I’m an oddity for a liberal who lives in Seattle – I have friends who are Republicans.
Combine this with the fact that I threw out all Microsoft applications off my Macintosh laptop, eat meat, don’t drink coffee, and root for the New York Yankees and not the Mariners, and I probably should be excommunicated from the city. Apparently, the dozen or so grunge rock CDs and tapes I have is sufficient for me to retain my residency.
I’m a person who likes to know other’s perspectives. I like to know how they think, and why they believe what they believe. That’s one reason why I like having friends who are Republicans.
Rob and I played hockey in college. We went our separate ways, but now that he and his fiancee, DeAnna (also a Republican) have relocated to Mercer Island from Las Vegas, we are renewing a friendship that lay dormant for a decade.
On a recent Sunday, Rob, DeAnna and myself got together with a mutual friend, Bill, his girlfriend, Kristin, and a lady friend of mine, Amy, for a barbecue. Everyone there was socially aware and politically concerned, so the state of the nation eventually came up in conversation, even if Rob and DeAnna were the token conservatives.
When Rob, Bill and myself get together and talk politics, we play off each other’s prior statement, challenging the notion, or trying to use it to play one of us against the other. It’s a little game we play, and one we love.
But Rob said something that we didn’t explore further, which was a shame. He said that in his first week in the Seattle area, he observed not so much a pro-Democrat sentiment as he did an anti-Republican ideology.
I disagree with most of Rob’s political attitudes, but in this case, his assessment was fairly accurate.
Politically, America is more polarized then it ever has been in my lifetime. While many like to blame President Bush for this, I first noticed this more than a decade ago, when Bill Clinton first ran for the White House. Through the 1990s, smearing Clinton in conservative circles rivaled today’s Bush-bashing amongst the liberal left.
Today there are books called the “I Hate Republicans Reader” and the “I Hate Democrats Reader.” There are books by Bill O’Reilly, Ann Coulter, Molly Ivins, Al Franken and Michael Moore, all of which have their following, little crossover appeal to the opposite ideology and fuel the political angst plaguing our society.
Rob confessed to reading one of Coulter’s books, but he said she veered way too far to the right at times, which he disliked. In effect, he said such extremes don’t help recruit what the experimental New Wave band Devo once called New Traditionalists.
Rob admitted a need for a middle ground, which I agree with. It’s the only way we can truly reunite as a nation. Extremism to the left or right will never bring consensus.
However, Rob also asked me where he can listen to Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh on the radio around here.
So much for the middle ground.
John Santana is an editor and writer with The Enterprise Newspapers.
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