I didn't go looking for this fight. This one came to me.
I was just minding my own business on a lazy, somewhat dreary Sunday afternoon checking the calendar to see how many more days we have to deal with the drudgery of winter.
That's when I made the mistake of checking my email and was greeted with this gem from a conservative friend.
"So how about that New Green Deal? I keep picking up my Times to see your thoughts on an editorial. Just kidding, Phil, I don't blame you. I'd be embarrassed too if my heroes came up with something like this loony. The Dems handed the Republicans what must seem like a gift from God, 2 years from an election."
For a few seconds, I actually considered just letting it slide by and into the ether of the online world that I unfortunately have to spend an in ordinate amount of time wallowing in these days.
Then I responded.
First things first.
I get castigated all the time for making assumptions. People think it colors my beliefs and everything that goes into the newspaper. But it never seems to stop anyone from making the very same kind of wildly off-base assumptions about me.
Let's be clear. Whatever gave my friend the belief that these people are my "heroes" doesn't know very much about me.
Ask my wife. I'm no big fan of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. I think she still has a lot to learn.
But it was another word he used that stuck in my throat.
Embarrassed.
Can you imagine a conservative these days, with this man serving as their leader, having the gall to use the word "embarrassed."
I told him I'd leave this argument with just two words: Mr. President.
Of course, then he responded with the usual argument that Democats and others of my ilk are blind to any improvements, that we insist on making it all about personality, not the economy or jobs.
Not on my time, friend.
This has nothing to do with personality. Or maybe it does. Unfortunately, Friday morning I was a captive in the office with a large TV looming on the wall right behind my desk. I heard the entire press conference where President Trump announced he was declaring a national emergency to get the funding for his border wall.
I'm sorry, but I expect more from my president than that shameful performance, which included the president of the United States referring to someone as being "off the reservation."
There is a small part of me that actually hopes the Supreme Court - now sufficiently stacked with conservatives - upholds Trump's emergency declaration.
And that my friend and all these other conservative stalwarts cheering wildly for the move remember it when the next person to reside in the White House decides the country has a 'national emergency' of gun violence.
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