He Does It Best

As we approach the Thanksgiving holiday, I was thinking about family dinners and how they have been affected by our President. The President does something better than anyone else in the world. He screws up relationships. I am talking about our personal relationships with each other – with our families, friends, and neighbors. It does not matter whether you are Red or Blue, or somewhere in between. If you are honest with yourself, you know your personal relationships have suffered. 

Messes up is not strong enough. Fouls up does not begin to cover it. Goofs up, mucks up, blows up, bungles, mangles, ruins, and wrecks are all inadequate. I believe screws up says it best. The only  phrase that might say it better is “f^cks up”, but hey, this is a family blog and I’ve decided not to use that phrase.

 It does not matter if you are a Democrat or a Republican, young, or old, believe in him or despise him, he has affected all of us with his gift.

 How many of us have college or high school friends we no longer talk to or exchange emails and texts with? I certainly know that is the case with some of my fellow West Pointers. How many of us have neighbors we barely nod at now, when we previously had friendly talks with them? How many of us now have guarded conversations with some family members, or no longer have conversations with them at all? Or avoid holiday dinners? I have heard several horror stories from friends in this regard. 

 Yes, he has made us ignore each other. Or dislike each other. I have watched friends shut down on each other. I have terminated Facebook “friend” status with acquaintances whose posts I can no longer stand to read. There are those I can now only tolerate in short doses because they Just. Won’t. Shut. Up., and they assume everyone must agree with them. They no doubt think the same about me.

 People have forgotten how to interact with others. The internet certainly encourages a good deal of that behavior, but the President is complicit. He is at the center of our discontent with each other.

 And yes, I still do have friends on both sides of the aisle. I still even have some I can have a reasonable political discussion with. Still, it is a bit hard when they are friendly in person, but you see on their Facebook page that all Democrats are stupid, corrupt, traitors. One West Point classmate, not knowing my political persuasion, shared with me that people were calling him a NAZI because of a stance he had taken on removing certain books from schools and libraries. I’d noticed some of his postings online, when he had no problem calling Democrats Communists, or Marxists.  I believe the irony was lost on him.

 So, thank you Mr. President for lowering all of us to a base level. Allow me to acknowledge you do something better than anyone else in the world – screwing up our personal relations.

Personally, I hope all of us can find our inner peace this Thanksgiving. If you can, ignore the commentary coming from the crazy uncle on the other side of the aisle for just this one day, and enjoy this uniquely American Holiday. You will be a better person for it.

Addendum:

• Photos/Cartoons AI generated by the author with Google Gemini
• I know many of my friends on the right will tell me it is Biden’s fault. Or it is Pelosi’s fault. Or it is Obama’s fault. They know that no undesirable thing is ever Mr Trump’s fault. Never ever. And here all I was trying to do was pay him a compliment about something he does better than anyone and everyone. 
• Thank you to my friend Colleen who worked with me on a couple of different versions of this blog. I was, perhaps, a bit too snarky in an earlier draft or two.