Are you putting all your friends through a political-purity test right now?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Even if my friends did not support President Trump, I would not turn my back on them. They are my friends.

Only hateful leftists do things like that.

The vast majority of breaks with family and friends I know came from the Trumpists. So, there’s some hateful MAGA out there too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Real friends don’t abandon you over politics.

That’s the point. People are deciding to end friendships because they cannot continue like everything is normal and these are just typical disagreements.

This.

[Anonymous]

No political purity test here. Although if someone supports destruction of democracy and our Constitution, we can't be friends. It's a pretty low bar.

[Anonymous]

I wouldn’t unfriend or disown anyone. Honestly, we’ve all been programmed with decades of propaganda that’s gotten more and more extreme. “News” networks, politicians, radio talk shows, podcasts, social media algorithms, hostile foreign governments, “friendly” foreign governments, special interest groups (NRA for example) - have all blasted us with potent, fear inducing propaganda. In order for fear inducing propaganda to work, the intensity has to be turned up regularly and year year it’s gotten so intense that the country is now completely divided.

It’s not your right wing or left wing friend’s fault they’re so worked up - it’s the propagandists. Lots of really intelligent people are deep in the right or left camps.

This is happening in both parties and I suspect the current administration is going to help. Trump is as far right as you can go without turning the country into a full-on dictatorship. The stocks I own are off 35% since he took over, our trading partners are questioning whether they can rely on our stability, we’re likely to leave NATO in which we’ve invested decades, lives and trillions of dollars geopolitically boxing in a hostile nuclear foe - now giving them free reign. Also, the federal government represents 1/3 of our GDP. With cutting spending so dramatically companies with GSA and DOD contracts will have to reduce their workforces which will worsen the economy. The $15 per hour manufacturing jobs that might show up in a few years will not be able to replace these high paying jobs.

I think (hope) that Trump helps recreate the moderate majority. The woke ideologies take away the voice of too many, young men don’t want to vote for the left because they feel excluded. And, you can’t expand the government forever along with spending - there’s got to be reasonable fiscal responsibility at some point.

Currently, neither party works and the country is best governed from the middle.

[Anonymous]

There's no "purity" test...like, if you ordered from Amazon last week because you had the flu and are too tired to boycott Amazon right now, I ain't judging.

But I'm not friends with anyone who is even mildly okay with Trump. I'm heartbroken that I have lived ones who are or were until Musk's minions came to eat their faces.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I wouldn’t unfriend or disown anyone. Honestly, we’ve all been programmed with decades of propaganda that’s gotten more and more extreme. “News” networks, politicians, radio talk shows, podcasts, social media algorithms, hostile foreign governments, “friendly” foreign governments, special interest groups (NRA for example) - have all blasted us with potent, fear inducing propaganda. In order for fear inducing propaganda to work, the intensity has to be turned up regularly and year year it’s gotten so intense that the country is now completely divided.

It’s not your right wing or left wing friend’s fault they’re so worked up - it’s the propagandists. Lots of really intelligent people are deep in the right or left camps.

This is happening in both parties and I suspect the current administration is going to help. Trump is as far right as you can go without turning the country into a full-on dictatorship. The stocks I own are off 35% since he took over, our trading partners are questioning whether they can rely on our stability, we’re likely to leave NATO in which we’ve invested decades, lives and trillions of dollars geopolitically boxing in a hostile nuclear foe - now giving them free reign. Also, the federal government represents 1/3 of our GDP. With cutting spending so dramatically companies with GSA and DOD contracts will have to reduce their workforces which will worsen the economy. The $15 per hour manufacturing jobs that might show up in a few years will not be able to replace these high paying jobs.

I think (hope) that Trump helps recreate the moderate majority. The woke ideologies take away the voice of too many, young men don’t want to vote for the left because they feel excluded. And, you can’t expand the government forever along with spending - there’s got to be reasonable fiscal responsibility at some point.

Currently, neither party works and the country is best governed from the middle.

The problem with your post is that it doesn’t differentiate between the side that is problematic and the side that is completely bat sh!t crazy; the side who should do a better job listening to constituents and the side that inhabits their own alternate reality with alternate “facts;” the side that is pro democracy and the side that is authoritarian. One side wasn’t tough enough on immigration and wanted to let anyone participate in girls’ sports. The other side is ignoring the Constitution and refusing to comply with Supreme Court rulings. Don’t you dare “both sides” this.

We do need moderates, but one party is straight up telling their members that if they don’t obey their master, they’ll be primaried by someone who will. They’re systematically targeting and eliminating their moderates.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Even if my friends did not support President Trump, I would not turn my back on them. They are my friends.

Only hateful leftists do things like that.

Even if my friends beat their wives, steal from their neighbors, and sell drugs to kids, I would not turn my back on them. They are my friends...

People with moral compasses and ethical principles and decency are so horrible...

[Anonymous]

If they cannot commit to uphold the Constitution, or to the prospect that the President is obliged to, there is no there there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If they cannot commit to uphold the Constitution, or to the prospect that the President is obliged to, there is no there there.

It is, incidentally, the same “political purity test” Uncle Sam put me through. So if you don’t like it, take it up with him.