One of my friends recently told me he has enjoyed watching me move to the left over the past year. I am not sure what that means exactly, but I have spent quite a bit of time thinking about how political views can affect relationships.
Yesterday, I read a book on the life of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. It was one of those type of books where I couldn’t put it down because it was so interesting. One of the things I really found to be profound was the friendship between Justice Ginsburg and Justice Scalia. They were so different and had such opposing views on many things, but they shared a love of Opera. They also spent time reading each other’s opinions.
As I think about their friendship, I think about my family and friends. I have always been more conservative than most of my family, but we could still have good discussions about politics and in the end agree to disagree. On many points though, because of my slant towards social justice, we agreed.
This election was ugly and I saw many relationships splinter. It was not as simple as agreeing to disagree as the election got contentious. In many cases, facts were thrown to the wind and people hiding behind social media felt very free to say things that came off as hateful.
I have to admit that I shared my opinions more than normal and commented on way too many posts. While I don’t feel like I changed anyone’s opinion, I still felt like I needed to stand up for what I believed. I tried to respond respectfully and not put out name calling or mean memes.
I hope that we can find ways to have civil discussions without name calling. I plan to read a lot, listen a lot, and continue to share my thoughts publicly. I hope others will too.
Swimming Upstream 
You’re inspiring me to blog again. I have had a lot of personal conflicts lately over friends and politics too. Family is family. More difficult to disconnect, and we will always share a common history that can’t be “blocked” or deleted.
LikeLiked by 1 person