It’s a worn-out trope by now to conjure yet again Yeats’s immortal poem, yet perhaps forgivable if we dissect its most famous phrase, “the center cannot hold.” Because exactly what we mean by “the center,” and how we determine what holds it together, may answer the question of how we might do exactly that.
As it is, one example of the “center” is millions of friendships that remain strong, held between left-of-center pro-business Democrats who are skeptical about MAGA, and right-of-center Republicans who believe MAGA policies are the best route to our country achieving goals we all share: broadly distributed prosperity and an affordable middle-class lifestyle.
But those friendships are fraying. A few days ago, I spoke with an old friend from college. For more than 40 years, despite living in different cities, we’ve kept in touch. In earlier times by phone, in recent years with calls and texts, and over the decades through in-person reunions, usually with other friends from school. And in all those years, I never heard him speak about politics the way he did this time.
The equanimity and mutual respect that have defined our friendship withstood the first round of Trump-oriented polarization in 2016. It survived again in 2020 and again in November 2024. Throughout those years, as Trump established his legacy, I could speak with him about politics, and we would recognize that each of us had legitimate points of view. We disagreed on many issues but found common ground on others. Nothing we discussed ever threatened our friendship.
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