Good person who is politically brain dead

[Cyrano]

I have a friend out west who I have known for many years. She's an empathetic, generous, caring human being who will always go out of her way to help people who need help. Yet, she buys into all the wingnut propaganda. For some reason, she doesn't see that the fringe nuts are against everything that defines her existence.

We communicate mostly by email and I long ago gave up trying to make her "get it." Yet, she is a dear, kind friend and I will not give up our friendship.

She never sends emails that express her own opinions, but she forwards much of the wingnut propaganda she receives to her email address list. I receive it and it's enough to make you puke. Yet, she just can't see that she's forwarding ignorance, bigotry, poison and hate. This isn't her. There's a blind spot somewhere in her that prevents her from seeing that the shit she's sending belies her very being.

I should add that her family truly believes all the wingnut crap. The only way I can explain it is that they don't read, never examine their beliefs, and are addicted to Fox "news" and other shit peddled by fringe nuts.

When it comes to spreading lies, bullshit and hate, we Dems are at a huge disadvantage. We don't have the propaganda machine that the right wing has built over many decades. It seems to me that the saying "The truth will set you free" just can't happen as long as hundreds of radio stations are broadcasting Limbaugh et. al. 24/7.

But back to my friend. She's a wonderful person who is unknowingly helping to bring about her own destruction. And when/if the hammer falls, she'll never know why.

Is she representative of hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of Americans? Given that Trump is in the White House, I fear so. Unless America awakens from its coma of ignorance, we may see another four years of the orange prick. And that will be the end of our democracy and our freedoms.

I wish that my friend, and all like her, could see it. But they can't. They keep drinking the Kool Aid.

[jalan48]

1. I had a friend like this. She was getting her ideas

through friends in her fundamentalist church. I finally told her to quit sending me links to right wing articles. We lost contact after that.

[mitch96]

6. " I finally told her to quit sending me links to right wing articles."

Same here. A friend for over 50 years (yeah, Im a geezer) started that shit in 1995. It eventually got to the point where I would just dump his emails. When we talked on the phone it would eventually gravitate to RW politics he got from faux noise.. I finally told him to stop with the political shit and he slowly just faded away... I have another friend thats a conservative and we agree to dis agree. We DONT talk politics and get along great...
Sorry to hear about your friend and I can empathize with the problem..
m

[Initech]

2. My dad has a friend like that.

One of his best friends is a guy he graduated college with, and he has 3 doctorates in biology and IT, and is a multi millionaire who conquered the bio tech industry. And is one of the smartest people who I've ever met, but when it comes to politics, he's an ultra far religious right Trumpster conspiracy theorist who has Fox News on 24/7. We all get along fine until the subject of politics is brought up, but then...

[Cyrano]

8. Sounds like Alan Dershowitz

who was once a liberal giant who overdosed on Kool Aid.

Dershowitz was a brilliant Harvard law professor who, for some reason, fell off the deep end and became a mindless wingnut.

Go figure. There's just no explaining the wrinkles/knots/twists in the human brain.

[Initech]

16. I'm sure at one point he might have been progressive.

But he's super religious and because of that he drank the wingnut cool aid and there's no coming back. I actually do know quite a few people like this. I really want to try to understand the mind of a Trump cultster which is why I took on doing the Top 10, but 3 years in and I still have no fucking clue how their minds operate.

[marble falls]

3. They keep drinking the kool aid because otherwise they'd have to deal with their misbegotten ...

world view and the baseless pile of poop it is.

[The Genealogist]

4. I know people like this

My aunt, who has done much for me, and is generally a loving person and funny, is like this. She and her whole family are poisoned with hate radio and FAUX news hate propaganda. All she wants to talk about is religion and politics. She forwards some right wing claptrap several times a day. They have always been kooky wingnuts, but these people just get more deluded and bitter as time goes on. It is hard to spend any time around her anymore.

[Downtown Hound]

5. It's your life, choose whatever friends you want

But I will tell you that I cut off everybody in my life who supports Trump. The deciding factor was when I underwent life-saving heart surgery in March of 2017. I almost didn't make it. My heart had failed and they needed to put in a mechanical valve in it to keep it going. I almost didn't make it out of surgery. And the only reason I was able to have it at the time was because of Obamacare. And while I was sitting in the hospital recovering, my chest held together by glue, I watched the Trump administration do everything he could to take away the health care that saved my life. He only failed by one vote.

I realized then that the people who supported Trump who claimed to be my friend weren't really my friend. If they could stand behind him while he did this to me and millions of others, not only do they not really care about me, but they're not really good people. No matter how many times you give a homeless person some spare change or how many hours you volunteer at the local food bank or how willing you are to give someone a ride when they need it and not even ask for gas money, you're not a good person if you support policies that hurt people like this. You're nothing but a sheep who would stand by while the Gestapo dragged people off in the middle of the night, as long as it wasn't you.

When I got well enough I told everybody in my life who supported Trump to go to hell. And I haven't taken any of them back since.

[Cyrano]

7. Hard to give up a loving, kind friend

She had much to do with a personal loss. If it weren't for her politics, I would recommend her for a Nobel Prize for decency.

Her actions in life do not match up with her political beliefs. Yet, those beliefs do not stop her from spreading her innate kindness.

Perhaps, some day, it will be found that the political beliefs she holds are a kind of sickness. Who knows? After all, how can a decent person like her vote for a disease like the orange creature?

I understand where you're at. In most cases, I would agree. But this is one special friend I just can't give up on. Her politics, imo, are misguided. But she is a wonderful human being in her deeds.

[lunamagica]

13. I agree with this so much I need to re-post it

I realized then that the people who supported Trump who claimed to be my friend weren't really my friend. If they could stand behind him while he did this to me and millions of others, not only do they not really care about me, but they're not really good people. No matter how many times you give a homeless person some spare change or how many hours you volunteer at the local food bank or how willing you are to give someone a ride when they need it and not even ask for gas money, you're not a good person if you support policies that hurt people like this. You're nothing but a sheep who would stand by while the Gestapo dragged people off in the middle of the night, as long as it wasn't you.

SO MUCH WORD. I don't believe that anyone who is a good, decent person would ever support trump. How do they justify him mocking the disabled? How can they support people losing their health insurance? Are they OK with babies being ripped apart from their mothers arms to be put in cages?

Please, don't tell ne about the good-hearted trump supporter. There is no such thing.

[Wounded Bear]

9. Doesn't sound like a friend...sounds like a recruiter...

[Cyrano]

10. No. Just a poor soul who has been duped.

[Wounded Bear]

12. Why would she share it if not to get your acceptance of it?

I think you do no favors by receiving such crap and not protesting it.

It's the evangelical strain, needing to get others to join their exclusive club in order to bolster their self esteem. I don't hang out with evangelicals, because they are always selling the "truth." I don't have many salesmen friends, either, though I imagine most pro salesmen know not to pester their friends and family. I'm getting too old for it.

[Turin_C3PO]

11. My grandpa is like that.

He’s a very kind man, PhD in psychology but he’s completely brainwashed by Fox News. The stuff he believes is just unreal.

[lunamagica]

14. So your empathetic, generous, caring friend is OK with babies in cages?

[Cyrano]

15. Yeah, I get it. She doesn't see it

or ever mentioned it. This is part of her "selective" blindness.

[Downtown Hound]

17. I hate to break it to you

But selective blindness is either one of two things: either a genuine psychological or mental disorder, or a character defect. The way you describe your friend, it doesn't sound like she has a psychological or mental disorder.

I'm not saying this stuff is easy, it's hard. I get it. But sometimes true courage means calling out our friends and family, even if it damages us personally. I've lost both friends and family because of Trump. But I would do it again, because some things are bigger than ourselves.

[Maru Kitteh]

18. Have you considered the idea that you may have the blind spot? I'm not trying to be cruel. I

had a few friends I believed to be good, and generous, and kind. I couldn't figure out how they could possibly take part in the furtherance of bigoted, misogynistic, racist propaganda. Then I figured a few things out.

They were generous and helpful and kind to essentially two kinds of people
a) People they saw as being like them. Usually this meant white, and/or part of a long-trusted peer group like high-school classmates, co-workers or neighborhood chums.
b) People they were directed to bestow charity upon or treat with kindness by their church or employer, or because it might be perceived as popular. I came to understand that what was being presented as kindness was really much, much more about being seen, while appearing to be kind.

After considering it for a good long time, and removing my own blinders, I came to accept that a person who spreads hateful, racist, bigoted propaganda does so because it is part of who they are. It reflects their true beliefs and values. It's not accidental. It's not an aberration. They are telling you what they honestly feel.

It hurts. But there it is.