"My stupid Republican dad just said he’s a fan of yours. I died,” an ex-boyfriend, who usually only reaches out when he’s feeling fragile from severe hangover, texted me the other day. “He called you my ‘ex-friend,’ he couldn’t even say ‘boyfriend,’” the ex laughed.
It was nice to hear from him. His dad, whom I met several years ago on a trip to California to meet his family, saw me on Fox News that night and messaged his son. The ex and I couldn’t be further opposites in our political views, but when we got together that didn’t seem to matter so much, despite, at the time, being slightly more ideologically aligned than we are today.
The last six years or so have seen all sorts of relationships destroyed, or abandoned, over political differences on a scale probably unmatched since the 1860s. Americans have run into their corners and shored up their tribes—which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. America is a deeply totemic nation, something at the core of our founding. The Originators organized us into states that would attend to regional interests with a federal government devoted solely to national interests because they recognized, and sought to appease, our tribal, fractious nature.
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