On Trump & Cosmetic Surgery

I try to accept people with their foibles. Naturally I eschew any friendship with serial murderers, pederasts, Klan members or Justin Bieber fans; after all, I have my limits. But despite thinking it's dangerous, distasteful and downright dumb, I have maintained friendships with several women who have had face lifts in a desperate attempt to fool Mother Nature and pretend they are not whatever age they are, despite the fact that everyone can tell because of that plastic, stretchy Twilight Zone look about them. (Think Cher and John Kerry.) Who doesn't want to look younger, better, and less wrinkly and saggy? But that's what happens, and then, as my husband likes to say, you die.

Oh, the hypocrisy!

Anyway, a face lift is not a deal-killer for me. Neither is political choice. I have been friends all my life with people on both sides of the aisle, and even a couple of closeted and not so closeted anti-Semites, despite my being Jewish. But as I said at the start, I try to accept people with their foibles, since there are no perfect people. So it was with shock and amazement that I was told recently by a face-lifted, Twilight Zone-y friend of thirty years that I was "no longer someone she wanted to know" because I have, in the past few weeks, "defended Trump and he is indefensible." The trigger for her firing me was my pointing out, in response to her charge of hypocrisy, that Ivanka Trump manufactures her designer label clothes in China because currently it is far cheaper to do so, and that Trump wants to change that reality.

Let's be clear: I have never "defended" the media's negative spin put on any of Trump's ideas. For example, I am certainly not in favor of racism, misogyny, anti-gay legislation and all the rest, and until I see a hint of those things becoming the rule of law I will remain calm. I have simply tried to keep an open mind since it appears that Trump will be the next president. And while I personally did not vote for him, apparently 65,431,654 Americans did. Admit it: that's a heck of a lot of Americans, and I'm betting quite a few of them have also had face lifts. (Talk about your Twilight Zone.)