My daughter embraces respectful dissent and nonconformity. Even in the face of Trump.

My eight year-old daughter, Clara, is no fan of Donald Trump. Ever since she saw a clip of him speaking poorly to Megyn Kelly on CBS Sunday Morning months ago (it seems like years ago), she has despised the man. 

Nothing since then has convinced her otherwise. Understandably so.

Still, when confronted with a weekly reader at her school featuring a piece on Trump's inauguration, she said, "Most of the kids in my class scratched his face off the cover of the magazine because they all hate him, too. But I didn't. I wanted to be respectful even though I really don't like him." 

Had Clara scratched his face off the magazine. I would not have complained. I may have even cheered the decision. 

Still, I was proud of her. I appreciated her surprisingly nuanced understanding of respectful dissent.

Her little brother, by comparison, is fond of saying that Donald Trump belongs in a trashcan.

A lot less nuance. 

Also, whenever my daughter takes the side of nonconformity, it warms her Daddy's heart. It's not always the path of least resistance (as I well know), but I believe it's the path to inner strength and enlightenment. 

From the mouths of babes...

Clara tells me that she doesn't like Donald Trump. She says that she heard him say mean things to "a lady named Megyn Kelly" on CBS Sunday Morning.

"Megyn asked a question, and Donald Trump started making mean compliments about her."

Then she told me that she doesn't like Ted Cruz because he's not nice to mommy-mommy and daddy-daddy families.

Not to get too political, but if Clara can figure this stuff out...

Megyn Kelly of “the very powerful” Fox News is an expert on Santa Claus according to Megyn Kelly. She’s also despicable, at least based upon her non-apology.

“For all you kids watching at home, Santa just is white.”

Wow.

Though the Santa Claus who I grew up with was white, I have seen more than enough African-American Santas to know that his race is malleable depending upon culture.

Regardless of his country of origin and the race of the first Saint Nicholas,  Santa is a make-believe character.

Do we really think that the Haitian version of Santa Claus needs to be white?

Of course, these stupid words (along with the assertion that Jesus was also white) come from a white, affluent, blonde women who is speaking for four other white, presumably affluent people on the issue of race and Santa Claus.

Only on Fox News could you find four white people debate the opinion of an African American writer and her feelings towards a white Santa.

Fox couldn’t find one African American to weigh in on the matter?

Not one?

When I see journalism like this, I always remind myself of these facts:

• The median age of the Fox News viewer is over 65.
• Over the past five years, Fox’s average number of viewers has fallen from 557,000 to 379,000.
• Fox News is speaking to an elderly demographic.
• Fox New is running out of viewers because they are dying.
• Fox News will soon be irrelevant. 

Megyn Kelly has since issued a not-apology in which she claimed that her remarks in this “light-hearted segment” were “tongue in cheek, and that the entire segment on her “very powerful news network” was done in the spirit of humor and was not meant to be serious at all.

I actually think her not-apology is more offensive than her initial statement. It’s like the high school bully who calls you names for a week and then claims that he was just joking when the teacher overhears his remarks.