It’s okay to be friends with those of different political opinions, but the moral failings of Donald Trump are just too much for some people.
So declared Isaac Chotiner in Slate as a response to New York Times columnist Peter Wehner’s “Friendship in the Age of Trump.” As the article progresses it seems that it’s not only okay for friendships to end – they ought to.
Trump is “emotionally unstable, unprincipled, cruel and careless, the kind of demagogic figure the ancient Greeks and the American founders feared,” Wehner wrote.
But Chotiner says Wehner forgets all that when he maintains that “I need to grant to [his supporters] the same good faith I hope others would grant to me.”
If Wehner believes Trump is a demagogue, Chotiner suggests he should break ties with Trump supporters.
“Of course friendships should survive some political differences,” Chotiner writes. But, “I think being a racist or supporting a racist is a deep character flaw, and I don’t think I believe this because politics is too central to my life.”
His last paragraph asks whether it’s worthwhile for anyone to be friends with Republicans in general:
Chotiner’s real point is that friendship with a Trump supporter implies a flaw in the person who keeps that friendship.
There is another way to respond. “If I Lose Friends Over Trump, So Be It,” writes Professor Tom Nichols for The Federalist.
Nichols clarifies that Trump’s policies are not policies, but “feverish revenge fantasies,” and that it’s revenge that ends friendship.
The various views focus on Trump, but raise questions about politics and friendships overall. It doesn’t have to be Trump and his views which can be considered moral failings.
I’m a Republican, a label my boyfriend and many friends and family members don’t share. Yet they still love me. If one’s friendship can’t survive a political candidate, even when that candidate is Trump, there were likely problems to begin with.
