Despite my ruminations on whether friendship is possible anymore with those on the dark side, I do have a few old friends on Facebook, who happen to be Trump Republicans. We don’t engage in flame wars. And don’t start them by commenting on each other’s posts … directly. Just appropriate posts to counter their latest pendejadas.
In fact, I prefer people who make no pretense about where they stand to the so-called centrists who like to troll with sophisticated, intellectually pretentious essays telling us why the latest insult to humanity is not really that bad, that unreasonable, illegal, unconstitutional, and worthy of serious consideration.
But what am I supposed to do with someone who posts an explanation for the fires in California from the well-known scientific expert Ted Nugent? This is the same person who was offended when I posted a cartoon deriding the ebola hysteria in 2014. (I guess the so-called caravan coming up from Central America saved us from a repeat of that hysteria during the 2018 midterm elections. FYI, there is currently a dangerous ebola outbreak in the Congo, which is being ignored in American media.) In 2014 I wrote a long piece trying to reach out to her fears. I sent it to her, Her only answer was that she was too busy to respond.
Yet, last week when NJ roads were overwhelmed by a nasty snow storm, she emailed to make sure I was ok.
I guess the best way I can be a friend to her is to do all I can to defeat the virus that is infecting her and too many others in this country. Tough love. No more bullshit about finding common ground.
It’s a really difficult situation to find yourself, of necessity, at war with those you love. The world being what it is, I don’t know that there’s an alternative (TINA, to use the phrase of an extremely destructive British P.M.) other than to find ways to provide tough love, as you said.
On this Thanksgiving day, I want to thank you, Ken, for your thoughtful posts and hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving. And thanks for the link to the Time essay, which I discovered thanks to this post, and for the great picture you head the post with!