There’s a Facebook page that calls itself Unfriend Trump Supporters and tells the world, “It’s time to finally tell your Facebook friends that you will not support those who support bigotry, sexism and xenophobia.” In the eyes of those who aren’t, to be a Trump supporter apparently is to be all those things. And sure enough, on my home page I see anguished “friends” turn to each other for counsel on whether to unfriend neighbors, classmates, even brothers and sisters who think intolerable thoughts. Rarely does anyone advise them, “Don’t be silly.”
When history is generous it remembers times such as these as moments of “irreconcilable differences” when what could anyone do but slap leather? But some differences are irreconcilable only because we want them to be. Maybe it’s because I have so many southern relatives I can’t imagine not speaking to, but I don’t think the differences dividing most Americans are anything close to irreconcilable. Trump’s ideological zealots live in a world of their own, but most Americans aren’t especially ideological. And if Donald Trump has deepened the gorge between Reds and Blues he’s also made it easier to bridge.
