Our Teetering Relationships

For a while now I’ve been writing about how it feels to be caught in that place where people you love are Trump devotees and you need to figure out how to coexist. With each passing day, month, year, it gets harder.

Sound familiar?

I see you. I follow your stories. I empathize. I’ve even heard from some of you.

It’s often complicated by the fact that some Democrats and others who don’t personally experience this divide tend to paint all Trump supporters with a broad brush. Because the spectrum runs from the masked white supremacists who were recently marching in Washington, D.C. to the clueless neighbor who still thinks the former president is a successful businessman and all-around great guy, we’ve widened our chasm.

As we approach the end of 2021, I’ve reached a new phase. I hope maybe it crystalizes something for others.

I’m way past the cheery ‘how to survive the holidays’ guides, the ‘quest for common ground’ do-gooders, the memes reducing this to a difference in politics (when it’s actually a vast divergence of values), and every other darned well-intentioned attempt to keep the peace.

I’m done with all of it.

We’ve reached a place where there are people in our lives we treasure enough to stay in relationship with. But, and this is a big…