When an old friend X came to dinner in London, I sampled what it must have been like during the American Civil War, when families were split asunder from aligning on opposite sides of the Mason-Dixon. Lo, this warm-hearted, well-read, intelligent Midwesterner is backing Donald Trump. This was my husband’s introduction to X, whose electoral preference clearly queered the first impression. Our threesome didn’t talk long on the matter. The disconnect being so absolute, there was little to say.
X is the only Trump supporter I wittingly know. But I was chilled by the difference between this and countless heated-but-civil suppers of yore, at which a dinner guest plumped rambunctiously for a candidate I opposed — Romney, McCain, even George W. The 2016 contest is drawing a hard line. Even for lesser-evil Democrats like me, Trump fans are self-exiled to another country, an effective Confederacy. As a friend at the Wall Street Journal just emailed with no intended hyperbole, Trumpsters tar themselves as ‘morally defective’.
I’m disturbed by how personal this election has become. Feelings run violent on both sides, and as in the Civil War there’s no safe middle ground. I feel a reservation about X now that I don’t want. No presidential campaign has ever strained my friendships. This election is ugly, and it’s going to get uglier.
When I threw out a challenge to my audience at the Canada Water library, I meant it as a cheap rhetorical flourish. I admitted to having no idea why quantitative easing — trillions conjured from thin air — has yet to power inflation. ‘So if any of you can explain it to me,’ I announced, ‘please see me in the signing queue.’ To my astonishment, while I was defacing my own books with misspelt dedications, a shy young man slipped me a scrawled sheet of A4.
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