Politics on the playground

Charlie and his friends discussed how he is a Democrat and they are Republicans, but they can still be friends because they have so much still in common and are really good friends.

So sweet.

Also a little bizarre. I wonder if any of these children could accurately identify the difference in opinions between Democrats and Republicans.

The real Republicans, I mean. Not the sycophant Trump wing of the Republican party, of course. Trump literally didn’t have a platform during his last campaign, so to pin Trump and his loyalists down on anything substantive is challenging.

Racism, of course. Authoritarianism. The expansion of Russian power. The revising of maps with Sharpies to cover up meaningless errors. The constant, shameless lying. The whitewashing of an attempted insurrection. The turning of a blind eye to hush payments to porn stars and rampant corruption. The degradation of American democracy. The greatest expansion of US debt in history. The disregard and criminal mismanagement of a worldwide pandemic.

But beyond that? It’s really hard to tell.

If Trump and his loyalists are Republicans in the truest sense of the word, then the definition of “Republican” needs to change considerably.

Still, I liked the way Charlie and his friends handled the situation.

I have friends who are Republicans, but they are the original brand of Republicans. Decent human beings who disagree with me on things like the role of government in a person’s life, the interpretation of the Second Amendment, and the size of the social safety net. We disagree on the kind of things that reasonable people can both disagree about and hopefully find some common ground.

Not the kind of hateful, racist, xenophobic, antidemocratic things that lead to a record spike in hate crimes, Nazis marching in Charlottesville, the attempted kidnapping of a state Governor, and an attempted insurrection the US Capitol.

I think we need a lot more wisdom of my son and his four grade friends in this world.