Tolerating Trumpism, Conditionally

ONE OF MY BEST FRIENDS at the senior center says that he would vote for Trump again. It is beginning to look like he will get his chance. He only comes to lunch once a week, while I come every day, but when he is is there, I make sure to have lunch with him, so pleasant is he to converse with. We've been friends long enough now that we know we really like each other. He is eighty, walks with difficulty, so I bus his table for him, for which he always graciously thanks me. Every day I walk around the room collecting done lunch trays as a service to those with difficulty ambulating; the nice fellow who previously served in this capacity was permanently expelled for inappropriate behavior. I admire and respect my Trumper friend, except politically. He grew up in a small town, and went right to work when he graduated high school. He married at about the same time, and is still married to his one and only love, a 62 year fiendship. She is an artist, and a very good one. Once a week when she hosts other artists for a brunch and paint-along, he escapes out the back door and heads to the senior center, a weekly event I sense he truly enjoys. They got marrried as teenagers, saved money, bought some cheap small town land, and built a house and a family. Their story is the prototypical all American dream. The only fly in their ointment is that, not long after the honeymoon, he got drafted to go to Viet Nam, wasn't happy about it, but went, and served with honor and distinction. The two separated forlorn lovebirds wrote letters back and forth daily; hers always included a package of Kool Aid, which he shared with his buddies, who liked his far away wife. When other fellows or ladies join us for our weekly luncheon, it becomes a party. We never talk politics, the key to our successful friendship.Instead we make jokes about my love of "Gunsmoke" reruns, which I simply must run home and watch. Occasionally one of us makes a remark about current events, but that's about it. If we ever broach the topic of Trump, which we someday might, since Donald Trump refuses to go quietly into that good night, but instead seems hell bent bound and determined to either become president yet again, go to prison, or both, refusing to to do anything but forecfully, narcissisticlly insinuate himself into every converstaion in these United States, I've given considerable thought to what I would and will say. I would and will begin by telling my dear conservative friend that I love and respect him as much as anyone I have ever known, straight up. This, because of his successful life as husband, father, veteran, and hard worker,and that I find his pleasant, cheerful personality and our lunches together one of the most pleasant parts of my life. It seems obvious to me, I would say, that he is so much a better person than Donald J Trump, that Trump isn't fit to not only lick his boots, but isn't worth the dirt beneath my dear friend's fingernails. I would insist that he deserves a much better candidate, one with at least decency and morality. I would remind him that if he is looking for a conservative Republican candidate who shares Trump's values, or most of them, fundamentally, except the racism, and is also a good, decent person with moral integrity and some modicum of inelligence and verbal ability to boot, that the Republican party has other available candidates to offer, if not an actual abundance of them. Although I personally find the Republicans running against Trump deplorable, for many reasons, primarily their conservative ideologies and policy proposals but also including their discreetly cowardly unwillingness to criticize Trump, they certainly seem, by comparision, much better people and candidates. I'm not sure how my dear friend would respond to this, what he would say, but I am convinced he would listen, understand my point of view, and give it due consideration. For that alone, I should be grateful. And although I suspect that he would go right on ahead and continue his plan to vote for Trump, I would have the satisfaction of knowing that I tried my best, made my point,and, in the process, didnt lose a good friend.