POLITICS AND FRIENDSHIP
I have a fundamentalist Christian friend who is an avid Trump supporter. Our relationship has survived for years, in part because we don’t discuss religion. She doesn’t proselytize, which I appreciate, and I don’t care about religion as long as people treat one another with respect.
Recent politics has brought some uncongenial moments. For instance, if I make a comment about changes in our American situation, such as “I wonder what the Rawls Farm will do for field workers,” my friend comes back with a strident rebuttal about immigrants followed by “if you’d read the news you’d know.” We’ve come to the point that we’re too passionate about our opposing views to even touch on something political.
After several comments about my lack of knowledge, which I’ve tried to ignore, our conversations have come to be limited to old times and mutual friends.
At the end of the day and the reason for my writing this is—why is my friend so aggressive in her Trump support and why does she denigrated me, her friend, for having a different opinion? Her view of religion has always been unlike mine, but she hasn’t smiled at me and suggested I’m stupid for holding a different view. It seems that politics has surpassed religion as the most important thing in her life.
Such intolerance harkens back to history and a god-like acceptance of authoritarian rulers. History is full of examples as to where this leads.
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