With the way that the media and Hollywood celebrities keep fanning the flames of hatred against Trump and conservatives, how are liberals family members, friends, or acquaintances in your life holding up? I know that it is tradition to revel in their salt, but I also can't help but feel some sympathy for the level of anguish that the media is instilling in them. These people have been led to believe that conservatives and Trump are on the verge of holocausting minorities. With no evidence, they are convinced that a Russian operative is in control of our nation and that the whole world is ending. People are being driven to violence because they truly believe that their opponents are the most evil of individuals and that the end will justify any means. It is a perfect example of how dangerous it is to give in to peer pressure and how baseless rumors can can threaten truth through the power of "consensus". So how are those around you holding up to the media fear mongering?
I guess I'm making this thread because I suspect that the turmoil led to the dissolution of a friendship between me and someone that I knew since high-school. A few of you might remember the thread that I made last year about mending friendships. A quick summary is that, prior to Trump's victory in the 2016 Presidential election, a friend of mine from my high-school days overheard me voicing my displeasure of the migrant crisis and rape epidemic in Europe. He basically freaked the fuck out and defriended me on steam and other media platforms. Fast forward a bit and /mlpol/ was born from a critical miscalculation of 4chan's compromised mods. That got me watching the show, and the constant themes of friendship got me wondering if a good friend would make an effort to repair a broken friendship, and give the asshole an opportunity to apologize? That's when I asked you guys whether or not I should give this guy another chance. Long story short, I decided to extend him an olive branch via an avenue of communication that he forgot to block. He seemed to have cooled off by then and was willing to hang out with me, play games, and talk about non-political topics. Although he never apologized for how he acted, and I didn't want to open up old wounds.
Fast forward again through a year of Trump's presidency and approximately about the time that /mlpol/ was preparing for its one year anniversary. I had thought that things were going well. He had just convinced me to buy Vermintide 2 for co-op funtimes. As far as I could tell, he was happy and we were on good terms. Then I didn't hear from him again. Initially I assumed that he was just busy. Weeks went by and I sent him some messages to see if he wanted to go golfing or see a movie. Silence. Weeks turned into months, and I reached out to him again to ask him how life was going and that I was concerned since I hadn't heard from him in awhile. No reply at all. I actually checked the obituaries to make sure that some terrible accident hadn't befallen him. Then, earlier this week, he defriended me again on steam and other platforms. I feel insulted more than anything.
I don't have plans to attempt to patch things up again. I feel that this is a "scorn me once, shame on you, scorn me twice, shame on me" type of thing. I basically just haven't decided if I'm going to leave him be in his silence, send him one final message of goodbye, or to send him a goodbye message with an open invitation to listen if he ever needs someone to talk to. I don't really feel like that last option at the moment, but I know that the left eats their own. They absolutely need someone to single out as an oppressor for them to blame all of their woes on. Given time, the left will turn on him and he'll be alone. I don't take solace or satisfaction at the thought of the misery of someone that I considered to be my friend for a long time. I'm not sure if that makes me a fool, a better person, or both. But that's how a I feel.
I don't know what influenced his decision to break away again since I had avoided topics that would upset him, and to my knowledge we were on good terms when we last spoke. I assume that it was rhetoric like Maxine Waters' call to rise up against Trump supporters that got to him.
So that's my blog post. Pic mildly related. Kinda melancholy like I'm feeling right now. How are the never-Trumpers in your life holding out? Especially with news like the Trump nominating a new Justice for the US Supreme Court?