There are so many liberals who say that they could never be friends with a Trump supporter. However, I am a liberal and out of my few close friends here at college, 3 of them are conservative. And even though we share different views on some topics, I am overall grateful for them beyond words.
One thing that I love is that I get to see why well-educated women are supporting Trump. A lot of people are being critical that a woman should not be supporting such a misogynistic man. But since I am so close with them, I know why women are still supporting him. They see Hillary as the greater evil and that's ok. It's their opinion and it's not up to me to change it.
They also open my eyes to how the other party sees this election. Since I am from a liberal area of Pennsylvania, I know tons of people who are supporting Hillary, but I don't know that many who are supporting Trump. I see the things they post on Facebook, but I don't get to have conversations with them. Luckily, since I am here at school, I get to have open conversations with my friends about it.
When the recording was released, I asked them about their opinions and what they thought of members of the GOP pulling their support for Trump. And they candidly answered what they thought of it. I was grateful that they were able to inform me on the other sides of these arising issues.
I'm grateful that we are able to laugh at politics together. I'm a liberal and my top choice for president would not be Hillary out of all the other democratic nominees. They're conservative and their top choice for president would not be Trump out of all the republican nominees. So we are able to laugh about all the stupid stuff that's happening during this election process. We poke fun at each other, but we are both able to laugh it off.
Most importantly, I am so appreciative that they aren't those kinds of people to rid me off because I have a different opinion. We have way too much fun to have politics ruin our friendship. We don't have friendships so that we can talk about the same things that we agree on all the time. We have friendships so that we can learn and grow as people.
I think that my friends are really able to help me see the other sides of things, and I really appreciate that. They're funny and they are knowledgeable with what they say, so conversations don't make me want to bang my head against the wall.
Overall, they're my friends. We had a connection before we found out about our differing political opinions. And that connection means a lot more to me than who they're voting for or who the next president will be.
