The Luv Doc: Big, Dumb & Inexplicably Lucky

Dear Luv Doc,

I am still friends with two of my best friends from high school. We are all from an upper middle class Houston suburb and are now scattered across Austin. Two of us live in Central Austin and one of us lives in Southwest Austin. We used to get together regularly for lunch or happy hour drinks, but of course now all of our get togethers are online – either in chat or video calls. Unfortunately, over the last few months our conversations have turned much more political and mean-spirited. Maybe it has to do with the fact that there isn't much going on otherwise, or maybe it is because we are spending more time online, but the conversation always leads to what is happening politically. One of my friends is a staunch Republican and always has been. She voted for Trump and still supports him. The other is a teacher and is a die-hard liberal. I am somewhere in the middle even though I don't like Trump and never have. I just hate it when my friends get in heated arguments and ruin our chat. They always end up calling each other idiots or worse and then we don't talk for two weeks. It's really sad. We have all been friends for so long. I have tried to tell each of them that friendship is more important than politics, and they sometimes listen and make up, but they always end up arguing again. I know you are a little salty at times, but don't you think that things have gotten out of hand with everyone? What happened to common decency and civility? How do we all get back to being nicer to each other?

– Stuck in the Middle

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I have to agree with you, the rancor has gotten a bit out of hand, and there are plenty of folks on the internet who would much prefer to bring things to a boil rather than a simmer. Whenever I feel myself overheating, I try to step back and regain some perspective. Fundamentally, we all want the same things the slave-holding, racist, sexist authors of the Declaration of Independence did: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Actually, that is a bit of a misquote. The actual text read, "the preservation of life, & liberty, & the pursuit of happiness."*

Honestly, to me, "the preservation of life" makes it sound like we are all entitled to health care, but my conservative friends inform me that good health is a privilege, not an inalienable right, and that all those unfortunate souls born with chronic, debilitating diseases or who fall prey to the myriad physical and mental ailments of the human condition should suck it up, quit their whining, get a job, and buy some world-class health care – or at least pray to Jesus that some magnanimous billionaire will champion their particular malady. Hey, if it worked for erectile dysfunction, surely it will work for Alzheimer's ... right?

Anyway, I think it's safe to say that conservatives lack empathy – or, to be more generous, favor tough love. If you aren't able to bootstrap your way out of cerebral palsy, that's on you. Liberals, on the other hand, want everybody else to do all the hard work while they reap the rewards. It's really just that simple ... to simpletons, but enragingly not for everyone else.

What is needed, I feel, is some empathy for those folks. The ones who just don't get it. Whenever I get frustrated with my Trump-loving friends and relatives, I try to imagine I am talking to Forrest Gump. Not the lovable, Tom Hanks cinematic version, but the 6-foot-6-inch knuckle-dragging foul-mouthed goon from Winston Groom's namesake novel who carelessly blunders through an amazingly rich life with an IQ of 70. He's a metaphor for America itself: big, dumb, inexplicably lucky, and destined to ruin it all with his stupidity. You can't slap sense into Gump, and you can't – like Lieutenant Dan – find salvation in raging against him and the unjust God who created him. Instead, like the Lieutenant Dan in the book, you have to be a bit more circumspect and philosophical. You have to understand that stupidity is a force of nature ... like gravity ... and like gravity, it will pull you down if you don't stay balanced. So try, as diplomatically as you can, to steer those conversations away from stupidity – not just for your sake, but everyone's sake. Nobody likes to be told they're an idiot – even when they really are one.

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Editor's note: This story has been amended since publication. In the original column, Luv Doc incorrectly stated that the Declaration of Independence contains the phrase "the preservation of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." That phrase actually appears in Thomas Jefferson's rough draft of the Declaration of Independence. The revised, final draft was edited to read "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." The Luv Doc regrets the error and any associated confusion caused thereby.