I am glad someone said this..I hope i would never toss off a 20+ year friendship because their opinion differed from mine. I appreciate exploring another way of looking at something and friends that are willing are the best source for airing our differences and possibly changing of hearts and minds.

And there are many American Christians who agree 100% with Meryl, and find the President-elect, and many Republican positions offensive.

We both understand that exploring a subject from different points of view is healthy … after each discussion we go away and think about what was said. Really think about it. Feel it. Reflect on it some more. Let’s face it: life IS complex. That is, unless you subscribe to a predetermined dogma that allows for only one interpretation and application, regardless of perspective or circumstance.

My friend and I are not slow in putting our thoughts out where they can be seen and responded to. Yes, sometimes we have strong reactions to each other, however I don’t recall ever thinking any less of my friend in the process and never has he given me the impression that he thinks me to be inferior. Judgments like these do not have a place in our friendship. We value each other because our dialogue is always an invitation to expand the mind’s capacity for truth, and more importantly, our heart’s capacity for love: a project that has no end date!

I’m not saying he isn’t a jerk. I’m not saying he had good intentions. I’m saying he was flopping his hands, so for a moment he had the same position as the man with the disability, but it was unintentional. I think it’s sad that it’s so easy to ascribe motive because we think we can judge his heart, but if he were to prescribe our motive, we would be engaged.

So he was simulating some type of palsy-like disability to mock someone and ACCIDENTALLY just so happened to mock a disabled man, with that simulation?

What you are saying is, it’s ok he mocked a disability and it was just accidental he mocked a disabled person?

You can see why even in the BEST case scenario you describe, it was bigly douchy.

I’ve seen several videos of Trump using the same gestures about many other individuals. He was mocking the man, but not for his disability.

No kidding! Yesterday I visited a conservative Trump-supporters page and walked into a whole nuther universe. There were postings and videos and comments that were polar opposite of the stuff on my wall and those of my friends. That Trump supporter is also a friend but I unfollowed him long ago because of the vitriol he posted. And now I see how very far apart we are …. I can’t imagine speaking to him again knowing what I know about his opinions. And I’ve known him and his wife since 1981.

I am just going to admit when I see conservatives doing the whole, “Wow, we have to try and put down the vitriol and be humans here”. All I can think is the precedent set by blindly blocking everything Obama did isn’t really one Republicans are hoping anyone else will do, and so hoping they will be treated better than they treat other people. Donald Trumpn is your guy, because that IS what the Republican Party IS.

So it’s not mocking because his technique was off? I call bullshit.