A Republican Friend

All of us have friends from the other party. With some, we avoid discussion about politics. Maybe even with most. After all, religion and politics are usually not the subjects of conversation if those friends take them seriously.

But once in awhile, a friend is willing to engage me. And he is quite good at it.

We grew up in the same Sunday school. We were in classes from seventh grade through graduation. We were in a Young Republicans Club in high school together during the McCarthy era. We took the same civics classes. Our political milieu was Wisconsin Progressivism of the Bob LaFollette variety (combining politics and university research applied for the common good).

I hadn't see this friend until our fiftieth high school reunion five years ago. He retired to a red state and I retired to whatever color Florida is!

We have exchanged materials and observations on politics for the last couple years. Recently, he sent me one that had incredible racism in it. I was absolutely flabbergasted! I responded that I couldn't believe he'd actually think that way! I wrote back and gave all kinds of historical background and anthropological information to say just how far off the mark that stuff was.

He never responded.

He and I still do some exchanging, me more than him lately. But he has given me some interesting websites to go to. More on that in a minute.

That racist article was so out of bounds that it has taken me awhile to see what he may have been doing.

You almost have to be from Wisconsin to follow my logic at this point. Maybe other parts of the country may do what we sometimes do for fun.

You may be able to tell I take my opinions pretty seriously. I also take my facts seriously. I don't really think of myself as a wonk. But as I look back at how my brother and brother-in-law could rile me, I wonder if I come across sort of dorky.

Jack and Lynn have laid out awful partisan lines. When I jumped all over them, they'd just laugh! "Gotcha!"

I think my Republican friend may have been playing "Gotcha!" with me. I know he is extremely bright (as Lynn and Jack have always been). I think he has been playing with me.

Okay, Pal, you got me!

I do expect he will vote Republican because he has offered me some real challenges, not just the wild kind.

And he has given me two websites to explore which have proven to be interesting. I have not found them to be fully truthful because they carry a number of ideas and assertions that have proved to be false.

But they also have carried stuff I haven't seen at my favorite websites. And I haven't seen that stuff corroborated or challenged on FactCheck.org or any similar sites.

The sites my Republican friend gave me are worth checking out. They are www.hotair.com/ and www.theobamafile.com/.

Both have the sense of honesty about their intentions which I find in the liberal/progressive websites that are my favorites.

But what is stunning about them is that they paint such a different picture of reality that I am persuaded they live in a different universe . . . just like their readers probably would think I am not of this world!

That's a little shaking.

If America is ever going to get back together over the partisan divide, we are going to have to find some common ground of information that we both trust.

I like to think that sites like FactCheck.org would be that kind of place.

I hope my Republican friend would too.

I'm not optimistic. After spending time on the sites my friend suggested, I am convinced he would not think of those fact-checking sites as helpful.

I hope he would not be put off by them. I hope he is willing to realize Stephen Colbert's observation about the current political atmosphere is true, that "Reality has a liberal bent."