And I'm
the one who said I would respect each person's individual vote. After all, we
all have our own issues, prejudices, and hot buttons. And they drive our votes.
As for me, I'm a card-carrying bleeding-heart liberal. I don't mind paying more
taxes so others can get the services they need, even if they don't always deserve
them. I'll fight to the death to have a competent Secretary of Education of our
public schools so the children of the trump voters can have a better education.
But it's
tough. My friend called me a poor sport. Like I just lost at marbles. Actually,
where important things like the Washington Redskins are concerned, I admit I'm
a pretty poor sport. But, with lots of
practice, over the years I've honed my ability to pretend I'm okay with the
Dallas Cowboys claiming they are "America's Team" while the Redskins
stay home again from the Big Game.
But I
digress. I tried to explain that, more important than being a good sport, I have
real concerns about the competence and experience of trump and his cabinet
members. He waved that off as having
less importance than that the Republican party had vanquished Hillary and
Obama. Oh, good. The black guy and the woman are gone.
He's
also a bottom-line guy who hates the idea that a business, like the one we work
for, would be forced to pay for employees to have basic healthcare due to the
Affordable Care Act. Or the idea that the federal government would force its
opinion or any type of regimen on anyone. God knows we wouldn't want anyone
telling us we had to be a Christian or a heterosexual or eschew birth control
or guard ourselves from grizzlies in our public schools.
But I'm pleading temporary
insanity. When he told me that (a) there is no evidence that Congress wants to
repeal healthcare coverage for under-26's or for those with preexisting
conditions and (b) there is no evidence that Russia was involved in the recent
debacle, I felt my precarious hold on mental health starting to fail. I asked where he was getting his news. When he
told me "that's Hillary stuff," I heard a snapping sound from inside
my head. Something vital had broken loose.
When our
coworker, sitting with us, naively asked what Congress intended to replace the
ACA with, since obviously so many people needed it, he told her not to worry
about it, that Congress would handle it. At this point, I flew over the edge of
the cuckoo's nest.
This was
not going to work. I had gone into a gunfight armed with a spitball. And it
didn't end well. The top of my head blew off and blood and brains spewed out.
Metaphorically speaking. When he told me I was dead to him, I think I remember
telling him to send it to me in a 140-character Tweet so I'd know it was
official.
The
important thing here is that it was my fault. I didn't set out to lose a friend
I've worked with for 15 years. I had no intention of making an enemy out of a
coworker that I work with daily. And
friends, long-time or new, are nothing to scoff at. I value my friends. I take
full blame for what happened.
But the
more I think about it, we really weren't friends. We were coworkers who
disagreed violently but politely on most aspects of daily life and culture. We
were generally cordial as long as we stuck to topics with no possible religious
or political significance. Pictures of cute puppies and grumpy kittycats were
possible but only if none of the puppies was sitting too close to another puppy
of the same sex.
My
friends and I don't always agree on everything but we agree on the important
things--the value of other people, the importance of the environment, the need
to be able to trust those to whom we've entrusted the leadership of our
country. So I guess he and I weren't really friends. Just work
acquaintances. And I guess that's over.
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