a bunch of history that is very relevant-
During the last Presidential election, I spoke out against Trump to anybody who would listen and at every possible opportunity. My friends Bob and Stephanie (they have been married for many years now) were Republicans. They had left the Republican party the first time it had named Trump as their official candidate. They were both engaged in a lot of false comparisons and both-sides-ism. Through reasoned debate based on logic and evidence, I was eventually able to covince them that if elected Trump would do all kinds of horrible, evil things.
Bob, for reasons he never revealed to me, said that he could not in good conscience vote for Harris. He proudly posted that he was doing his civic duty by sitting out the election. I attempted various arguments and historical precedents to convince him to vote Harris. I could not get through to him.
Stephanie (I have told this story here before) said that Harris had made two contradictory speeches about Israel. I politely aksed what exactly Harris had said. Stephanie stunned me by saying ‘You should just Google it’. I pointed out that without narrowing the search parameters, I would need to read the entire text of every speech Harris had made during the entire campaign. I asked if she could be more specific. She said ‘I am not going to spoonfeed you the information. Do your own homework!’. Yeah, I expect that kind of crap from strangers on the internet. I had known them for at least twenty years at this point. I politely restated that without more specific information, I could search from now until the sun goes red giant and consumes the earth without ever finding anything. She explained that she was used to providing cites to strangers on the internet and then having them dismissed unread or otherwise ignored. I reminded her that I was not a stranger. I had known them for at least twenty years and generally attended Passover seder at their house. I reminded her of who I was and how I argued. If her cite was good, I would adjust my argument. If the cite was bad, I would demonstrate in detail why it was bad and provide my own cites to counter it. She never responded.
While on Facebook in the laundromat, I saw a post by Bob. I remain stunned and in a very unpleasant way. He called the No Kings demonstrations “nonsense” and said they were funded by shadowy political organizations he didn’t name. He said that there was no way Trump could ever become king. If you thought Trump could become king, either ‘you never had faith in the Constitution or founding documents of this country’ or you were just ‘a scared bunny’
I am very carefully deciding how to respond. As I see it, after all they have done for me I owe them one chance to see the light before I shut them out of my life forever. If he will not see reason (This is not a matter of opinion. Yes, the Constitution has checks and balances built in. They should have stopped Trump a long time ago. Unless people enforce the Constitution and the law, they are just empty words) I will shut them out of my life anyway.
This really stinks. They were fun to game with. One year they treated the whole group of us to tickets at the PA Renn Faire. A few years ago they bought me a 3D printed Cthulhu dice tower. They were great hobbits. Since the election, I have been wondering if I could forgive Bob for standing by and taking no action to stop Trump from a second term. There is no way I can, or should forgive, what seems to be his present position.
I have lost friends before. This is usually because they have died. I think this will be the first friends I lost because they aided and abetted fascism.