I just got into it with a friend (who is now probably a former friend) who told me that my constant talking about all of the scams around covid were hurtful to people like her whose dad died 'from covid' and that I was lacking in compassion. How do you argue with people who want to make this all about emotion? I reminded her that I lost …
I just got into it with a friend (who is now probably a former friend) who told me that my constant talking about all of the scams around covid were hurtful to people like her whose dad died 'from covid' and that I was lacking in compassion. How do you argue with people who want to make this all about emotion? I reminded her that I lost a good friend to the hospital protocol, remdesivir and the vent, and that if she wanted to be angry, be angry at the hospitals and doctors who put liability protection ahead of patient care.
The answer, as you know, is that one cannot argue with people who are incapable of thinking things out for themselves. And this is so sad as is the smashing up of families. But really! That is what 'they' the Woke Marxist elites want ... to destroy the family. And apparently Western Civilization along with it.
Having to live through this is, and is going to be, a hard row to hoe ... and heartbreaking. And this is understatement. But I see no alternative but to resist Evil and to build up Good. To do otherwise is to lose all healthy self-conception, to becomes a kind of walking suicide. Not really any kind of good option.
Such as you describe, this is happening all over the place. And I for one am not going to just forget what 'they' have done to us and reconcile ... and forgive and forget. We have been too badly assaulted in all essentials which count.
Yes, you are right. I got cancelled by a lot of people early on in this thing. This particular friend was an anomaly in that she took my advice and used the zelenko protocol I gave her when she got covid. But then ignored me and got the shot a couple of months later 'as that protected her from variants'. She is a D but not really political and so had managed to stay friends. It's sad but I try to talk sense to people. I am not really a confrontational person, but everyone has their breaking point. I am done. It's been over 3 years and if none of this has gotten through to you I don't think I can help.
I’m sorry, I had someone who I thought was a good friend send me texts in the beginning of 2021 telling me that she didn’t really want to be around me anymore because I was “uncaring” about the people affected by Covid 🙄 Since I wasn’t on board with the lockdowns and masks and mandates. It was very hurtful and upsetting to me at the time. I reminded her that my brother was killed through effects of the lockdowns and my family’s business was affected. But apparently those aren’t important 🙄 I actually don’t have any regrets about losing what I thought was a friendship, if just showed me how shallow and easily manipulated she was and also that she didn’t even value our relationship at all. For your sake I hope your friend reconsiders and sees your pov at least. It’s hard when people you think are your friends are more influenced by the media and “experts” than they are by their actual experiences and relationships with their friends.
Yes, covid killed friendships, sadly. l lost who I thought was my best friend since college, actually over my support for Trump and the Jan 6 incident, when I said this was a psy-op and a lot of these folks were goaded into it. She actually listened to me about a lot of the covid stuff, and I knew she didn't like Trump but we used to still be able to get together and have meaningful conversations. But she went over the edge - moved to the Lake of the Ozarks area around that time to be closer to her dad and hit the leftist and covid kool-aid hard. Kept picking fights with me on social media, and started that uncaring, selfish for not getting the shot stuff. Saying if anyone who supported Trump was a bigot and racist. Her nephew died of a fentanyl OD and I went to his funeral to see her, and she, in person, admitted that her niece who she had said died of covid actually died of liver failure due to alcoholism. Never really apologized though, just said, a lot of things are not as they seem. Her hubby invited us down for a long weekend, and said she would get in touch about calendars, but she never did. Came to both of my kids weddings (my hubby said to un-invite her but I am an idiot that couldn't seem to get the message) that summer and fall, but spent more time talking to my sisters than me. I guess I thought she was going to come to her senses, but after a couple of more social media barbs I just unfriended her and let it go. She lives 3 hours away now, so the odds of running into each other are slim. This latest dust-up was really the last in the line of my pre-covid D friends, we'd been friends since HS, although we only got together a few times a year and didn't really have much in common any more. It's so weird that most of my long time friends were all D's when I have not been a D since the mid-80's and I have been involved with R politics all this time. (well I did campaign for Ross Perot) But we always managed to work that out and have plenty to talk about. Now, everything is political, and I just find myself having little tolerance for those who prefer being woke over being awake. During Tucker's TPUSA speech near the end, he made the point that a lot of this culture war stuff is really just a 'distraction to keep us from noticing they are destroying the country'. That really resonated with me. If I get on FB, my feed is every other post people talking about Jason Aldean. Yeah he is being cancelled over BS, but there is a LOT more important news to talk about. FB is nearly as vapid as the MSM any more. Thank God for Substack.
It’s definitely been both eye opening and disheartening to see the friends who choose their political tribe over their longtime friendships. You can really tell who is afraid of not going along with the crowd and of standing up for themselves. Or those who don’t want to think, but to rely on others to think in their stead.
“Now, everything is political, and I just find myself having little tolerance for those who prefer being woke over being awake.”
Yes. This.
I have had a very similar experience, I used to have lots of friends with very different political perspectives and appreciated our exchanges and discussions but now it’s just “bigot, racist, conspiracy theorist” type of responses and not meaningful and thoughtful conversation. Very sad. Even when they don’t say it to me directly, if I see them make a post on Facebook insulting people who like Trump, didn’t get the shots, etc., I know that’s what they think of me and it’s hard to get past that.
Yes, it's hard to figure out just 'what happened to her'. She and I bonded in college over both of us being involved in Student Government. Both grew up lower middle class, both first in our families to graduate college, both worked our way through, neither of us were follow the crowd types. Over the years she drifted into the intellectual class, moved up the ladder in a foundation that started shifting leftward, never got her PhD but started hanging with that crowd, where I landed in the business world and kept going to the right. But we could still debate, disagree and stay friends. Trumps election in 2016 added a new layer of tension, the writing was on the wall, but don't think either of us wanted to see it. We were going through the motions. I am not sure what prompted her to come out of the blue and attack me but it was inevitable that the friendship was going to end. Guess it's kind of like people who stay in an unhappy marriage due to inertia and then the inevitable blow up happens and everyone goes "What happened?!" I care less that the friendship ended and more that she is not the same friend she was back when we were close. But suppose I am not the same either. I just have less tolerance for bullsh*t than I used to. Maybe a microcosm of conservatives as a whole. We were too nice, too non confrontational, too assured that common sense would prevail. Then Trump came along. I couldn't stand him at first, I was a Carson supporter and then I went to Cruz. But he's grown on me over the years, and while I still think his mouth runs faster than his brain at times, he is right that we need to punch back.
But yeah, most of my ex-friends were more just bandwagon people, don't pay enough attention to realize they are living in a fantasy world. Mark Twain "It's easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled."
It is like a grieving process when you lose a friendship like that 😞
I have very similar feelings about Trump, I definitely can identify with what you wrote.
You know, your description of your friend reminded me of a post Naomi Wolf wrote a while back, about fitting in with the leftist intellectual class. If you haven’t read it yet, you might find it an interesting read.
Thanks for sharing that. Yeah, 39 years, we had been through all kinds of ups and downs together. I am not sure it applies as much to her as she never really assimilated the lifestyle. Just the politics, and the religious fervor/'virtue'. This idea that the 'little people' need government cheese and guidance. And Wolf may have something there with the idea that it's about power. Wokism is her new religion. We were both Catholic although neither of us went to church much in our early 20's but I went back to it, and she wandered in and out until she pretty much quit going a decade or so ago. Got laid off from her job in 2020 and she and her hubby moved 3 hours away to be closer to her aging dad in early 2021 and it's a deep red area. Started complaining about how the people there were uncaring and 'ignoring covid' and being selfish for not getting jabbed. That her Hispanic husband 'faced discrimination and micro aggressions'. Never mind she ignored covid when she lived close, at least around me!? Too many Trump flags put her over the edge? Anyway, she used to have flashes of her old sanity so thought perhaps she would come around, but guess not. Her latest rant yelling at me that I had no compassion and was a bigot like Trump was the end of it. We'd argued before, but she never got personal.
I think a lot of it stems from an inferiority/superiority complex. People, especially those originally from modest backgrounds, feel out of place and like imposters and feel the need to prove they belong, so they mock and reject the populations they came from. They want to feel superior to others and belonging to this political tribe helps them do that. They all sneer at the ignorant bigot Trump voters and pay themselves on the back for being smarter 🙄
BOOM! Think you nailed it there. My parents scrimped and saved and pinched the pennies until they screamed to put all 4 of us girls through Catholic schools, where the vast majority of our classmates saw us as the charity case family. I struggled with 'imposter syndrome' early in my career but once I had kids I made them my priority and didn't give 2 f's what people thought any more. Our 'women warriors' group that started during covid ranges from a woman who lives in public housing to a woman who lives in a multi-million dollar home (that has a great space for holding fundraisers and political events). We are all GOD'S children and are united by a common cause. My friend was never able to have kids, although her white trash brother had kids by 5 different women and she is a great aunt to all these nieces and nephews. But she definitely comes at all this with a superiority complex, that you are right, is probably driven by an inferiority complex. Never thought about it that way but think you are 100% right.
After having observed a lot of these kinds of people over the years, I have thought a lot about why they are the way they are. I also think that they feel some guilt about their success in life (here I’m talking about the “educated” middle and upper middle class leftists) and so that helps drive the whole “we must save the poor and the minorities with our policies and legislation” mentality. This idea is coupled with their sense of being superior, so they think those poor and minority groups are too stupid to make their own decisions and must be told how to live by their “betters.” And they don’t actually care if those populations really *are* helped, just that there are as many government programs in place as possible that pretend to help. They’re tools and useful idiots whose vanities and insecurities are used by those in power to continue to make money and gain influence on the backs of those people they claim to be helping.
I just got into it with a friend (who is now probably a former friend) who told me that my constant talking about all of the scams around covid were hurtful to people like her whose dad died 'from covid' and that I was lacking in compassion. How do you argue with people who want to make this all about emotion? I reminded her that I lost a good friend to the hospital protocol, remdesivir and the vent, and that if she wanted to be angry, be angry at the hospitals and doctors who put liability protection ahead of patient care.
The answer, as you know, is that one cannot argue with people who are incapable of thinking things out for themselves. And this is so sad as is the smashing up of families. But really! That is what 'they' the Woke Marxist elites want ... to destroy the family. And apparently Western Civilization along with it.
Having to live through this is, and is going to be, a hard row to hoe ... and heartbreaking. And this is understatement. But I see no alternative but to resist Evil and to build up Good. To do otherwise is to lose all healthy self-conception, to becomes a kind of walking suicide. Not really any kind of good option.
Such as you describe, this is happening all over the place. And I for one am not going to just forget what 'they' have done to us and reconcile ... and forgive and forget. We have been too badly assaulted in all essentials which count.
Yes, you are right. I got cancelled by a lot of people early on in this thing. This particular friend was an anomaly in that she took my advice and used the zelenko protocol I gave her when she got covid. But then ignored me and got the shot a couple of months later 'as that protected her from variants'. She is a D but not really political and so had managed to stay friends. It's sad but I try to talk sense to people. I am not really a confrontational person, but everyone has their breaking point. I am done. It's been over 3 years and if none of this has gotten through to you I don't think I can help.
I’m sorry, I had someone who I thought was a good friend send me texts in the beginning of 2021 telling me that she didn’t really want to be around me anymore because I was “uncaring” about the people affected by Covid 🙄 Since I wasn’t on board with the lockdowns and masks and mandates. It was very hurtful and upsetting to me at the time. I reminded her that my brother was killed through effects of the lockdowns and my family’s business was affected. But apparently those aren’t important 🙄 I actually don’t have any regrets about losing what I thought was a friendship, if just showed me how shallow and easily manipulated she was and also that she didn’t even value our relationship at all. For your sake I hope your friend reconsiders and sees your pov at least. It’s hard when people you think are your friends are more influenced by the media and “experts” than they are by their actual experiences and relationships with their friends.
Yes, covid killed friendships, sadly. l lost who I thought was my best friend since college, actually over my support for Trump and the Jan 6 incident, when I said this was a psy-op and a lot of these folks were goaded into it. She actually listened to me about a lot of the covid stuff, and I knew she didn't like Trump but we used to still be able to get together and have meaningful conversations. But she went over the edge - moved to the Lake of the Ozarks area around that time to be closer to her dad and hit the leftist and covid kool-aid hard. Kept picking fights with me on social media, and started that uncaring, selfish for not getting the shot stuff. Saying if anyone who supported Trump was a bigot and racist. Her nephew died of a fentanyl OD and I went to his funeral to see her, and she, in person, admitted that her niece who she had said died of covid actually died of liver failure due to alcoholism. Never really apologized though, just said, a lot of things are not as they seem. Her hubby invited us down for a long weekend, and said she would get in touch about calendars, but she never did. Came to both of my kids weddings (my hubby said to un-invite her but I am an idiot that couldn't seem to get the message) that summer and fall, but spent more time talking to my sisters than me. I guess I thought she was going to come to her senses, but after a couple of more social media barbs I just unfriended her and let it go. She lives 3 hours away now, so the odds of running into each other are slim. This latest dust-up was really the last in the line of my pre-covid D friends, we'd been friends since HS, although we only got together a few times a year and didn't really have much in common any more. It's so weird that most of my long time friends were all D's when I have not been a D since the mid-80's and I have been involved with R politics all this time. (well I did campaign for Ross Perot) But we always managed to work that out and have plenty to talk about. Now, everything is political, and I just find myself having little tolerance for those who prefer being woke over being awake. During Tucker's TPUSA speech near the end, he made the point that a lot of this culture war stuff is really just a 'distraction to keep us from noticing they are destroying the country'. That really resonated with me. If I get on FB, my feed is every other post people talking about Jason Aldean. Yeah he is being cancelled over BS, but there is a LOT more important news to talk about. FB is nearly as vapid as the MSM any more. Thank God for Substack.
It’s definitely been both eye opening and disheartening to see the friends who choose their political tribe over their longtime friendships. You can really tell who is afraid of not going along with the crowd and of standing up for themselves. Or those who don’t want to think, but to rely on others to think in their stead.
“Now, everything is political, and I just find myself having little tolerance for those who prefer being woke over being awake.”
Yes. This.
I have had a very similar experience, I used to have lots of friends with very different political perspectives and appreciated our exchanges and discussions but now it’s just “bigot, racist, conspiracy theorist” type of responses and not meaningful and thoughtful conversation. Very sad. Even when they don’t say it to me directly, if I see them make a post on Facebook insulting people who like Trump, didn’t get the shots, etc., I know that’s what they think of me and it’s hard to get past that.
Yes, it's hard to figure out just 'what happened to her'. She and I bonded in college over both of us being involved in Student Government. Both grew up lower middle class, both first in our families to graduate college, both worked our way through, neither of us were follow the crowd types. Over the years she drifted into the intellectual class, moved up the ladder in a foundation that started shifting leftward, never got her PhD but started hanging with that crowd, where I landed in the business world and kept going to the right. But we could still debate, disagree and stay friends. Trumps election in 2016 added a new layer of tension, the writing was on the wall, but don't think either of us wanted to see it. We were going through the motions. I am not sure what prompted her to come out of the blue and attack me but it was inevitable that the friendship was going to end. Guess it's kind of like people who stay in an unhappy marriage due to inertia and then the inevitable blow up happens and everyone goes "What happened?!" I care less that the friendship ended and more that she is not the same friend she was back when we were close. But suppose I am not the same either. I just have less tolerance for bullsh*t than I used to. Maybe a microcosm of conservatives as a whole. We were too nice, too non confrontational, too assured that common sense would prevail. Then Trump came along. I couldn't stand him at first, I was a Carson supporter and then I went to Cruz. But he's grown on me over the years, and while I still think his mouth runs faster than his brain at times, he is right that we need to punch back.
But yeah, most of my ex-friends were more just bandwagon people, don't pay enough attention to realize they are living in a fantasy world. Mark Twain "It's easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled."
It is like a grieving process when you lose a friendship like that 😞
I have very similar feelings about Trump, I definitely can identify with what you wrote.
You know, your description of your friend reminded me of a post Naomi Wolf wrote a while back, about fitting in with the leftist intellectual class. If you haven’t read it yet, you might find it an interesting read.
https://naomiwolf.substack.com/p/how-not-to-become-a-sociopath-the
In case you’re interested 🙂
Thanks for sharing that. Yeah, 39 years, we had been through all kinds of ups and downs together. I am not sure it applies as much to her as she never really assimilated the lifestyle. Just the politics, and the religious fervor/'virtue'. This idea that the 'little people' need government cheese and guidance. And Wolf may have something there with the idea that it's about power. Wokism is her new religion. We were both Catholic although neither of us went to church much in our early 20's but I went back to it, and she wandered in and out until she pretty much quit going a decade or so ago. Got laid off from her job in 2020 and she and her hubby moved 3 hours away to be closer to her aging dad in early 2021 and it's a deep red area. Started complaining about how the people there were uncaring and 'ignoring covid' and being selfish for not getting jabbed. That her Hispanic husband 'faced discrimination and micro aggressions'. Never mind she ignored covid when she lived close, at least around me!? Too many Trump flags put her over the edge? Anyway, she used to have flashes of her old sanity so thought perhaps she would come around, but guess not. Her latest rant yelling at me that I had no compassion and was a bigot like Trump was the end of it. We'd argued before, but she never got personal.
I think a lot of it stems from an inferiority/superiority complex. People, especially those originally from modest backgrounds, feel out of place and like imposters and feel the need to prove they belong, so they mock and reject the populations they came from. They want to feel superior to others and belonging to this political tribe helps them do that. They all sneer at the ignorant bigot Trump voters and pay themselves on the back for being smarter 🙄
BOOM! Think you nailed it there. My parents scrimped and saved and pinched the pennies until they screamed to put all 4 of us girls through Catholic schools, where the vast majority of our classmates saw us as the charity case family. I struggled with 'imposter syndrome' early in my career but once I had kids I made them my priority and didn't give 2 f's what people thought any more. Our 'women warriors' group that started during covid ranges from a woman who lives in public housing to a woman who lives in a multi-million dollar home (that has a great space for holding fundraisers and political events). We are all GOD'S children and are united by a common cause. My friend was never able to have kids, although her white trash brother had kids by 5 different women and she is a great aunt to all these nieces and nephews. But she definitely comes at all this with a superiority complex, that you are right, is probably driven by an inferiority complex. Never thought about it that way but think you are 100% right.
After having observed a lot of these kinds of people over the years, I have thought a lot about why they are the way they are. I also think that they feel some guilt about their success in life (here I’m talking about the “educated” middle and upper middle class leftists) and so that helps drive the whole “we must save the poor and the minorities with our policies and legislation” mentality. This idea is coupled with their sense of being superior, so they think those poor and minority groups are too stupid to make their own decisions and must be told how to live by their “betters.” And they don’t actually care if those populations really *are* helped, just that there are as many government programs in place as possible that pretend to help. They’re tools and useful idiots whose vanities and insecurities are used by those in power to continue to make money and gain influence on the backs of those people they claim to be helping.