Roseanne is a performer. Stop taking her so personally.

Allow me to broach the topic of something that I’m pretty sure most of my friends and generally liberal leaning people will probably hate and unfollow and unfriend me immediately because it’s 2018 and we are all very, very sensitive. (Just be aware of these three things: I am creative, I am basically a free thinking moderate/liberal, and like many of you, I also can’t stand the thought of Trump as our President.)

Roseanne.

I am not planning to watch her new revival series. It is not for political reasons. I never did watch her show when it was on in the past. My family never watched when I was growing up, I never bothered to watch and after all these years I can honestly say that I have never even seen one episode. I’m not especially crazy about her comedy, her voice…just her in general. But it’s not political. It never was.

Yeah, I know: she likes Trump. And as much as I also can’t stand Trump (see my above disclaimer), it so happens that I do in fact have a few random friends and family who do. Should I stop talking to them? Have we gotten to that point where someone supporting someone you don’t like is reason enough to not talk to them? Aren’t there other things to talk about? But I am hating something on her behalf, because frankly it wounds me as a writer, performer, and comedic minded person, namely, the inability to separate performance from performer.

Yes, real life Roseanne supports Trump. She’s allowed to. If that is your only reason for hating her, well, that’s your right. Yes, she has done some crass routines in the past (the “Baked Jew” cookies thing has popped up). And I’m not defending her lousy rendition of the National Anthem (though why Trump singles out black football players for kneeling yet says nothing about this speaks volumes. I even tweeted about this recently and got more “likes” than I have ever gotten, so color me hater). But holy fuck, you pick any comic who has been doing his or her thing for as long as she has and you are going to find something off color or crude or questionable. It’s called having a career. I have done songs and stories in the past that were questionable that I probably would not be doing today. I shudder to think if I somehow came out on the wrong side of any one of you and you brought these up in your attempt to ruin me. But I own every bad piece of writing and music I have ever done. Without them, I would not have learned how to do better.

I’m sorry if this sounds like a cop out, but it happens. You try stuff, you try to push the limits, push the boundaries, and sometimes you push too far, sometimes you piss off groups of people and if you really go too far, you apologize. I understand your view that supporting Trump is supporting racism, xenophobia, sexual assault, homophobia, and whole host of other terrible things. And as I always say whenever I post something like this, I hate him, too. But also realize that the people who voted for him are also Americans. And somewhere in there is someone you love.

Be a bigger person. It starts with thinking for yourself, and separating real life from the performance. I know it’s hard. But we have to. We already let Trump ruin football. Let’s not let Roseanne ruin everything else.