Political Contretemps with My Friends—and Ex-Friends

Donald Trump is no doubt the greatest American president in my lifetime. I voted for him and am hard-pressed to name a single one of his policies with which I disagree. Oh, sometimes I cringe at his style or the things he says or does. Campaigning for the Nobel Peace Prize (although he certainly deserves it) was crass and undignified. And I was appalled when, in December 2025, he convinced the board of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. to add his name; the legality of this move is still being debated, with controversy and artist cancellations galore. Still, who’s perfect? The southern border is secure, the economy is recovering after the disaster of Sleepy Joe Biden, he made the nation’s capital (formerly a crime-ridden hellhole and cesspool) clean and relatively safe, his handling of Venezuela was masterful, the Europeans have been put on notice, he has halted most of the drugs coming up through the Caribbean, he is bringing back manufacturing jobs that had seemingly been lost forever, and that’s just for starters. He is intelligent and energetic, he confounds his many critics, and he refuses to take a salary. This stone-cold patriot survived a kangaroo court in New York City and an assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania. You can count me as happy that Trump is POTUS and will be for another three years. I hope J.D. Vance follows with two terms of his own and the same for Marco Rubio, and maybe even Pete Hegseth; Kristi Noem is yet another impressive member of Team Trump. I am convinced that this is what America needs, and if we have even remotely fair elections, it can happen.

Nevertheless, I have—or had—some left-leaning friends who feel otherwise. Here are six of them:

Roland. I met him during my long-ago Austin running days. In fact, he served for a while as my coach. A graduate of DePauw University and the University of North Carolina, he was on the faculty of the UT business school (and is now at the University of Maryland). We were exchanging e-mails during Trump’s first term, and his views were pretty clear. When Roland—poor guy, he suffers from a severe case of TDS—understood mine, he abruptly terminated our friendship.

Jon. Like Roland, I first got to know him through running. He had a degree from UT Law and was a prominent judge, so I was accustomed to seeing his name in the local newspaper. Once, in an interview, he revealed that he had presided over more than 10,000 cases and sent nearly that many people to prison. Upon hearing that I was a MAGA man, Jon just flipped. He called me a “moral degenerate” and said goodbye. So I made a Facebook post that went like this: “What is wrong with Jon ___? Is Jon ___ out of his mind? I’m afraid Jon ___ might jump off the Tallahatchie Bridge!”

Bob. As with the two above-cited gentlemen, our friendship started with the various 5Ks, 10Ks and marathons we ran in Texas. Bob, the stereotypical lefty, was insufferable, and his wife Heidi was even worse. I recall one day at his house in west Austin when he used nomenclature I found offensive. I blurted out, “Whoa, Bob! You have really bought into the PC terminology, haven’t you? You are totally PC! From now on, I am going to call you ‘Mr. PC!’” During the Only Black Lives Matter days, he dutifully referred to the burners, looters, rioters and statue-topplers as “mostly peaceful protesters.” He had towering contempt for Trump, dubbing him the “narcissist-in-chief.” Our e-mails were getting increasingly contentious a few years ago. Bob described me as a tacit racist, and I replied by saying that his refusal or inability to acknowledge unpleasant realities—the main one being that black men commit 89% of the violent crimes in the USA despite comprising just 6% of the population—rendered him mentally ill.

Nayoung. I met this middle-aged woman on the Seoul subway about 18 months ago, and we soon became friends. We often had lunch, and there were perhaps two dozen Zoom meetings in which we discussed all sorts of topics and I helped with her English. Nayoung’s initial reaction to my statement of support for DJT was utter disbelief—her eyes, facial expression and tone of voice said it all. Nobody is more smug and self-righteous than a left-winger. Since she was blithely unaware of just how irked I was, I told her later on.

Jack. We were students in Dr. John Trimble’s creative writing class at UT in the spring of 1983. A competent writer, a lively personality and also an excellent runner—about a minute ahead of me in every Capitol 10,000 we ran—Jack moved to New York City some 25 years ago. Another bad case of TDS, he convinced himself that Biden’s 2020 victory was legitimate. He voted for Zohran Mamdani (the self-described “democratic socialist” and an infidel to boot) in the recent mayoral election, which I found hard to believe. We try to stay away from political issues in our e-mails, and thus the friendship endures. But a blowup is always possible.

Brian. He and I were working at the Capitol Oyster Bar at 15th and Lavaca in Austin in 1982 when we first met. A few years younger than me, he went on to get a medical degree from Texas Tech and has been a family practice doc in Yakima, Washington for a long time. The father of four, Brian recently informed me about the activities of his daughter, Annalee, a student at the University of Minnesota. Bursting with paternal pride, he stated that she helps her Ecuadorian friends hide from ICE “raids.” Did he expect me to applaud? I did not. I replied—nicely, I hope—that Annalee needs to be careful. Her friends entered the USA illegally, which is a crime. That makes them, ipso facto, criminals and subject to deportation. And by aiding and abetting their evasive maneuvers, she is one too. If caught doing this, she could be arrested and face justice. No answer yet from Brian.

45-47…

Bob was “Mr. PC” to me…

Where Brian and I met in 1982…