{"id":42465,"date":"2020-04-28T00:45:43","date_gmt":"2020-04-28T00:45:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=42465"},"modified":"2020-04-28T00:46:27","modified_gmt":"2020-04-28T00:46:27","slug":"trump-worsens-relations-between-political-foes-imagine-that","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=42465","title":{"rendered":"Trump worsens relations between political foes … imagine that!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Among the many things Donald Trump promised while running for president — in addition to “making America great again” and throwing out illegal immigrants — was that he would upset the political norm.<\/p>\n

He would be an “unconventional president.” Boy howdy!<\/em> He has delivered on that one! I now want to offer an example.<\/p>\n

He has turned political adversaries who otherwise would be friends into, well, bitter enemies<\/em>.<\/p>\n

My friends have known my political leanings for a long time. They tilt leftward. I favor Democrats over Republicans at the highest levels of government; I have voted all Democrat for president in every election since 1972. I do split my ticket, though, and I have voted for many Republicans at state and local levels over that span of time.<\/p>\n

I have many friends who have voted all Republican for president. We have remained friends. However, I must admit that our friendship has been undergoing a tremendous amount of stress during the Donald Trump Era.<\/p>\n

I refuse to let my friendships be torn asunder by political differences. I hope they think of me in the same way.<\/p>\n

However, I have heard countless anecdotal stories of how friendships have been ripped apart, flushed away, trampled to death by intense differences. People who hate Trump<\/em> have lost friendships with those who love Trump<\/em>. Donald Trump even has infused normally non-political folks with an unusual level of disgust at those who disagree with them politically.<\/p>\n

Why has this happened? Is this by design? Is this what Donald Trump envisioned when he rode down that escalator in June 2015 to declare his presidential candidacy? A part of me thinks that Trump actually believed he would produce this bitter divide. I cannot read what passes for this kook’s mind, but my own gut tells me he has produced precisely the political climate he desired.<\/p>\n

Trump vowed to “unify” the country. He has talked only to his base, the roughly 40-something percent that has stuck with him since he lost the actual vote<\/em> to Hillary Clinton in 2016. His refusal to speak to all Americans has created what I believe is this remarkably wide — and widening — divide among American voters.<\/p>\n

The greater distance between those who support this guy and those of us who oppose him only has deepened the anger many of us feel toward each other.<\/p>\n

Therein, I suggest, is arguably the greatest tragedy of this individual’s tenure as president.<\/p>\n\n

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Among the many things Donald Trump promised while running for president — in addition to “making America great again” and throwing out illegal immigrants — was that he would upset the political norm. He would be an “unconventional president.” Boy howdy! He has delivered on that one! I now want to offer an example. He … Continue reading Trump worsens relations between political foes … imagine that!<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[9332,8981],"class_list":["post-42465","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-national-news","tag-donald-trump-era","tag-political-divide"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42465","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=42465"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42465\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42468,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42465\/revisions\/42468"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=42465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=42465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=42465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}