Conversation with a Trumpite

by Tom Kando

The health spa to which I belong is in Republican territory. On most days, most of the TV screens facing the treadmills and life cycles are turned on Fox News - except mine, which is either on MSNBC or on C-SPAN.

I have many friends at this club, some liberal, some conservative. I engage in daily small-talk with them. In this heated election season, it is impossible to avoid politics. We don’t fight, we just engage in friendly banter.

Today, I chatted with my friend Joe, a rabid Trump supporter. Joe is a friendly old-timer who immigrated to America from Eastern Europe over half a century ago. Our conversation started when he informed me how much he liked Trump. I replied that in my view, Trump is insane and that his election will be a great disaster for America and for the world.

Joe of course had to come back at me. He began to enumerate all the reasons why he admired Trump, and he then moved on to saying that Obama is the worst president we have ever had.


When I disputed that, he started the usual list of accusations, derived from Fox News:

“...Our GDP is barely growing, the federal debt is at eighteen trillion dollars, Obama created ISIS and worldwide terrorism...”

“Look Joe,” I replied, “I am not going to engage with you in substantive rebuttals. There is an endless list of issues we could discuss, and I would argue that you are wrong on every one of them...”

I could have reminded Joe that under Obama the homicide rate has declined to a fraction of what it was twenty years ago, that long-term unemployment is down, that the economy has added fourteen million new jobs, that twenty million people who previously didn’t have health insurance do so now, that corporate profits are way up. I could have reminded him that ISIS is the result of Bush’s Iraq war.

However. I wanted to try a different tack, one that might be more productive. I said:

“Here is the thing, Joe: You and I disagree because we get different information. You get your information from the likes of Fox News, and I get mine from the likes of C-SPAN. In other words (and here I wanted to be as charitable as possible): You have been told that the sky is green, and I have been told that it is blue. So then we disagree. You have been told that Obama will go down in history as the worst president, and I have been told that he is one of the best...”

Briefly, Joe was silent. He heard what I said. But soon he went back to trying to enumerate all the ways in which Obama, Hillary Clinton, liberals and Democrats are all part of the plague that is destroying America. He wanted to talk about Hillary’s fat speaking fees, her e-mail, Benghazi, Obama’s dereliction in Iraq, the recent murder by a terrorist of a priest in a French church (which he saw as also being Obama’s fault), etc.

Again, I avoided starting a never-ending debate about substantive issues. Instead, I said:

“Why are you even talking about that French priest? On the same day that he was murdered, there were probably another two thousand people murdered in the world, under a variety of circumstances.” And then, trying to clarify my point: “You see Joe, it always boils down to the CHOICE, the PRIORITIZING, of issues. Take you for example: you fret a lot about our growing federal debt. I fret about other things more...”

“You don’t think our federal deficit is a problem?”

Again, I could have pointed out to Joe that, yes, the federal debt has increased, but that this is largely due to the Bush tax cuts, and that Trump’s across-the-board tax cut would reduce revenue by nine trillion and increase the deficit even more. Above all, I could have told him that he needs to base his opinions on facts and on science, rather than hearsay and feelings.

Instead, I said: “I suppose it’s something that will have to be fixed eventually, but for now I am not especially worried about this issue. It’s not my top priority...”

“And you don’t think that this country is going to hell?”

“What do you mean, going to hell? America is in pretty good shape. Look outside. Do you see hell out there?”

“Well, easy for you to say. Here in our neighborhood things may be okay, but...”

“Look: The country and the world are neither black nor white. They are grey. There are things that need to be fixed, but that’s always been so...”

After a while, I had to politely shake his hand and leave. I said:

“Hey Joe, I really enjoyed talking with you.”

Joe smiled. We were still friends. My hope for people like that is as follows: If they could just stop seeing so much darkness and catastrophe in the world. Their minds have been warped. All they have to do is take a walk down the street, go to Starbucks or to Costco and open their eyes.

To all you Joe’s out there: Take a deep breath; things ain’t so bad - at least not for the vast majority of Americans. Shit will always happen, but in many ways things are better than they were before. Crime is down, the economy is up, we are not fighting any major wars, we accept and tolerate each other’s diversity way more than before, medicine and public health are still making tremendous progress, I could go on.

Yes, we need to fix certain things - the environment, for one. But we certainly aren’t going to succeed by berating those who try the hardest, such as President Obama. A conniption is not a solution. leave comment here

© Tom Kando 2016