically good.

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So that can be really hard to give up. That can provide a shelter of, “I’m good because I’m on this team.” The problem is simply voting for one side versus the other doesn’t make you automatically a good person.

We miss out on a lot of not just relationships that could be fulfilling, but also we miss out on being able to work together on the problems and issues and look for solutions to the problems that affect all of us.

In your book you talk about some of the concerns you'd had about having a child. You've since publicly announced you are pregnant. How are you feeling about the whole experience now that it’s actually happening?

I’m very excited to be pregnant. I am still very scared, but it’s also just interesting what your body does, because I’ve also been too tired to have as much anxiety as I would think I would have had. You know I love my husband. And my life is going to change so immensely that I know that I can’t predict just how it’s going to feel.

So I haven't worried that much about predicting it.

Ingrid Jacques is a columnist at USA TODAY. Contact her at [email protected] or on X, formerly Twitter: @Ingrid_Jacques.

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Fox host reminds us criticizing Harris doesn't mandate you like Trump