(Over the many years I’ve written this blog, I’ve posted more than 450 essays. They’ve been about all kinds of things, but until the Trump years, hardly ever have they been about politics. That changed when the ugly depredations of Trump and his band of ethics-free cheaters and hucksters were allowed to take over our beloved country. Since then, it’s been hard for me to not write about politics. I don’t like it much, but it seems necessary. Soon, I hope, I can get back to writing about inconsequential things like road trips and recipes, photography, music, fly fishing, and more. Soon. I hope. If the fates allow it.)
We’ve been having a discussion here at our house about how to deal with people we know who are Trump supporters. I haven’t quite made up my mind.
Laura, my wife, has. She says there is no way we can afford to sacrifice family relationships and old and dear friendships because of political disagreement, that we have to be kind, patient, and accepting of other peoples' attitudes. A couple of very dear old pals – Democrats like me – agree with that.
It's a compelling thought. But is it insufficiently compelling?
What we’re talking about is remaining not just cordial, but loving, toward people who, based on the political choices they make, express support a man who would be dictator, a cheater, a liar, an abuser of women, a man who ignores our Constitution, and more. When he shouts, “Make America great again,” what he means is, keep America white and make sure that wealthy white men remain on top and in charge. In expressing this support, they display sets of ethics, values and morals that are in complete conflict not just with our own, but with those of any decent people.
Hungry people? Let ‘em starve. Non-white people? Send them home, abuse them, call them names, let cops and thugs beat the shit out of them. Homeless people? So what? Lousy, or no, drinking water? Let the bastards drink cheap vodka. Shitty schools and lousy teacher salaries? Great, who cares about teachers, and how much education to you need to make $7 an hour? Besides, uneducated people are easier to fool, easier to lie to. Working three jobs but still can’t make ends meet? Great! Work harder.
Concern about people in need of economic help following this horrible year of losses of not just jobs, but businesses; and not just loss of jobs and businesses, but also homes; and not just loss of jobs, businesses and homes, but also hope? It’s just not there in these people.
I know a couple of these folks, committed Trumperoids. They appear to be so deeply enmeshed in personality politics, in the politics of racism and greed (for that’s what this is), in the Trump cult, that they are unable to feel, or to display, any empathy at all -– indeed, any humanity -– for those in need of help.
Some of them call themselves Christians even as they refuse to follow the most basic and elemental precepts of the creed about which they purport to care.
They believe lies, and indeed, pass them on over cocktails at the golf course. In spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, they believe that Trump won the past election. And they’re certain that the fact that Joe Biden is in the Oval Office is the result of deep and pervasive voter fraud, even as investigation after investigation, and court case after court case, finds no voter fraud at all. When confronted with verifiable truth, they yell “fake news.”
One of these friends went so far as to whine that the concept of one-person-one-vote, the bedrock of democracy, is unfair to Republicans. She’s anti-democracy. In fact, opposing democracy, a system under which my privileged Republican friend has done well for herself, is one of the touchstones of these people.
What are we to do with people like this? How are we to reason with them as they burrow deeper into their cocoons of greed, lies and hate? How are we to converse with them, even as we know that they deeply oppose all that’s good and great about America? How are we to love and care for them even as they demonstrate that they deviate so completely from what we used to think of as the American norm of love, caring, decency and justice?
I’m told that I need to separate politics from family and friendship. But how can I love and admire someone, or trust them with, or about, anything, when they oppose everything in which I believe?
It’s a hard question, no? Or maybe it’s just a rhetorical one.
-JFT