The last couple years I\u2019ve had lunch with several friends who voted for Trump in 2016 and continued to support him in 2020. They were good friends whom I\u2019d known for years. We\u2019d never really talked about politics other than a casual reference to issues we might have in common. Then the Trump presidency changed everything, including our relationships.<\/p>\n
After 2016, we mostly dodged mentioning politics, but on some occasions it was unavoidable. I\u2019m sure many of you have had similar experiences. I had not realized how difficult it was to never, ever say anything that could be construed as political, but, then, it was not so toxic before.<\/p>\n
On some occasions, I \u201cscrewed my courage to the sticking place\u201d to ask my friends if they had buyer\u2019s remorse about voting for Trump. Usually my impertinence was met with silence and a look of disbelief, followed by \u201cwhy would I,\u201d an answer that obliged me to mention some of the more egregious actions of the Trump presidency. From there it usually went downhill with either more silence or my friends reciting a list of Biden\u2019s abominations.<\/p>\n
Rather naively, I believed that good friends could speak freely and find common ground on just about anything. I continued to take these opportunities to try to understand why my friends felt the way they do in the face of what I considered slam dunk truths. I figured the trump card was the attack on the Capital and the lies about who won the 2020 election, so I would counter with questions about January 6. The answer was always the same, a lot of silence or balderdash that the assault was not unprecedented, the Capital had been attacked many times in the past, and that the event had simply been overblown by the Democrats and the media. An unfortunate event, but no big deal.<\/p>\n
In the course of my luncheon conversations, many topics came up, including climate change, immigration, the Black Lives Matter movement, and gun control. With few exceptions, however, I came away feeling that these friends, all affluent and well-heeled, had abandoned honesty and decency in pursuit of self-interest. They clearly have it in their power to pursue their ideological and partisan beliefs without supporting the likes of Donald Trump, a proven scalawag and disreputable self-serving figure in all things.<\/p>\n
Contempt for Trump is not an obsession, it is a moral obligation that transcends partisanship. History will judge all of us in the long run.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The last couple years I\u2019ve had lunch with several friends who voted for Trump in 2016 and continued to support him in 2020. They were good friends whom I\u2019d known for years. We\u2019d never really talked about politics other than a casual reference to issues we might have in common. Then the Trump presidency changed…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1081","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-by-robert-fischer"],"yoast_head":"\n