It’s a great relationship in nearly every other way.
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Dear James,
My partner of six years is smart and funny. I never get tired of talking with him. He makes me laugh until I can’t breathe. The sex is fantastic. We’re great travel partners.
The problem is that he is a Trumper. I feel that Donald Trump is a vile human in every way possible. I despise him and all he stands for with every fiber of my being. My partner doesn’t wear a MAGA hat, and he acknowledges that Trump has personal “flaws,” but he says he “likes his policies” and plans to vote for him … again. I’ve asked if there’s anything Trump might say or do that would dissuade him, and he can’t come up with anything.
Of course, we try to avoid political conversation, but we both follow politics and current events closely, and every few months, we end up in an argument that devolves to the same point, and I find myself questioning our relationship.
Am I being untrue to my moral convictions by staying in a relationship with someone who supports this person I find despicable?
Dear Reader,
This is easy.
Enjoy your Trumper! Embrace him; cherish him; show him how it’s done. Get your arms all the way around his Trumpiness, around all of its spikes and obduracies, and watch it dissolve in rolling billows of heavenly generosity.
And if it doesn’t dissolve, so what? The people we love: There’s always something wrong with them, because there’s something wrong with all of us. Your man could have poor hygiene, or a drug problem, or an incomprehensible hobby. He could be in weird chat rooms. He could have a deluded opinion of himself. One of the things Trumpers dislike about liberal types is how hissingly and superstitiously they recoil from anything outside their ideological parameters. MAGA folk, on the other hand, have a high tolerance for aberration, because … look at the guy. So prove ’em wrong.
Besides, the older I get, the more I think that a person’s opinions—political or otherwise—are the least important thing about them. The opinion-making portion of the brain is so vulnerable, so goofy, so effortlessly colonized by alien spores … It’s a write-off, really. How they live, how they make you feel—that’s the salient part.
Trumpism, in its pure form, I regard as a black wind from the bowels of chaos. But obviously, there are degrees of Trumpiness. And have you considered the possibility that his Trumpiness, and your non-Trumpiness, might be the secret sauce of your relationship? The key to his sense of humor, the erotic spark, the thing that keeps him interesting? And you’re good travel partners! As Walker Percy observed, if a man and a woman can drive alone in a car for two hundred miles, they should get married immediately. (Actually, he said, “… then there’s a good chance that they can be happily married.” But I prefer my version.)
There’s always this paradox about the loved one: You cannot take them for granted, and yet you must take them for granted. You need to keep in mind their rareness, and the singular circumstance of being with them, and the fragility of it—while at the same time falling backward like a dope into a state of total animal trust. And if you trust your man: There it is. Look no further.
Last thought: If you didn’t argue about Trump, you’d argue about money. Or God. Or how to load the dishwasher. And as for Trump himself: Don’t let him ruin another beautiful thing.
Wishing you (both) glorious trips through a regenerated America,
James
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