Dear Friend,

In just one example from the sports world, NBA head coach Stan Van Gundy tweeted out this all-too-universal sentiment: 

“For me the saddest thing about this whole Trump presidency has been finding out that people I knew, liked, and respected, including some guys I coached, support this racist, misogynistic, narcissistic person. Painfully disappointing revelations.”

You don’t have to follow basketball to understand. Andrew Cohen stated it frankly in The New Republic, calling it “more than disappointing when your friends let you down. It’s just plain sad. And futile. You can argue all day with a jackass, but in the end, it will still be a jackass, and you’ll have wasted a day.” 

“Like the Civil War, which pitted brother against brother, and the Vietnam War, which pitted father against son, the Trump presidency has cleaved relationships from sea to sea. It has forced people to take sides. It’s caused psychic wounds that figure to grow worse, not heal, in the days and weeks to come,” Cohen added.

Under normal circumstances, we agree to disagree, accept that our friends and colleagues are honorable even when we don’t accept their ideas. But the Trump presidency has been far from normal. 

If you’re looking for commentary on politics, culture, and the arts that fairly and accurately responds in these chaotic times, please consider three months of unlimited digital access to The New Republic for just $5!

As Andrew Cohen laments, “We all have to figure out how we’ll deal with those people in our lives who inhabit the other side of the divide. Right now, I see family members avoiding one another on the phone. I see friends yelling at each other over politics on Facebook … I miss respecting and admiring my friends. I miss trusting their judgment even when I disagreed with their views. And I fear I will never see them the same way again. On top of everything else, Trump’s stolen that, too.”  

This postelection period is the perfect time to restore our faith in the future by following writers like Andrew Cohen and the best investigative reporters, opinion writers, and cultural critics in America.

Subscribe to The New Republic today.

Sincerely,

Kerrie Gillis, publisher

Read Andrew Cohen’s What Do We Do About All These Trump Supporters?