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JL and I had a good phone conversation on Sunday, January 3. Our chat reminded me again what an affable person my friend has always been. JL was both liked and respected by his employees. He hired diverse staff, and was more interested in what one could do rather than their formal training and education.

When he started to talk to me again on the state of the election fraud, I gently cut him off by simply saying I would believe the fraud accusation when it was proved in court. In the meantime, I told him that I monitor news coverage across the political spectrum with the aid of Ground News. He was intrigued that Ground News identified 'blind spots' of both the left- and right-leaning media, i.e., stories only covered on one side of the political spectrum.

JL accepted my skepticism about the 'research' that he felt proved the voter fraud conspiracy. He also admitted that whether the fraud was proved true or false by history, it would still represent a major harm for our political environment. Naturally I agreed with that assessment.

Then, during the DC insurrection three days later, I found myself thinking about my Trumpist friend again. What would he be thinking as he watched the same events? I'm fairly sure it would be along lines such as follows:

• The protesters did go overboard; they should not have broken into the Capitol.
• They unwittingly made Trump look bad; too many of them misunderstood what Trump actually wanted them to do.
• Their anger about the stolen election is justified, but Trump was not seeking the violent coup that the fake media had been reporting.

For me, my friend's unwavering belief in the vast voter fraud conspiracy is simply another form of what my favorite black intellectual, John McWhorter, observed about extreme leftist ideology in his article Antiracism, Our Flawed New Religion.

Trumpism has become my Trumpist friend's religion.

#100daystooffload Day 20.