Ana’s Friends

Ana’s Friends

I was struck by something Ana Navarro said in a recent interview. She was talking about her old friends in the Republican party: Marco Rubio, Lindsay Graham, Pam Bondi, and others. She emphasized that she had known these people for many years and counted them as good friends. Lindsay Graham went back to her time working for John McCain, and she made a special point of saying how much she liked him (he was a close friend of McCain). She then said she was no longer friends with them, because of her opposition to Trump. She added that she gets hate mail and death threats. She remarked that they seem like different people to her when she sees them on TV, and not better people. I paraphrase, but she conveyed that they had sold their soul to the devil. They had perceived that it was in their best interest to kowtow to him, grovel before him, flatter his frail ego. Ana herself was perceived as a traitor and was often shunned by old Republican friends. Of course, Ana is the one who kept her integrity, her soul, her honor. These people had transformed themselves into stupid dishonorable disgusting human beings. She reported this with surprise and dismay, suggesting that such a transformation in her erstwhile friends had never occurred to her.

I felt an intense pang of sympathy, because something similar has happened to me. People I liked and trusted, thought of as intelligent moral human beings, have undergone a similar transformation. I no longer recognize them as the people I had once known. They had perceived it as in their interest to keep their distance from me, tell themselves lies, distort facts—because they thought it would help their “careers”. I have had no contact with them for many years, though in some cases I have made an effort. I wonder how they live with themselves. They are everywhere these people. It is quite amazing what lengths they will go to out of perceived self-interest, and totally disgusting. The stupidity is what really stands out.