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The most active thread yesterday was titled, "Spin Off - Do a Kids’ Parents Political Views Impact You Allowing A Friendship?" and posted in the "Private & Independent Schools" forum. With the election two weeks away and this website being based in Washington, DC, a lot of our users' minds are on politics. While we have two political forums — one for local politics and one for the rest — politics is finding its way into almost every forum. It's been a bit of whack-a-mole trying to keep up with them. That was the case with this thread which I didn't know about until earlier this morning when it was reported to me. Admittedly, the original poster has a nice story to discuss, dare I say heartwarming even. As the original poster explains, her daughter, who is Black, made friends at her public elementary school with another girl who is White. The other girl's parents supported a political candidate who the original poster could not stand. Because of these political differences, the original poster did not pursue a relationship with the other mother and hoped that the girls' friendship would die down. However, despite her hopes, the girls became best friends. Moreover, she discovered that the other girl and her mom were literally the nicest people she had ever met. The other family eventually moved away but after the George Floyd murder, the other mother wrote to the original poster describing how that had impacted her and asking if they could talk about it. The original poster never talked about politics with the other mother and the point of this post seems to be that close friendships are possible despite political differences. Fair enough, but I am not sure what this has to do with private and independent schools. Not surprisingly given DCUM's audience, most of those responding are Democrats. Therefore, the families who have different political views are mostly Republicans. What becomes clear almost immediately is that many of the posters make distinctions between traditional Republicans and supporters of former President, current cult leader, and convicted felon Donald Trump. The liberal posters don't seem to have much of an issue with those who are Republican because they support lower taxes, fewer business regulations, smaller government, and tough on crime public safety measures. But they have real problems with MAGAs. Most of the posters would be fine socializing with families whose political views are of the first category, but many would do their best to avoid those in the second. The posters who would avoid either Republicans generally or Trump supporters specifically are criticized for being intolerant and narrow-minded. But many of them offer no apologies for avoiding those who they claim are tolerant of racism, sexism, homophobia, and who support Trump despite his felony convictions and liability for sexual assault. I will say to my fellow liberals, particularly those who refuse to tolerate MAGAs, that you might consider opening your mind a bit. On a personal level, most MAGAs with whom I associate are very nice. Contrary to what you may believe, they don't have horns spouting from their heads. Generally they are not eager to bring up politics and, when they do, it is very gingerly. There is really no reason to be concerned about your kids making friends with their kids. As for this thread, it eventually turned into a general political debate that had no connection to the original topic, let alone private school issues. As a result, as soon as it was reported to me this morning I locked it.