I’m with Bernie Sanders:
Funny thing is, the night after the election, a Trump-supporting brother called. He acknowledged that his candidate was flawed, but that he voted for him because business (he’s a businessman in New Mexico).
Do you go ahead and argue this one? The election is over, after all, though some people are taking it upon themselves to protest. In my family, we know where loyalties lie. We know each other’s politics and religion and we mostly disagree on both. So I got off a few nasty comments about Trump, we hung up laughing and then continued the conversation with vulgar texts back and forth — though they weren’t any more vulgar than our regular texts. I love my brother. I do not love his candidate. Can I still be friends with people who voted for Trump? Of course, provided they understand that I’m spending considerable calories organizing against his success in the next election.
Dating Jesus 
I’m a Socialist. Even though there’s been some significant change in my approach to that over the last few years, I remain a Socialist. And an Atheist (1.0).
You are not any of those things. We disagree on many things. (I am most definitely NOT with Bernie.) We agree on some things. (Love saves.) And we remain friends. Because there exists a commonality in our goals.
If a White Nationalist government is to be defeated, we’re must build on such commonalities within our communities in order to forge solidarity with significant numbers of that half of the country that put Trump in power. Friendship is necessary to forging stronger bonds around shared goals.
Not only can you stay friends with Trump supporters. You must.
Trump supporters are bigots, mysoginists and racists. And some, I assume, are good people.
It makes it difficult, doesn’t it? It’s not fair of me but then again, isn’t it? I spoke with a family member who said he categorically refutes all the stuff Trump said about immigrants/Muslims/women/etc., but that he thinks he’ll be good for business. How does one go from there?
Actually that was a riff on Trump’s statement on Mexicans.
I’ve talked to a couple of “reasonable” Trump supporters who have come out of the closet since last Tuesday. They gave lip service to the bigotry and basically said it was up to me to get past it. To me, that was confirmation that they are the enemy.
I got that. I giggled. But my head still may explode.