I was going down a rabbit hole on YouTube recently when it served up a four-year-old clip of Nicolle Wallace being interviewed by Stephen Colbert. What jumped out at me was the title under the video – My Parents Think Donald Trump Belongs on Mt. Rushmore.

And suddenly it all made sense, my clear affinity – almost pull to – watching Deadline White House, her 4 p.m. show on MSNBC. A mere decade ago, Wallace and I felt like we had less in common politically than more. She was a Republican, and while I liked her last GOP employer, John McCain, I don’t have conservative leanings.

However, since the emergence of Trump into our lives, I’ve come to watch as much of Wallace’s show as I can. Her disillusionment with his presence at the top of the Republican ticket in 2016 soured her on the party. So while our politics didn’t seem to align, our desire to keep systems and democratic norms in place and root out a wannabe dictator put us squarely on the same side of the divide that had been developing.

Since then, with Trump on the scene about nine years now, I’ve discovered that more of my politics line up with Wallace’s than I’d originally thought. We’d likely have disagreements on how to solve some legislative issues, but we share a desire for tradition, decency, common sense, nuance, freedom, and a disdain for complete disregard of those things, especially from a presidential candidate.

Underlying every single show, Wallace endeavors to understand the very people who put her on Earth. She doesn’t say it out loud on air, but in moments like the one with Colbert, she makes note of it. I relate to this so deeply, that need to comprehend how people we love can push aside mountains of evidence – videos, social media posts, official documents, sworn testimony from his own supporters/staffers — to serve one madman. I will find it vexing for the rest of my life.

As it turns out, I like getting some of my news from a centrist. I think it serves me, expands me. A lot of us are so focused on how great our divide has become that we lose sight of alliances made. Perhaps they’re tenuous, temporary, piecemeal, but for this often-excruciating moment in time, Nicolle Wallace is helping to keep me sane.

Gratitude in spades.

[Editorial Note: This is my second installment in a series I began in order to give my writing some flow after being in a healing phase from knee surgeries for a year (2023-24).]

[This post was originally published on Facebook on May 22, 2024.]