I would like to add, at Heather's invitation, that I wrote that piece about my friend and the situation many of us might find ourselves in. So many wonderful and brilliant people, especially and including Heather and Bret, raised their heads above the parapets for years now (too many), and I have no problem raising mine. Ruth Lyons in the beautiful Pacific Northwest
Thank you so much for sharing and bringing your perspective forward. I think you are spot on in your revelation and I can only pray that more people start to see the light and that this campaign of rule through fear sees its end sooner rather than later.
In sales we have a concept of the pain to gain ratio. Some times getting a sale is worse than losing a sale to your competition. Some customers require more resources, make more demands, than the profit you make will cover.
And it turns out that interpersonal relations have the same kind of math to them. People change over time and not always in good directions. You are probably too nice and will question the compassion of the beast that would make such a suggestion, but it is entirely likely that the time and energy spent trying to maintain this friendship would be better spent on someone else. I bet most of us, have been facing the same "friend" problems. It is unfortunate, but it is real.
I'm in a weekly coffee group with 3 other men. Two liberal Democrats and two independents (although we both lean conservative). I'm the only one who voted for Trump. When the other two found out, it broke their brains. How could this person we like and know to be kind, think this way? Each week I work to explain the reasoning. I don't think it's working. My guess is they will stay in this perpetual confusion because they just can't seem to match two things they know: I'm a good person AND I voted for Trump. It just doesn't compute for them. I'm hopeful they will eventually be able to see both things are true.
I will admit I don't understand the seeming cognitive dissonance of many who voted for Biden and later Harris. But I've never wanted to call them names, cut them off or questioned their humanity. I've had a few former democrat friends drop out after making a personal attack, but not all have reacted like that, thankfully.
That is so sad, and so weirdly common in our strange, social-media-deranged world. I've been writing on that mind-bending dynamic recently. This was published the Sunday after the election: https://leahrose.substack.com/p/meme-logic and this is from this past Sunday: https://leahrose.substack.com/p/my-fing-explanation in response to a viral video chastising the "hating half" of America for daring to vote Trump. The hubris and projection are simply mind boggling. I hope you find a way to break through to your friends. [EDIT to add: I share those two links because some readers and friends have said they felt cathartic to read; they were certainly cathartic to write. Your mileage may vary. Best wishes, regardless.]
I read this quote by Adam B. Coleman this morning that I think is very fitting:
"Only two types of people will tell you to separate yourself from your friends and family because of ideological differences: cult leaders and domestic abusers."
Also, from el gato malo (fellow sub stacker):
"if you are a person who has ideas, there is room for others to have them too. you can disagree and still be friends. you can argue and fight if need be.
but low identity people who ARE their ideas cannot.
the mere existence of other ideas is experienced as attack upon the very basis of the self. if someone else is right and you are wrong, your self-conception falls apart. that’s intolerable. it could leave you with no identity at all and humans cannot handle that."
As is often the case when I read your Tuesday morning offerings I feel the interconnection that you share so lovingly. Perhaps because I live in Santa Cruz county it seems more poignant and even wondrous given the vehemently left-leaning politics. I am neither left or right but because I question the narratives on both sides I tend to keep my political observations to myself. I think it’s a shame and sometimes question whether I am a coward but I also find Trumps’ personality challenging and, quite frankly, feel he’s an asshole when he belittles others and lobbies his brand of personal attacks. Having been ghosted over Covid I am less than eager to set myself up for that from both sides.
But here’s the point of my comment: there’s a crystal hanging in the window next to me and the sun shining through it is splashing rainbows on the walls. Beauty is around and within me. These are moments of heightened awareness. I know deeply at these times that I am not alone. This is the interconnectedness that you shared today and when I read through it I felt my heart begin to sing and my mind was clearer and the way of understanding each other and the world around us opened up. My heart is clear and open and speaking to me in song.
"Beauty is around and within me." Yes. This is one of the most important things.
Sometimes it seems as if we are collectively on a road to privation and dullness, a world that neither recognizes nor values beauty. We cannot give up beauty. There is beauty to be had nearly everywhere--in our work, if we so choose, and in our play; in our bodies and our minds; in our loved ones, both human and not, and in the great outdoors. We should find and celebrate it everywhere.
I have been around a long time, but have never seen something like the TDS discussed beautifully here. The covid debacle at least had some (wrong, but many would not know) misapplied data and studies to which people could point and say "I believe this because here is all this data".
But the easiest way to end any "I hate Trump" conversation is to say "If he is that bad, I would want to hate him, too. Give me five specific examples (or three or one) of what he did that makes you so hateful toward him.." So far, I have yet to get a single one. NOT ONE. When I point out that they have no foundation for their conclusions by their own admission, they usually never speak to me again. (Which likely is its own blessing.)
I have spent too much time trying to understand this unreasoning hatred and have come up empty. When one points out that nothing particularly bad happened when he was President for four years, they have no response. When I point out how hard it is to have an insurrection WITH NOT A SINGLE WEAPON they just say "Worst thing that ever happened to the country". In this axis they have lost all cognitive ability -- including some otherwise very smart people.
I do not understand it and cannot find anyone else who does, either. It seems to me that we could make far more progress if some smart social scientist (Hi Heather!) could explain how this happened.
When I ask that question I get back a long list of assertions about how Trump says and does hateful things: they "know" he's a racist/sexist/homophobe/transphobe/xenophobe/fascist because of the way he speaks AND because he tried to "end democracy" by "overthrowing" the 2020 election using "violent rhetoric" PLUS he's a rapist and "convicted felon." Untangling or refuting the "facts" they have to support all these accusations is nearly impossible because they trust their sources like bibles, which is to say, they have unquestioning faith in the corporate legacy media that hears, assesses, and forwards every blessed facet, word, or act of Trump through a regressive illiberal victim lens—on top of the fact that so few in media ranks hail from or interact with Mainstreet America so they don't know how to see those people or care about their concerns. I think it can best be understood as a cult. Or the result of mainlining a deliberately crafted propaganda narrative—brainwashing. In either case, it is deranging, and rather terrifying in its effects.
I would love to meet your friend! I live on Whidbey and have had the same experiences. Only I lost a dear friend of decades over J6 and COVID, and while we tried, we never could be the same with each other again. All of my siblings are fully in the grasp of the Trump/fascist propaganda as well. My sister happened to be visiting from the East coast over election day. We were both very respectful, but it was quite tense. Walking on eggshells. I hope one day it won't be like that anymore. At least my husband and I have each other and can be excited about the future, but it's pretty lonely in deep blue Whidbey
I so feel your pain... my 'walking on eggshells' time in coming in a few days, as my MSNBC devotee & TDS sister and family are staying here through the entire Thanksgiving week. hopefully her and her husband and my too-smug genius nephew (who still lives with them at age 29, despite having an upper 5-figure job!), have decided between them, to NOT bring up politics OR the convid. at least we are doing the 'agree to disagree' thing and my sister is not trying to lord it over me like my former best friend.
yup, lonely in a room full of people, over here, honey.
My advice to anyone with unsubstantiated fear is to write their fears down on a piece of paper and revisit it now and again to see if any of it came true.
Thank you for posting this and for your brave friend who was willing to share. I have been trying to figure out how to talk to my own mother, whose response to the results was "I hate this fucking country," and who still believes in the COVID narrative. I have tried talking to her about the later and am met with silence and refusal to engage in dialogue, even though she will proudly tout how proud she is that I have an MPH. It baffles me that to this day, she is proud that I jumped through the hoops of higher education but refuses to acknowledge that I may have an educated perspective on the topic of public health.
My friend circle is largely filled with left leaning voters, some of them have asked what happened and really tried to understand, so I engage in that dialogue even though they are still fearful. Others have at least acknowledged that they need to turn off the news as it will drive them insane over the next four years. This, I think, is a crucial first step to alleviating the anxiety and opening the door to doing one's own research in pursuit of the truth.
Unfortunately, my mom is in neither of those groups. She is gripped by anger and fear, and when we talk about the news, she states "well I mostly just watch local news." Maybe that's slightly better in terms of the volume of political rhetoric, but at the end of the day, they are sponsored by the same companies and fed the same script with the same goal if pushing a narrative of fear.
I hope that someday she will engage. I think she suspects how I voted, but she hasn't asked and I haven't confirmed. If she isn't ready to engage in dialogue or look through a different lens... If she isn't ready to honestly ask the question of why this happened despite all of Trump's flaws... How do I have this conversation? Is it even possible? Right now, I am not sure, or at least, maybe I am the wrong messenger. She still shuts down of I mention COVID, so I stopped pushing it because it just seems to make her upset.
So my focus then, is to have dialogue with people who are asking questions or who are at least willing to disconnect from mainstream media. There are many, I think, like my mom, who just believe in the narrative and don't want to engage with the other side. I know there are more extreme examples where people are shutting out friends and family all together. I am so sad for those people who don't care to ask questions or even take that extra step of putting party and division over love, family, friends, understanding, and unity.
I should add that the phrase "I fucking hate this country" was extra shocking, as it was coming from someone who retired from the military. What has happened has been so radical that someone who once signed up to sacrifice their life for this country could turn their back on it in the wake of an election result that they found unfavorable? Isn't this what our men and women put their lives on the line for? It breaks my heart.
It's the histrionics that gets me. My kid attends New College in Florida. After the election in the forum some students were talking about being "Scared I will be deported by congress or interned by executive order", that they are looking to move, and
"If you have any trans friends, no you don't.
If you know someone that's gay, they're the straightest person you know.
If you know anyone that immigrated here, they've been here your whole life."
I was struck by the fact that they are perfectly happy to discuss their anguish in open forum, but that they are not struck by the fact that no supposed fascists/racists/homophobes jumped down their throats for saying these things. Imagine the inverse.
I am also increasingly struck by the many things that I know, but that my normally perfectly rational, happy to buck the system in other ways ex-husband has no idea about (not that we can vote - green cards - but he thought that Kamala would be the lesser of two evils). If you are listening to CNN all day, no matter if you think you understand that they are biased, there's mountains of information that you just don't get, never mind the bits that are biased.
Thank you for sharing. I often wonder where were these forums and where was the compassion for those on the other side of the line, who expressed concern over what a Biden presidency might look like or who were put in an impossible place to have to decide between taking a questionable "vaccine" or giving up their livelihoods? Many of us had fears that did come true, will pay the price for the rest of our lives, but no space was given for those voices.
Moonrise. My husband and I live in Toronto, on the 31st floor of a condo building. Last Saturday, a friend came over at 5pm to join us for dinner. Like we often do on such occasions, the three of us sat with our apéritif by the floor-to-ceiling / wall-to-wall window that overlooks the city facing East. Suddenly, just above the horizon between two high-rise buildings, we saw the moon. "Giant, yellow and full". We turned off all the lights, lit some candles, and went on chatting while watching it slowly turn to white. On reading your piece, I understood that what we had seen was the moon reflecting the sun setting in the West. Thanks.
I love to turn off all the lights whenever the moon is rising in the evening, as our windows also face east. In part, the moon reminds us of how small we are, which can be a very good reminder indeed.
Whenever I find myself in these types of conversations, I offer back, "Everyone thinks they're on the right side of history." I'll usually get back some sort of reply stating the other side is "stupid" and "brainwashed" (maybe with a few ists thrown in.) To which I reply, "That's what they think about you."
And let the silence hang.
I throw in, "There are many in power who love having us at each other's throats."
That usually diffuses the situation and the topic turns to much more interesting things like gardening, family and best nature visits.
Indeed, I don't believe this polarization and division is organic with the way it has increased since 2008. I believe a conscious decision was made to "mine the division". Some would blame Obama but I think he was promoted and elected by the Deep State, blob or whatever to further their own interests rather than his.
What a heartbreaking and wise note. And what a hopeful and inspiring description of the rising and setting of the lights of our world, and how they reflect the natural rhythms of our lives, offering us beauty and comfort. Thank you for sharing both.
The pictures and description of nature's beauty are a good mind cleanser. I have a theory on why half the country has TDS, and I believe it's because of the comfort of complacency and the fear of change, even when many things are going very badly. Trump has promised radical change (for the better, imo), but humans are very habit forming, and any disruption of "The way things are" is uncomfortable and scary. If "The way things are" is providing food, shelter and a chance to improve one's condition, then any change from that course will be resisted, ergo we have the elite Progressives who are doing very well and leading The Resistance, while the Progressives lower on the ladder imagine their utopia coming, and who trust a social safety net will always be there. On the other end we have interest payments on our debt growing by geometric proportions, threatening the food, shelter, future, and children of many on the middle and lower rungs of the ladder, while our civil rights are chipped away. Trump has promised a complete cleansing of "This is how we've always done it." The response has been like that of an abused wife who attacks law enforcement when they try to arrest an abuser. The abuser is familiar and promises thing will get better, while change is a complete unknown.
I feel for your correspondent. Before the plan-demic or the election I had an old and true friend tell me he would be just as happy if I never dropped in on him again. If it had been only me I might have done a bit of soul searching but he informed a lot of our mutual friends that he felt the same about them. When any of us meet the question always gets asked "Heard anything from Pete?" Of course none of us have. He was one of those people that believe the only reason anyone else would come to a different conclusion than himself on any subject at all was their ignorance. We all knew better than to argue with him. Being "right" was not worth tossing away that friendship. What none of us realized was how much of a struggle it was for him to tolerate us! We give him all the space we can in hopes that someday he will be willing to be a part of our lives again. I bring this up only because it seems to be an ever more common attitude in today's society that those that disagree can only do so because they are ignorant or evil. I considered this to be a mental flaw in my friend but it seems to have become normalized in a lot of people today, judging from the comments that are NOT censored by the social media platforms. I would like to think that their worst fears not happening would calm their worries somewhat but my former friend has certainly not had a change of heart. I wonder if those disappointed by the election will?
It is disheartening to see this experience of rejection repeated over and over again. My wife was trying to explain the problems with the Biden border policy, the criminals released, the missing children etc. This long-time friend called her a racist and liar. Haven't heard from him since.
I think most of us have experienced something similar, and I tried to pinpoint the culpret in my own substack. In my opinion it has been 4+ years of psyops, nudge theory, and misinformation by the propaganda media that was intended to make the election about fear of Trump because democratic policies were a total disaster and not much to run on. So it was fear of Trump so vote for Harris, who is not Trump.
End result is a major epidemic of cognitive dissonance. Some will be disappointed and unhappy but will deal with it and maybe change their minds after 4 years of feared disasters not happening. There is no hope for the rest. They will go to the bluesky social media site or continue to consume legacy media biased news. They will live in a closed echo chamber that tells them they are right and everyone else is evil.
Time to stop wasting time trying to understand their irrationality, and time to start rebuilding our Republic.
I have a very dear and beloved niece who is a liberal, and we avoid political topics when we are together. She messaged me the day after Pete Hegseth was put up for DoD Secretary. Her daughter, just under 30, is a Major in the USMC, and a skilled pilot, with several recognitions of excellence. My niece says that now, she will be forced to forgo her future as an Osprey pilot, since it drops off and picks up combatants in war zones, and Hegseth is on record saying he does not believe women should be in combat.
. She finished with”I wonder what else Trump has in store for women?”. The rift will be deepened, I’m afraid, because she doesn’t understand, cannot accept, as another commenter states, how someone as kind as I can possibly vote for Trump. I hate it. I can’t change it. Another liberal niece posted on FB, the day after the election, that we should keep in mind that some people will be negatively affected by the results, and kindness and love should be shown. My thought was, “What, in my history and encounters, makes you think it will be otherwise?”. It is difficult.
Retired USN and female here. I listened to Pete Hegseth in an interview state specifically that female pilots have performed well in combat, and he has no intention of changing their role. I searched for that interview on both youtube and rumble. Of course, it's been cleansed. As far as frontline ground roles, I believe women can fill some, but these are few with few women capable.
>> “What, in my history and encounters, makes you think it will be otherwise?” <<
Yes! This is the knife-edge that cuts so deep. It's like they are suddenly living in an alternate reality in which you've become invisible and your whole history, your relationship, erased. They are suddenly blind to all of it. So deranged.
omg, YES. I'm sure my former bff is sitting there thinking that she has not heard from me because she told me off and I am embarrassed and can't admit she is right. you know, the total opposite of the situation.
I would like to add, at Heather's invitation, that I wrote that piece about my friend and the situation many of us might find ourselves in. So many wonderful and brilliant people, especially and including Heather and Bret, raised their heads above the parapets for years now (too many), and I have no problem raising mine. Ruth Lyons in the beautiful Pacific Northwest
Thank you again Ruth, for your honesty and integrity, your warmth and wisdom.
Thank you for being willing to share. Praying you find a path to greater peace and understanding, through even the losses and heartache. 🙏🏻❤️🩹💝
Thank you so much for sharing and bringing your perspective forward. I think you are spot on in your revelation and I can only pray that more people start to see the light and that this campaign of rule through fear sees its end sooner rather than later.
In sales we have a concept of the pain to gain ratio. Some times getting a sale is worse than losing a sale to your competition. Some customers require more resources, make more demands, than the profit you make will cover.
And it turns out that interpersonal relations have the same kind of math to them. People change over time and not always in good directions. You are probably too nice and will question the compassion of the beast that would make such a suggestion, but it is entirely likely that the time and energy spent trying to maintain this friendship would be better spent on someone else. I bet most of us, have been facing the same "friend" problems. It is unfortunate, but it is real.
I'm in a weekly coffee group with 3 other men. Two liberal Democrats and two independents (although we both lean conservative). I'm the only one who voted for Trump. When the other two found out, it broke their brains. How could this person we like and know to be kind, think this way? Each week I work to explain the reasoning. I don't think it's working. My guess is they will stay in this perpetual confusion because they just can't seem to match two things they know: I'm a good person AND I voted for Trump. It just doesn't compute for them. I'm hopeful they will eventually be able to see both things are true.
I will admit I don't understand the seeming cognitive dissonance of many who voted for Biden and later Harris. But I've never wanted to call them names, cut them off or questioned their humanity. I've had a few former democrat friends drop out after making a personal attack, but not all have reacted like that, thankfully.
right?! same here.
That is so sad, and so weirdly common in our strange, social-media-deranged world. I've been writing on that mind-bending dynamic recently. This was published the Sunday after the election: https://leahrose.substack.com/p/meme-logic and this is from this past Sunday: https://leahrose.substack.com/p/my-fing-explanation in response to a viral video chastising the "hating half" of America for daring to vote Trump. The hubris and projection are simply mind boggling. I hope you find a way to break through to your friends. [EDIT to add: I share those two links because some readers and friends have said they felt cathartic to read; they were certainly cathartic to write. Your mileage may vary. Best wishes, regardless.]
Just read your two posts above, liked your writing, and subscribed.
I read this quote by Adam B. Coleman this morning that I think is very fitting:
"Only two types of people will tell you to separate yourself from your friends and family because of ideological differences: cult leaders and domestic abusers."
Also, from el gato malo (fellow sub stacker):
"if you are a person who has ideas, there is room for others to have them too. you can disagree and still be friends. you can argue and fight if need be.
but low identity people who ARE their ideas cannot.
the mere existence of other ideas is experienced as attack upon the very basis of the self. if someone else is right and you are wrong, your self-conception falls apart. that’s intolerable. it could leave you with no identity at all and humans cannot handle that."
As is often the case when I read your Tuesday morning offerings I feel the interconnection that you share so lovingly. Perhaps because I live in Santa Cruz county it seems more poignant and even wondrous given the vehemently left-leaning politics. I am neither left or right but because I question the narratives on both sides I tend to keep my political observations to myself. I think it’s a shame and sometimes question whether I am a coward but I also find Trumps’ personality challenging and, quite frankly, feel he’s an asshole when he belittles others and lobbies his brand of personal attacks. Having been ghosted over Covid I am less than eager to set myself up for that from both sides.
But here’s the point of my comment: there’s a crystal hanging in the window next to me and the sun shining through it is splashing rainbows on the walls. Beauty is around and within me. These are moments of heightened awareness. I know deeply at these times that I am not alone. This is the interconnectedness that you shared today and when I read through it I felt my heart begin to sing and my mind was clearer and the way of understanding each other and the world around us opened up. My heart is clear and open and speaking to me in song.
Thank you Heather.
"Beauty is around and within me." Yes. This is one of the most important things.
Sometimes it seems as if we are collectively on a road to privation and dullness, a world that neither recognizes nor values beauty. We cannot give up beauty. There is beauty to be had nearly everywhere--in our work, if we so choose, and in our play; in our bodies and our minds; in our loved ones, both human and not, and in the great outdoors. We should find and celebrate it everywhere.
I have been around a long time, but have never seen something like the TDS discussed beautifully here. The covid debacle at least had some (wrong, but many would not know) misapplied data and studies to which people could point and say "I believe this because here is all this data".
But the easiest way to end any "I hate Trump" conversation is to say "If he is that bad, I would want to hate him, too. Give me five specific examples (or three or one) of what he did that makes you so hateful toward him.." So far, I have yet to get a single one. NOT ONE. When I point out that they have no foundation for their conclusions by their own admission, they usually never speak to me again. (Which likely is its own blessing.)
I have spent too much time trying to understand this unreasoning hatred and have come up empty. When one points out that nothing particularly bad happened when he was President for four years, they have no response. When I point out how hard it is to have an insurrection WITH NOT A SINGLE WEAPON they just say "Worst thing that ever happened to the country". In this axis they have lost all cognitive ability -- including some otherwise very smart people.
I do not understand it and cannot find anyone else who does, either. It seems to me that we could make far more progress if some smart social scientist (Hi Heather!) could explain how this happened.
When I ask that question I get back a long list of assertions about how Trump says and does hateful things: they "know" he's a racist/sexist/homophobe/transphobe/xenophobe/fascist because of the way he speaks AND because he tried to "end democracy" by "overthrowing" the 2020 election using "violent rhetoric" PLUS he's a rapist and "convicted felon." Untangling or refuting the "facts" they have to support all these accusations is nearly impossible because they trust their sources like bibles, which is to say, they have unquestioning faith in the corporate legacy media that hears, assesses, and forwards every blessed facet, word, or act of Trump through a regressive illiberal victim lens—on top of the fact that so few in media ranks hail from or interact with Mainstreet America so they don't know how to see those people or care about their concerns. I think it can best be understood as a cult. Or the result of mainlining a deliberately crafted propaganda narrative—brainwashing. In either case, it is deranging, and rather terrifying in its effects.
I would love to meet your friend! I live on Whidbey and have had the same experiences. Only I lost a dear friend of decades over J6 and COVID, and while we tried, we never could be the same with each other again. All of my siblings are fully in the grasp of the Trump/fascist propaganda as well. My sister happened to be visiting from the East coast over election day. We were both very respectful, but it was quite tense. Walking on eggshells. I hope one day it won't be like that anymore. At least my husband and I have each other and can be excited about the future, but it's pretty lonely in deep blue Whidbey
I so feel your pain... my 'walking on eggshells' time in coming in a few days, as my MSNBC devotee & TDS sister and family are staying here through the entire Thanksgiving week. hopefully her and her husband and my too-smug genius nephew (who still lives with them at age 29, despite having an upper 5-figure job!), have decided between them, to NOT bring up politics OR the convid. at least we are doing the 'agree to disagree' thing and my sister is not trying to lord it over me like my former best friend.
yup, lonely in a room full of people, over here, honey.
My advice to anyone with unsubstantiated fear is to write their fears down on a piece of paper and revisit it now and again to see if any of it came true.
Thank you for posting this and for your brave friend who was willing to share. I have been trying to figure out how to talk to my own mother, whose response to the results was "I hate this fucking country," and who still believes in the COVID narrative. I have tried talking to her about the later and am met with silence and refusal to engage in dialogue, even though she will proudly tout how proud she is that I have an MPH. It baffles me that to this day, she is proud that I jumped through the hoops of higher education but refuses to acknowledge that I may have an educated perspective on the topic of public health.
My friend circle is largely filled with left leaning voters, some of them have asked what happened and really tried to understand, so I engage in that dialogue even though they are still fearful. Others have at least acknowledged that they need to turn off the news as it will drive them insane over the next four years. This, I think, is a crucial first step to alleviating the anxiety and opening the door to doing one's own research in pursuit of the truth.
Unfortunately, my mom is in neither of those groups. She is gripped by anger and fear, and when we talk about the news, she states "well I mostly just watch local news." Maybe that's slightly better in terms of the volume of political rhetoric, but at the end of the day, they are sponsored by the same companies and fed the same script with the same goal if pushing a narrative of fear.
I hope that someday she will engage. I think she suspects how I voted, but she hasn't asked and I haven't confirmed. If she isn't ready to engage in dialogue or look through a different lens... If she isn't ready to honestly ask the question of why this happened despite all of Trump's flaws... How do I have this conversation? Is it even possible? Right now, I am not sure, or at least, maybe I am the wrong messenger. She still shuts down of I mention COVID, so I stopped pushing it because it just seems to make her upset.
So my focus then, is to have dialogue with people who are asking questions or who are at least willing to disconnect from mainstream media. There are many, I think, like my mom, who just believe in the narrative and don't want to engage with the other side. I know there are more extreme examples where people are shutting out friends and family all together. I am so sad for those people who don't care to ask questions or even take that extra step of putting party and division over love, family, friends, understanding, and unity.
I should add that the phrase "I fucking hate this country" was extra shocking, as it was coming from someone who retired from the military. What has happened has been so radical that someone who once signed up to sacrifice their life for this country could turn their back on it in the wake of an election result that they found unfavorable? Isn't this what our men and women put their lives on the line for? It breaks my heart.
It's the histrionics that gets me. My kid attends New College in Florida. After the election in the forum some students were talking about being "Scared I will be deported by congress or interned by executive order", that they are looking to move, and
"If you have any trans friends, no you don't.
If you know someone that's gay, they're the straightest person you know.
If you know anyone that immigrated here, they've been here your whole life."
I was struck by the fact that they are perfectly happy to discuss their anguish in open forum, but that they are not struck by the fact that no supposed fascists/racists/homophobes jumped down their throats for saying these things. Imagine the inverse.
I am also increasingly struck by the many things that I know, but that my normally perfectly rational, happy to buck the system in other ways ex-husband has no idea about (not that we can vote - green cards - but he thought that Kamala would be the lesser of two evils). If you are listening to CNN all day, no matter if you think you understand that they are biased, there's mountains of information that you just don't get, never mind the bits that are biased.
Thank you for sharing. I often wonder where were these forums and where was the compassion for those on the other side of the line, who expressed concern over what a Biden presidency might look like or who were put in an impossible place to have to decide between taking a questionable "vaccine" or giving up their livelihoods? Many of us had fears that did come true, will pay the price for the rest of our lives, but no space was given for those voices.
Moonrise. My husband and I live in Toronto, on the 31st floor of a condo building. Last Saturday, a friend came over at 5pm to join us for dinner. Like we often do on such occasions, the three of us sat with our apéritif by the floor-to-ceiling / wall-to-wall window that overlooks the city facing East. Suddenly, just above the horizon between two high-rise buildings, we saw the moon. "Giant, yellow and full". We turned off all the lights, lit some candles, and went on chatting while watching it slowly turn to white. On reading your piece, I understood that what we had seen was the moon reflecting the sun setting in the West. Thanks.
I love to turn off all the lights whenever the moon is rising in the evening, as our windows also face east. In part, the moon reminds us of how small we are, which can be a very good reminder indeed.
Whenever I find myself in these types of conversations, I offer back, "Everyone thinks they're on the right side of history." I'll usually get back some sort of reply stating the other side is "stupid" and "brainwashed" (maybe with a few ists thrown in.) To which I reply, "That's what they think about you."
And let the silence hang.
I throw in, "There are many in power who love having us at each other's throats."
That usually diffuses the situation and the topic turns to much more interesting things like gardening, family and best nature visits.
Indeed, I don't believe this polarization and division is organic with the way it has increased since 2008. I believe a conscious decision was made to "mine the division". Some would blame Obama but I think he was promoted and elected by the Deep State, blob or whatever to further their own interests rather than his.
What a heartbreaking and wise note. And what a hopeful and inspiring description of the rising and setting of the lights of our world, and how they reflect the natural rhythms of our lives, offering us beauty and comfort. Thank you for sharing both.
The pictures and description of nature's beauty are a good mind cleanser. I have a theory on why half the country has TDS, and I believe it's because of the comfort of complacency and the fear of change, even when many things are going very badly. Trump has promised radical change (for the better, imo), but humans are very habit forming, and any disruption of "The way things are" is uncomfortable and scary. If "The way things are" is providing food, shelter and a chance to improve one's condition, then any change from that course will be resisted, ergo we have the elite Progressives who are doing very well and leading The Resistance, while the Progressives lower on the ladder imagine their utopia coming, and who trust a social safety net will always be there. On the other end we have interest payments on our debt growing by geometric proportions, threatening the food, shelter, future, and children of many on the middle and lower rungs of the ladder, while our civil rights are chipped away. Trump has promised a complete cleansing of "This is how we've always done it." The response has been like that of an abused wife who attacks law enforcement when they try to arrest an abuser. The abuser is familiar and promises thing will get better, while change is a complete unknown.
I feel for your correspondent. Before the plan-demic or the election I had an old and true friend tell me he would be just as happy if I never dropped in on him again. If it had been only me I might have done a bit of soul searching but he informed a lot of our mutual friends that he felt the same about them. When any of us meet the question always gets asked "Heard anything from Pete?" Of course none of us have. He was one of those people that believe the only reason anyone else would come to a different conclusion than himself on any subject at all was their ignorance. We all knew better than to argue with him. Being "right" was not worth tossing away that friendship. What none of us realized was how much of a struggle it was for him to tolerate us! We give him all the space we can in hopes that someday he will be willing to be a part of our lives again. I bring this up only because it seems to be an ever more common attitude in today's society that those that disagree can only do so because they are ignorant or evil. I considered this to be a mental flaw in my friend but it seems to have become normalized in a lot of people today, judging from the comments that are NOT censored by the social media platforms. I would like to think that their worst fears not happening would calm their worries somewhat but my former friend has certainly not had a change of heart. I wonder if those disappointed by the election will?
"What none of us realized was how much of a struggle it was for him to tolerate us!"
Well that explains so much, Kelly!
Very good observation.
It is disheartening to see this experience of rejection repeated over and over again. My wife was trying to explain the problems with the Biden border policy, the criminals released, the missing children etc. This long-time friend called her a racist and liar. Haven't heard from him since.
I think most of us have experienced something similar, and I tried to pinpoint the culpret in my own substack. In my opinion it has been 4+ years of psyops, nudge theory, and misinformation by the propaganda media that was intended to make the election about fear of Trump because democratic policies were a total disaster and not much to run on. So it was fear of Trump so vote for Harris, who is not Trump.
End result is a major epidemic of cognitive dissonance. Some will be disappointed and unhappy but will deal with it and maybe change their minds after 4 years of feared disasters not happening. There is no hope for the rest. They will go to the bluesky social media site or continue to consume legacy media biased news. They will live in a closed echo chamber that tells them they are right and everyone else is evil.
Time to stop wasting time trying to understand their irrationality, and time to start rebuilding our Republic.
Dick Minnis removingthecataract.substack.com
I have a very dear and beloved niece who is a liberal, and we avoid political topics when we are together. She messaged me the day after Pete Hegseth was put up for DoD Secretary. Her daughter, just under 30, is a Major in the USMC, and a skilled pilot, with several recognitions of excellence. My niece says that now, she will be forced to forgo her future as an Osprey pilot, since it drops off and picks up combatants in war zones, and Hegseth is on record saying he does not believe women should be in combat.
. She finished with”I wonder what else Trump has in store for women?”. The rift will be deepened, I’m afraid, because she doesn’t understand, cannot accept, as another commenter states, how someone as kind as I can possibly vote for Trump. I hate it. I can’t change it. Another liberal niece posted on FB, the day after the election, that we should keep in mind that some people will be negatively affected by the results, and kindness and love should be shown. My thought was, “What, in my history and encounters, makes you think it will be otherwise?”. It is difficult.
Retired USN and female here. I listened to Pete Hegseth in an interview state specifically that female pilots have performed well in combat, and he has no intention of changing their role. I searched for that interview on both youtube and rumble. Of course, it's been cleansed. As far as frontline ground roles, I believe women can fill some, but these are few with few women capable.
>> “What, in my history and encounters, makes you think it will be otherwise?” <<
Yes! This is the knife-edge that cuts so deep. It's like they are suddenly living in an alternate reality in which you've become invisible and your whole history, your relationship, erased. They are suddenly blind to all of it. So deranged.
omg, YES. I'm sure my former bff is sitting there thinking that she has not heard from me because she told me off and I am embarrassed and can't admit she is right. you know, the total opposite of the situation.