At first glance, it looked like nothing more than a celebrity squabble best suited to the gossip pages.

In truth, however, the entire scene highlighted a dangerous problem to which most of us can relate. And the question of what to do about that problem requires a good deal of introspection.

According to the Daily Mail, cameras spotted pop music megastar Taylor Swift, a woke liberal, and her erstwhile friend Brittany Mahomes, who recently expressed support for former President Donald Trump on social media, sitting in different suites during the two-time defending Super Bowl Champion Kansas City Chiefs’ thrilling 27-20 season-opening victory over the visiting Baltimore Ravens on Thursday.

Swift, girlfriend of Chiefs tight end and Pfizer spokesman Travis Kelce, endorsed President Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election. She has also made no secret of her woke political views.

🚨REPORT: Patrick Mahomes wife, Brittany is NOT SITTING in the same suite as Taylor Swift.

Fans have speculated the reason is because Brittany tripled down on her support for former president, Donald Trump pic.twitter.com/vRbBAVNFAq

— MLFootball (@_MLFootball) September 6, 2024

During Kansas City’s 2023-24 season, which concluded with a Super Bowl victory over the San Francisco 49ers, Swift’s relationship with Kelce and her regular appearances at games garnered obsessive amounts of attention from the NFL and its broadcasting partners, often to the annoyance of many fans.

Mahomes, wife of Chiefs quarterback and three-time Super Bowl MVP Patrick Mahomes, appeared to develop a friendship with Swift. In fact, cameras regularly showed them cheering on their significant others while sitting together in the same suite.

Here, for instance, is a photo from Brittany’s Instagram page. Ironically, it shows the two friends hugging one another after Kansas City’s victory over Baltimore in January’s AFC Championship Game.

Last month, however, Brittany drew the ire of the “tolerant” left when she liked Trump’s presidential platform on Instagram.

Predictably, some of Swift’s woke fans lost their minds, but Brittany did not back down.

Then, on Wednesday, Trump himself took to the social media platform Truth Social and thanked Brittany for her support.

If Swift and Brittany sat in different suites due to their clashing political views, they did not say so.

In fact, sources told the Daily Mail that the friendship would endure.

“Taylor is not going to be written into this anti-Brittany narrative because they have made a pact to not discuss politics,” those sources reportedly said.

The unnamed sources undoubtedly meant that comment as reassuring. But to anyone who has lived in the world for the last eight years, it should have the opposite effect.

After all, making a “pact to not discuss politics” hardly seems like a firm foundation for an enduring friendship.

And therein lies the problem that most of us have probably encountered at least once in recent years.

In order to maintain friendships and even familial relationships, we have faced this call for self-censorship and worse.

Of course, friends and family members with different political views have always chosen wisely when they opted for civility. But Trump’s political ascent has produced something different.

In short, it has given rise to demands not for civility but for political surrender. Trump, his enemies tell us, represents not a legitimate conservative-populist phenomenon but an existential threat to democracy itself. If you support him, therefore, you pose the same threat.

Thus, if we hope to maintain peace amid such grotesque slanders, the need for humble introspection has never been greater.

For one thing, when fighting proverbial monsters we must take care, as Nietzsche said, not to become monsters ourselves. It is well within the realm of possibility, for instance, that in the loss of friendships and familial relationships I, too, have played an active and destructive part.

Furthermore, one might acquire a charitable perspective by viewing people like Swift as victims to a certain extent.

That is not to say that woke leftists who suppress political speech and demand conformity to their deranged worldview bear no responsibility. Nor does it imply that we must not resist them. After all, the COVID scam-demic alone revealed which of our neighbors and fellow citizens have the souls of tyrants.

On the other hand, Swift and others of like mind have absorbed years of establishment propaganda. For whatever reason, she and they have not yet awakened to the pattern of obvious lies. Perhaps they never will, but we must pray that they do. Otherwise, we face a dreadful future with consequences far beyond the loss of friendships.

A football game should not inspire such reflections as these. But here we are.

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Michael Schwarz holds a Ph.D. in History and has taught at multiple colleges and universities. He has published one book and numerous essays on Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and the Early U.S. Republic. He loves dogs, baseball, and freedom. After meandering spiritually through most of early adulthood, he has rediscovered his faith in midlife and is eager to continue learning about it from the great Christian thinkers.

Michael Schwarz holds a Ph.D. in History and has taught at multiple colleges and universities. He has published one book and numerous essays on Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and the Early U.S. Republic. He loves dogs, baseball, and freedom. After meandering spiritually through most of early adulthood, he has rediscovered his faith in midlife and is eager to continue learning about it from the great Christian thinkers.