100 days plus one week into this chaos, I'm just as strongly against Trump and his agenda as ever. It doesn't seem like too many opinions have changed since he took office. The nation is as divided as ever. I can't do much to change anyone else's opinion, but I can control my reaction to a very unpleasant set of circumstances. No, I'm not going to live in a world of denial about how repulsive this administration truly is. I'm not going to say, "I told you so." I won't get into name calling and unfriending on Facebook. Nor will I feed off the anger on both sides. I'm not shutting good people out of my life who happen to see Trump differently. In short, I'm not going to let my ideology be the ultimate ruling factor in my life. In the six months since Trump's election, I've had time to put it in some degree of perspective and I think a lot of other people have as well as we try to get on with our daily lives.
That said, I will continue to speak my mind in a respectful conversation and either walk away or inject facts when Fox News or talk radio are someone's only media source. While the President is the top person responsible for bringing us together, he fails more miserably with each false tweet, conflict of interest and executive action. The leadership bar has been set lower than it's been in my lifetime, so it's tempting to react in anger. On the other hand, you can't maintain that unbridled outrage forever and the low standard of discourse makes taking the high road relatively reachable. I've never thought of joining a march before; but I would now.
Trump has deserved most of the criticism, but there are times when the left has given the far right unnecessary ammunition. Intimidation on a few college campuses has cancelled appearances by extreme right wingers, which has fueled the "political correctness" charges. With Trump's assaults on free speech including mostly unfounded broad brush attacks on the media, why stoop to his level? Free speech is free speech... left, right or middle! Nobody loves getting booted out of an appearance more than Ann Coulter. She'll just get her followers even more fired up. Rightly or wrongly, Trump supporters see nasty over-the-top attacks on Trump as attacks on them, so they just dig in. The next time you feel like calling Trump supporters ignorant racists, consider engaging them with questions about why they feel the way they do. You may not be persuaded, but the tension level may just decrease enough to realize we are not solely defined by extreme political beliefs.
