Can I Patronize a Place Run by a Trump Supporter?

For 18 months, I’ve taken a weekly lesson at a stable that specializes in therapeutic work. The team here helps disabled people experience horseback riding and nonmounted equine exercises; they also have a kids’ program. The barn is truly my happy place, so much so that I have volunteered at its events and made small financial contributions to the program.

I’m very fond of the stable’s director; riding under her expert tutelage has helped me become stronger, happier and more confident. Recently, I drove up to the barn to drop off my granddaughter for the last day of her riding camp there. Draped over the director’s front porch, adjacent to the stable and visible to all, was a large Trump banner.

Gut-punch time. I can’t imagine anything more horrifying than a Trump presidency. There’s no point in talking to the director — I remember on my first day there, she told me that politics and religion were taboo topics among the barn family. (Now I get why!)

I guess I could go elsewhere, but I don’t really want to start over with someone new. Quitting means giving up something I love; staying means feeling nauseated and untrue to myself. How do I navigate this situation? — Name Withheld

From the Ethicist:

Your world isfull of services provided by people who, amid this neck-and-neck election, favor Donald Trump’s candidacy; you just don’t know this about most of them. Let’s figure that they helped write the software that runs your smartphone, fixed your leaking faucet, trucked produce to your supermarket and might even have treated your granddaughter’s ear infection. I trust you’re not committed to avoiding the presence or services of all such people.

Maybe, though, you’re bridling not so much at this woman’s support for Donald Trump as at her expression of that support. She does seem to have broken her own rule: A large Trump banner violates the idea that this is a politics-free zone. If you express a political thought, you’re inviting people to respond with political thoughts. And citizens ought to feel free to talk to one another about who would — and would not — make a good president. So I hope you’re feeling untrue to yourself only because you haven’t told the director what you think about our former president. Instead of silently bailing on this place, why not ask her about her enthusiasm for a second Trump administration (and, yes, then listen to her before sharing your views)? If she somehow thinks that signage isn’t the same as discussion, you can come to your lessons wearing your candidate’s merch.