We are all taught from a young age to stand up for what we believe in. Everyone has a right to their opinion, and you might not agree with those opinions, but sometimes, when you care about your relationship with someone, you have to agree to disagree.
Those friendly disagreements are becoming increasingly rare, even when America is not in the heat of a contentious election cycle. On Wednesday, I became a political statistic. No, not a demographic like a female voter or a Midwestern voter. I became one of the newest statistics—people who lose friendships over politics.
Leftists think half of the country voted for Trump because we are racist and misogynistic.
— Seth Gruber (@sgruber91) November 7, 2024
This is the level of narcissistic groupthink that was running the country.
I will start by saying that up until now, I have considered myself pretty lucky; it had not happened to me. Most of my friends are conservative, but I had a few liberals in the mix. I knew we disagreed, but that's okay. Politics is not why we were friends.
For a little background, I have known this person for over 30 years. We met in my former life as a Pharmacy Technician, and she was and is a nurse. I would deliver meds to her floor, and we hit it off. We both worked the second shift at a relatively small county hospital. It was small enough that on that shift, everyone knew everyone else, and we were a tight-knit group. Since one of my jobs was delivering meds, I knew a lot of people.
We all hung out after work at the watering hole down the street and formed friendships and "other" relationships outside of work. My second shift party stories could be a commentary all their own. Since my friend was single and owned a house, her place was often party central. One gathering was so epic that it came to be known by all who attended as "the March party."
My friend's daughter was the product of one of those "other" relationships, a long-term one. At some point, we all moved on to other jobs and life changes, but I was fortunate enough to maintain many of the friendships from those days. That friend eventually reconnected with a high school sweetheart and moved to New Mexico.
My friend always considered herself a bit of a hippie, so maybe it should not have come as a shock when I started seeing so many uber-liberal social media posts from her. Even less shocking, I guess, should have been the fact that her daughter inherited that hippie free spirit. But we kept in touch over the years, and I was lucky enough to watch her daughter, a child I had known literally since the day she was born, grow up, graduate high school, get married, and become a mother herself.
My friend has always been very pro-woman, pro-choice, etc. But maybe it was relocating to a blue state like New Mexico that has been the impetus for her and her daughter becoming full-blown leftists. The first signs came in 2020 when her daughter would post things using the term "Trumptards." I politely tried to explain that she might inadvertently be referring to someone she liked, like me. I was quickly treated to a lecture about everyone having different opinions. Right. So, because these were people I cared about, I stuck to the never religion or politics rule.
Just had a liberal friend of a friend tell me that Trump’s first presidency was comparable to the Holocaust. I cannot anymore with liberals. I do not identify with them anymore.
— Av Michal (@avygal) November 7, 2024
On Wednesday, I went online, and yeah, I gloated, loudly. By that afternoon, I got a message from her daughter that went something like this. "I'm glad you think it's funny that if I were to have another kid and had complications, I could die." Here we go. I answered back that that was not true and that maybe my husband, who had to come out of retirement, could go back after the economy got better. There was more, but the last sentence I typed was, "Love you, but we are gonna have to agree to disagree."
This post was followed by another about an 18-year-old girl in Texas who died of a miscarriage. When I did not have the facts of the case in front of me because I was at the gym, I literally got a reply reading "GOTCHA," which was ultimately what this was all about. Then, still she persisted, writing another post about her blind roommate who would "lose" his social security. I also slapped this one down.
It was at this point that she said I had "showed [my] true soul, and even if [I am] not all the terrible things Trump is, all those things weren't a deal breaker for [me]..." When I tried to respond, the block was on from both of them within seconds.
What struck me was not that it happened but the way it happened. It all seemed so textbook militantly leftist, with each message getting more hostile the more it became clear to her that my views weren't changing, almost as if it was planned. I have a liberal friend who wants to hear different opinions. That is the simple difference between liberals and leftists.
What also is, quite frankly, irritating as hell is the arrogance that these militant leftists insist that we be nice to them while they "grieve," along with their insistence that we believe what they believe. These are the same people that if the results had gone the opposite way Tuesday night, not only would we all feel the knives in our backs, we would feel them gleefully twisting them, all while declaring their moral superiority. So, that's a solid no on "nice" for me.
I am sad that I will not get to see my friend's grandson grow up through their pictures and how much fun she is having being a grandmother, and think about how our lives have changed over all the years we have known each other. What I do know is that this wasn't my choice.
Breaking News, the mental health crisis in America has exploded in the past 5 hours. Please check in on your liberal friend or family member.
— J6Jay🇺🇸 (@Real_BasedAF) November 6, 2024
