Election Day
Every Election Day, I mourn a friendship killed by political “discourse.” I met this friend in college. He was brilliant and intense, with a finely tuned sense of humor steeped in Monty Python and Firesign Theater. He was also kind and thoughtful. When I came to Washington, DC, in 1993 for a job interview, my friend—by then a bureaucrat living in Northern Virginia—offered me a futon to sleep on. One evening, our conversation veered into politics. I mostly just listened as he talked—and talk he did, with breathtaking ferocity. At one point, his phone rang: “Hello? … Oh, hi, Mom. Hey, can I call you back? I’m in the middle of a tirade.” He hung up and jumped right back in. I’d never given my own political opinions much critical thought before then—like many people, I just followed my parents’ lead. My discomfort at that moment had less to do with the fact that I found myself disagreeing with my friend's views, and more to do with my feeling suddenly trapped in a conversation I wasn...
