this post was submitted on 10 Jul 2025
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Same. I lost my 15 year best friend over this earlier this year. It still hurts and it sucks but I'm not friends with fascists
i cut off my own mom bc she thinks being trans is a jewish conspiracy and refuses to talk to me about literally anything else because i'm trans, and burnt a 15+ year friendship because he refused to have a conversation that wasn't some stupid debate-me bro culture war bullshit, even when i literally cried and begged. sucks but i can't save them, and i won't be bullied for the sake of a relationship that's clearly already over for them.
you did the right thing. stay strong, friend. ๐ซ
You did the right thing too. I hope you've made some new friends since all that. I've cut off the one friend and had to distance myself from other friends that enabled him. You invited both of us to your birthday party? Guess I'm not going. The good news is that this has pushed me to value my friends that aren't crazy and make more deep connections with new people. I hope you were able to make the same shift.
Tangent: I swear the best way to break down the narratives around trans people is to just make casual friends with a trans person. You naturally want to respect your friends and see them as normal people and then all the talk about bathrooms, grooming, etc just seem so silly. Years ago I felt like the bathroom arguments held water. Then I watched my trans friend just walk into the bathroom and it seemed like such a non-issue after that. Now she's one of my best friends.
It's sad cuz I've watching this guy pick up and put down 30 different interests all in a desperate search for external validation.
MAGA is a cult.
Do we know the same guy? My guy bought a bass and a bunch of music production equipment and never learned to use any of it. He's got dreams of being a writer and he hasn't written anything.
Overall he's lived in several big cities and never made friends, eventually moving back to where we used to live to be closer to his college friends (he's 30). He has struggled in his career, love, and social life and turned to Jordan Peterson. He likes reading. I think if he just joined a book club 7 years ago all of this could have been avoided because he would have made some friends.
Bruhhhh. If it weren't for the bass guitar / production equipment I'd say yes haha. Did your bro also join the trucker convoy?
No. That would be doing things. He doesn't do things. Except one time he drove two hours to visit our friends for the weekend. Except he was actually just crashing at their place so he could see Jordan Peterson live. He didn't tell them that until he was there. He's been super cagey about his politics. I got hints over the years but I figured he was starting to mellow out after the pandemic settled. Turns out he just learned not to talk politics around his friends. In January I finally confronted him about his beliefs on specific issues, hoping that I was over-extrapolating and actually he just had a few mixed views. Nope, full on fascist. We used to talk on the phone every couple of weeks. I've completely cut contact since. Sorry for venting.
Nah all good. I don't think my bro is full on fascist. I asked him directly and he acted incredulous. He's always gotten off on the being different kick; albeit out of spite. We were raised in a proto-maga church environment. Now that he perceives Christianity as anti-establishment he's got the koolaid on iv.
Him and my sister are how I know MAGAs don't listen to trump, or engage anything for that matter, directly. They've all been conditioned by their church pastor to get their opinions from someone else. That's why we're seeing this phenomenon of MAGAs waiting for their opinion on every breaking story. They don't seek knowledge, or do a single ounce of fact checking.
Some people will only learn the hard way, if that.
It's worse than that, I think. From my experience with my guy, critical thinking, reason, and evidence are enemies of truth. Any authoritative voice on a subject is evidence of falsehood. The entire establishment is meant to hypnotize us into submission of the elites. The frustrating thing is, that's kind of correct. Capitalism has pushed mainstream media to be spun into propaganda. Elites (the rich) are holding increasing levels of control over society. Maga is taking this grain of truth and telling a compelling narrative about elite democrats using immigrants to get more votes. All of academia is left-wing propaganda, etc. It conveniently shifts the focus from class issues to demographic and anti-intellectual issues.
I can't disagree with any of that. All I'll add is the saying, "Religion is the opiate of the masses."
Cuz I cannot ignore the connection between evangelical/charismatic Christianity and people susceptible to MAGA bullshit.
Yep. My guy is also "getting more christian" (aka christo-fascist) despite not going to church since he was a kid. Turns out, thinking a specific ideology is not only correct, but ordained by God, allows you to dehumanize anybody who isn't completely falling in line.
At least we're no longer alone bro
So true. Hope you've been able to make some more deep connections with people who aren't crazy. Thanks for giving me the space to vent about this.
That's why I'm on lemmy.ca... Trauma bonding with my fellow Canadians lmao!
It was cathartic on my end as well. Thanks my dude!