3. When one of the myriad examples of Democratic lies, gaslighting, totalitarian tactics and frightening Machiavellian threats are pointed out (because, flawed though he may be, Donald Trump is nearly the only bulwark that can stand up to the Axis of Unethical Conduct), the response is always, “Well, that’s a mistake.” No, I retort. It is not a mistake. That is the party you are supporting because you think the White House Ball Room will be too big.

This was the exchange regarding Virginia trying to gerrymander half of its voters out of representation in Congress by 1) breaking the state’s laws and 2) lying on the referendum ballot: “That was a mistake.”

4. The discussion keeps coming back to the Capitol riot and the fact that Trump keeps claiming that he “won” the 2020 election. My response is that it’s quite possible that he did win in 2020, though unlikely, and that nobody should care what he says he believes. (I suspect that Trump keeps saying this to drive people like my friend to the edge of madness.) Because of MSNow, she refuses to believe that the President’s unethical $1.8 billion “slush fund” won’t be used to “pay his private militia” (that is, the stupid rioters). The pardoning of the rioters also makes her crazy. My position: the partisan prosecutorial over-zealous punishment of the rioters was unconscionable when the far more violent, deadly, long-lasting and expensive George Floyd rioters were mostly given raps on the wrist at worst.

“So you don’t think an attempt to reverse the election results by violence should be punished?” Uh, A. The Impossibility Principle applies. B. They were punished sufficiently, which is why the pardon is defensible. C. This was a huge demonstration that got out of hand, as they often do. There were many parties at fault. For the Trump Deranged to still be harping on the fiasco after five years shows a lack of perspective and fairness.

5. She said that rioters were convicted of “insurrection.” Not one rioter was even charged with insurrection. A tell: that’s MSNOW pollution.

6. New causes of outrage are pre-spun and distorted by biased news sources, but assumed to be correct. The ballroom again: My friend said, “Did you know that the corporate donors to the ballroom have been given billions in government contracts? So in exchange for financing the ballroom to save taxpayers money, taxpayers will pay much more for rigged government contracts!” I tracked down the source of this “proof of Trump corruption.” It’s a report by Public Citizen, the left-wing, anti-corporate “watchdog” that somehow never finds flaws with Democrats, eagerly picked up by The Washington Post—you know, the paper whose staff rebelled when the paper wouldn’t endorse the worst Democrat Presidential candidate since 1872. “Ballroom donors won $50B in contracts after giving to Trump project, watchdog group finds.” The article lost me when I read,

“Of the known donors, no single contributor received more new business with the government since giving to the project than Lockheed Martin. The defense giant received roughly $43.8 billion in new or expanded contract funding since last fall, according to the report. Booz Allen Hamilton followed, with more than $4.2 billion, and Palantir, with just over $1 billion. Other donors that received new or increased contracts include Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Caterpillar and T-Mobile. ….Altogether, more than two-thirds of corporate ballroom donors — 19 of 27 — have received government contracts over the past five and a half years, totaling $338 billion, the report says.”

Gee, what a surprise. That a pretty good list of the companies that always are winning government contracts. There is no evidence of a quid pro quo. This is a typical example of presumed Trump wrongdoing, because “you know what he’s like.”

In sum, what I felt from the discussion was pure emotion almost totally unmoored to logic, proportion, fairness, or reason. Hate and anger, that was all of it. For the second straight election cycle, that is what the Democratic Party is counting on, and it might work. You can’t argue with bias and emotion. I sure found that out.