BlueSky is for BlueAnons. They are so deep in the echo chamber asylum, they don't even notice that the walls are padded. You cannot reason with a demoralized person, but they're <10% of the population.
Wait until they get to experience the joys of "content moderation". It all sounds wonderful, until they find themselves slightly out of step with the groupthink and find themselves "moderated".
It’s true… Ana Navarro on The View yesterday opining on Mika and Joe jetting to Palm Beach needed to tell firmly tell us that she “ would never accept an invitation from Trump” …😂😂😂 seriously girlfriend, not to worry… their persistent hubris and self appointed “ gravitas” is testimony to their narcissism. The naked emperor analogy is over used, but yes, that. The legacy media’s ratings are plummeting , at some point one would think that would knock them off their high horses…
They should send her an invitation, by mail, on fancy gilded paper, and see what happens...Maybe even offer to let them shoot an episode from Mara Lago!
Make sure the audience is covered in plastic a la a Gallagher concert because their heads would likely explode.
They've completely climbed up their own ass. I'm also enjoying watching this total disintegration of their cultural hegemony. I wrote a similar article basking in victory, take a look if you have the chance: https://alwaysthehorizon.substack.com/p/seize-the-memes-of-production While this cultural combat is far from over, it's nice to take a week to enjoy yourself after a victory this monumental
Yes ... yet they are scrambling to organize, and are generating calls to block the most scary, unethical, authoritarian menaces in Orange Man Bad's cabinet. Seems like they're most terrified of .... Bobby Kennedy and Tulsi Gabbard(!!!!!!)
Because the deranged media tells them those are the most dangerous.
Objectively, there are real reasons for some concern with Trump and some of his picks, and plans, and more reasons for curiosity and to keep an open mind.
But of course the biggest fears are the ones least tethered to reality. The ones with the clearest integrity, the most liberal values, the ones that sane lefties may say, "At least Bobby and Tulsi will bring some heart-centered balance to The Bad Man".
They fear that which has the most integrity. But there are a lot of good people believing what they're told. I despise the media ....
I got an earful of this sort of thing in my book group meeting just last night. One member announced— first thing she said after she took off her coat and stomped into my living room— she had arranged to celebrate Thankgiving WITHOUT the Trumper relatives, they were disinvited, and it would ONLY be people with whom she could stand to be, and they would all grieve.
Goodness, I said. What would you like to drink?
And then we all had a very civilized conversation about the novel we had met to discuss, of a lonely lady of long ago.
Sometimes these vestiges of my pre-covid life seem really exotic to me, what can I say.
It would be interesting to somehow anonymously inform her that one (or more)of the group she just had such a lovely time with finds her political isolation repugnant and (gasp) voted for Trump. Would she think huh I guess I CAN get along with and have good conversations with those I disagree with politically…or would she rage quit?
I'm not saying this is right for everyone, but for me, where I am, I think it's long past the time for trying to argue or to show them anything. They can lift a finger and find out all sorts on things online. But they won't. They can also put two and two together and come up with something besides 7. I just let them be. I put my efforts where they're likely to have more impact.
You won't change them...and you are a good person. I play with a ukulele group and I really like all the people I play with. I would say the majority of the players (older women) didn't vote for Trump. We don't bring it up though...we stick to music and having fun. I did tell a few that they "would be fine" during 2020 when we didn't meet for awhile. They quit the group and I have no contact with them- their choice...(sigh)
My sister would choose a third option - shut down all conversation she thinks *might* lead to politics or religion, even if the book had neither theme. She works to control all conversation so that her worldview is never challenged. Talking to her is shouting across the DMZ. She’s so lonely and isolated. It’s heartbreaking. Her friends are fawning sycophants, something that somehow makes it lonelier. She refers to her brittle narcissism as ‘evolved’. I wish I could pull her out of it and we could laugh together again.
I’d have said, HaVE fun with the vegan turkey and dairyless mashed potatoes, plus prepare to cook and spend yourself silly bc, uh, MOST of the best cooks and most willing to spend to cook the”yums” are (wait for it), those of us who can afford it bc we have been (wait…), conservative.
Also, we haven’t “had to” buy a lot of blue hair dye and head shavers.
I’ll be over here with 14 veggies, GREAT turkey & gravy, terrific steak, ham, and about 10 desserts— with real dairy and real… ALL the things, surrounded by all the normies and the deliciousness they tend to bring.
We had the experience for years where we cooked a great meal for, so called, friends but somehow they never reciprocated and invited us over. One couple actually said to us that we should have them over again. I told them "I think it is your turn." We never saw them again. Over the years our invitation list kept getting triaged down to only a couple of friends that have remained so for over 50 years.
How about “ I’m sorry, I’m out of your brand of Kool Aid, how about a big glass of reality?” Somewhere along the line, I learned that narcissists stop maturing around 8 years old, which would explain these displays of ridiculously immature behavior.
That's the old "They'll be sorry when I'm gone!" mindset. Maybe not so much. The Trumper group might have their own party and be delighted that Miss Stick-Up-Her-A$$ isn't present. She'll never even imagine that and she'll probably never even know.
Kudos to you because I’m sure it never occurred to her, you could’ve helped her back ON with her coat, saying you had arranged to spend the book club without the Kamalites, that she was disinvited and you would be spending book club ONLY with those you could stand, and you would all do the very opposite of grieve! 😝
Splendidly mature. LOL. That beats being decrepitly mature, I guess. That reminds me, one of my favorite true life characters was a British officer in East Africa in WWI who was known to all behind his back as "Splendid Haha." Because no matter what anyone said to him, apparently, he said, "Splendid! Haha!"
On a more serious note, though, this encounter I described is for me a common one and I always find it both sad and disconcerting. I'm fine with how I dealt with that particular person and situation, but it's not always clear in the moment what would be best to say or do. I would imagine that each of us here in the weeds of bad cat's comments section have had some heartbreaking times, but in all, we wouldn't be here if we weren't pretty tough, and blessed with a good sense of humor. Thanks for being here.
Definitely not always clear in the moment indeed. Last week I went to a party and had an absolute ball telling a bunch of rich Dutch leftists I voted for Trump and actually had some good conversations. But yesterday I had a meeting with the other voluntary librarians at school and could not open my mouth when one of the teachers started bad mouthing parents who request their constitutional right to exempt children from sex ed in 6th grade, mostly because it has turned into extreme ideology in recent years. You win some you lose some I guess. But I do relish getting lost in the weeds here with you. It really does give me strength to go on!
Loved your subtle ironic poke at your friend. "And then we all had a very civilized conversation about the novel we had met to discuss, of a lonely lady of long ago."
Our dogs have trained us much better than we have trained them. I can assert authority from time to time but unless I use "the voice," they do what they will regardless of what I have instructed them to do. The worst is our terrier mix; very willful.
My terrier mix is a willful beast too. At best he will do what I want to avoid FOMO (which he has in spades, any time I leave the house he's panicked, when back I get a parade of kisses and jumping and walking on hind legs). Quite the change from the girlboss black cat I had as my last quadruped companion, who was like "oh, it's just you again" when i'd return!
Not if you live in the country and walk the dogs on country roads. I used to have a cat that would take the walks with us, too. He would actually disappear for several days then we found he would visit neighbors and mooch meals.
I have friends(well they may not consider me a friend anymore) who fall into this category. They are good people. They are not strong people. I want to help them, but I am now the enemy. I hate the purveyors of this nonsense intentionally destroying the weak minded for their own satisfaction....and there is absolutely nothing I can do about it.
You can be there for them when they come to their senses. At which time they will need unjudgemental friends like you. You're right, you can't talk them out of the cult, but you can show and support them when they're ready.
The people I know in this state of mind CRAVE the mindset they are in- gives their lives meaning somehow. I swear people LOVED the drama of masks, distancing and lockdowns. This is the replacement for all that- they won't admit we were lied to, shots were stupid and thousands got rich from the hype pushed at us. This is the new theater.
They need a religion and since most won't truly believe in a God, they find a substitute. The Climate Change devotees do the same thing. They need something larger than themselves to make their lives meaningful but reject conventional religions for the most part. (As an aside, the conversion of significant numbers of native-born British women to Islam is exactly because it gives them meaning and order in their lives. Most Christian denominations have become so accommodating to the latest popular cultural fad that there's little satisfaction in adhering to them. They are weak, where Islam is strong.) They have their sacraments and their sins but most notably most of these cults do not allow for redemption of sin. Once condemned, always condemned.
It's ironic that those who give lip service to diversity and inclusion are so ready to exclude those whose opinions diverge from their own.
Spot on! I have a family member who disdains Christianity (she was raised in a nominally Christian household), but thinks that any other religion (Islam, Buddhism, pantheism, whatever) is just so "spiritual" and meaningful. In a similar way, to her, all "people of color" are superior to white people (she is white). I think she is equal parts intrigued (i guess?), and also convinced that people who are non-white and/or non-Americans are somehow more virtuous...and thus she is showing her own virtue and intellectual superiority in embracing them. It's hard to explain, especially since I don't understand it. But it's very annoying.😆
Adam Coleman’s comment is spot on. It’s so bizarre to me how people will believe some stranger’s assessment of friend and family they’ve known and had relationships with for YEARS. And cut those people off by someone else’s command to do so. But I guess it goes with the same mentality of taking the shots and wearing the masks. Blind obedience and adherence to group think. It is a very cultish mindset which is funny because they kept accusing US of being part of a cult 🙄
I bet Alex Winter has a “hate has no home here” and a “be kind” sign in front of his house or on a bumper sticker too 😑🙄
Something worth highlighting is that in such an explicit echo-chamber, the purity spiral will crank up to 11, as virtue-signalling and diminishing profit go off the cliff.
My home is getting pretty cold already. I said to my wife that "we should at least burn a few faggots", "faggots" being bundles of wood. I guess we can add that to the long list of things we can't say these days.
Back in the day, I would for a global cooperation in Ireland. The Irish were chain smokers and called cigarettes "faggots" or "fags". On a training trip to Ohio manufacturing headquarters, I was having lunch with some of the Irish in the company cafeteria. We had finished eating and were having coffee when one of the chain smokers said "I would really like to suck on a fag right now". The entire cafeteria went dead quiet. He looked around at the people staring at him in shock. Oblivious to the vernacular he said to the rest of us at the table "You Yanks have taken this non-smoking thing too far".
I was working at the front desk of a hotel when a guest asked me where they could smoke a fag. I knew what he meant but the initial thought was,he wants to kill a faggot? As soon as he left I busted out laughing.
Substack is the only place I post my arrogant, humble, erroneous and snarky opinions. I never have commented on Youtube Twitter Facebook (also known as You twit face).
I learned my lesson from early blogs, and Linked In (when I was taking some courses at the time Lynda was bought by linked in and the climate changed so that any politically incorrect anti-narrative questions & opinions would get bullied).
Sadly, at least where I live, social media leaks into real life, where it's a 'given' that professional, middle and upper class people vote BLUE - and since I don't talk about any political stuff, they assume I voted as they do. It's very strange.
That's what they do. I was briefly a member of the lefty blogosphere, years ago, when blogs were new. There was a major battle over the use of the word "lame" - I used it as a slangy pejorative and this nut who had a popular blog (and has since become queen Wokester nutjob) was alllll over it with the insults and the horror that I'd use a word that might somehow someway negatively affect someone with disabilities.
Within a year or 2 I was really done with most lefties. The ones who still like to identify as lefties but voted for Trump are the only ones I can stand as they at least have some ability to change their thinking instead of blindly adhering to the dictats of the blue cult. They are the ones who battle big pharma and are anti-war. So they stuck to their principles while the blue cult moved ever more authoritarian.
Look at Trump's inner circle pictures. Most of them were once democrats. And, like Ronald Reagan once said: "I didn't leave the democrat party the democrat party left me. Same with most of the doctors that spoke out against the Covid lock down mask up policies and the subsequent inoculations.
Yes, I was too at one point. I only turned Republican in 2015 and I really don’t like the Republicans because they are not conservative at all. They are getting ridiculous!!
I think there are only a few Presidents that were legit elected instead of selected. Those like Reagan and Trump both had "minder" VPs. HW Bush was CIA directer, Pence? where did he come from and who selected him for Trump. The election stealing became over the top in 2020. We can see how they are still at it in this election despite the overwhelming win of all three branches.
I was an independent most of my life. I always voted. It used to be that at the county level we could vote for the person we thought could do the job best. It did not matter so much if they we D or R or third party. Those days are gone because the parties vote in lock step from the top to the bottom. They have forgotten that they are supposed to be working for all the people when elected. Trumps MAGA (and MAHA) populist movement is the only bright spot at present. The economy is so scary that people must vote in their best interests. Now, as I write this, they are talking about impeaching Biden and removing him via article 25 and having Harris be President until January 20th. What are they actually planning to do with that?
The so-called Democrats, who gave us FOIA, who fought against the war machine in Vietnam and pushed for civil rights became everything they supposedly were against because they became the moral busybody tyrants that CS Lewis refers to when he said, “those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”
They think they are the good ones and they can’t see their own cognitive dissonance. All one has to do is talk with enough legal immigrants who escaped a tyrannical government and work with too many incompetent DEI hires to get it and realize America is on the cliff of totalitarianism.
And, if the new cabinet does play out the way Trump envisions, the reality might prove to more and more of these moral busybodies that the Twitter Files was only the first layer of the onion of corruption. It needs to happen, but we will not be eating popcorn.
Nietzsche said, “Out of chaos comes order.” But what kind of order will it be?
Civil rights is an alternative system of law to the United States Constitution, deliberately framed to weaken the latter. Like income tax, it should have absolutely no place in this republic.
😂😂😂I asked my sister, a few days after the election, if she had recovered. She then went into this ramble about the majority vote, she will accept the majority’s vote, she does not understand it, but now she will just pay more attention to her plants. I then said, I was not asking you about the election results, I was asking about your week looking after the grandkids.
I was in a religious cult for 25 years. A fairly mild one but all the cult symptoms were there. At one time, they made a couple with several children divorce because they married without permission from the local church. My sister was thrown out because she would not move 50 miles with no job and 2 young children to be able to get to church every week after a divorce from an abusive husband they initially refused to honor. The “divorce counselor” betrayed her confidence and told her husband what she said. We were encouraged to stay out of the world. Much of that abuse was stopped under new leadership. I certainly know a cult when I see one. The Democrats are a cult, damaging people everyday. I’m glad I’m out. I thank God I’m out of the Democrat’s cult.
I was very young and looking for something it had wonderful people and actually the church recognized its many errors and changed fundamentally to accept Christ and grace totally. That really never happens. But it did where I was. Of course, 2/3 of the church left but I stayed because I felt God was at work where I was. People changed when they “got it”. You could see it in their lives. The joy. The love, The repentance. Women took big roles in pulling us forward. I actually did a couple of sermons and planned events, was a worship leader, led outreach. . It was an exciting time to see Jesus working with us. I eventually left to seek a congregation in my town (we drove miles to other cities to meet) which turned out to be a Methodist church. The liturgy was a bit stuffy for me since I was leading more contemporary music and freewheeling services. It worked until the second masking after 8 months of vaccination. I have not found a church locally. I think I’m still looking for the vibrant Christ led church that repented and took Jesus into their hearts. Right in front of me. I know they are out there but I just can’t get going. Staying when so many left meant losing many friends but being born again I stepped fully to be led by Christ. Covid showed me the evil we have to fight and be aware of. To put it all into Gods hands. Blessings, Ryan. I look forward to your comments. You seem a friend now. 😀
I have people I love who are still mainlining the left's koolaid. I can't cut them off and let them drift into the void. They are wonderful people, whose hearts are in the right place but all they take in for information is CNN or worse.
I guess it will be an epic struggle to somehow hold on to them and if the opportunity arises, throw them a lifeline and tow them back to reality.
It is a difficult issue for me. I actually cut ties with a sibling a few years ago, and sometimes I question that decision. However, I haven't gotten over being called racist, being treated like a plague rat, being considered a village idiot because I didn't believe "The Science", etc. Even when my mother died likely as a result of the covid jab, there was no recognition, As a result, I lost all respect for my sibling as a human being, so it's kind of pointless at this point to try to repair. It is sad.
A person I love dearly has never accused me of anything, never been unpleasant to me, she just swallows CNN/MSNBC whole. She's intelligent, creative and beautiful. So unlike your average lefty. She's even religious.
I'm determined not to let her be sucked into the cult of madness. Don't have a plan, but I need one.
This ramped up hard during Trump One, but the real coup was completed during Covid.
Whatever created the conditions for it, the result of creating such blatant and binary group-affiliation symbols as masks, distancing, drinking one’s g&t while freezing to death in the garage, and, the one ring to rule them all: insisting on knowledge of, and judgment over, other people’s medical choices, was to make a meta-virtue-signal rubric: the willingness and *desire* to denounce, and broadcast denouncement, as a means of assuring in-group security.
But why? What is the chronic disease for which this is the acute expression?
I think it is the sense of total overwhelm at having been forced into a fundamentally incompatible and unworkable multiculturalism-of-everything in which no values, or standards, or even biological and scientific rules, are universal and shared. People are actually dying *to* be broken up into smaller groups, and, as is so often the case, completely misidentifying the enemy and the direction that healing should move in.
We need a break-up in a big way. Our abusers have gotten a pass for too long-some might feel they got it over 150 years ago and have been rubbing it in ever since. You better believe that if the people starving and freezing and living in tents with infants were in NO instead of NC, we’d be hearing about it daily.
The problem is, that desire to shrink the world back to something that makes sense is being manipulated by venal and amoral and broken people for their own edification, and the remediation of their own internal dissonance, rather than being channeled into freedom.
But some people saw, and have acted, and are acting. We must keep this momentum.
"Alex Winter" is the one who seems hate-filled, reactionary, and proudly low-info. "I refuse to talk to you or even hear what you say because you're so deplorable" pretty much encapsulates all those attitudes. Also, he can't spell "disparagingly".
I don't have much of a problem with people retreating into their own smaller and smaller bubbles. Have at it. They just can't be trusted anywhere near power.
Even saying that there are only two genders irritates the hell out of me. There are NO genders outside of linguistics. What there are are two SEXES: one male, female. Say it loud and proud.
I am going with infinite or uncountable genders. certainly not 8. that's divisive. gender in an expression of the personality of the particular individual at that time and place.
Well, sure. The guy who invented the concept of "heresy" has had as durable an impact on the world as the guy who invented the wheel.
For all we know they might've been the same. He needed that wheel to be able to more efficiently go hunting for heretics.
To have strong beliefs of one's own and to be able to form strong loving relationships with those who don't share all of them is a very rare human quality. My beloved friend of 51 years, murdered by the vax, was one. She became a born-again Christian 15 or so years after we first met. And since I'd had my own silly adventures on the road of life, we understood each other quite well. We never let anything come between us, especially because we were so very much alike in all the big things. Only the specific details were particular to each of us.
If there were more of Sue in the world we'd be in a far better place.
One of my best friends is a liberal, but not a rabid one, she at least gets some of the extreme stuff is nonsense. She got accelerated cancer a year after 2 rounds of the jab. I am positive the vax caused her disease but of course I will never say that to her. This is heartbreaking stuff.
If someone insisted on slapping a label on me it would have to be "classical liberal" too.
The only place I could share and celebrate the excitement and then joy of Election Night was with all my Substack friends. My real-life people ain't the least glad but they ain't the sort to hurl me into the wilderness.
Hard to believe there was a time (not so long ago, really) when two women would think of thumbing a ride, just for the adventure. I’m so sorry she was stolen from you.
It was in France, yet. We met in a youth hostel and there was just something about her. Whatever my other deficiencies I got some pair of antennae.
Election Night, when PA was called, that was the first time I felt like my old self again. I was a different self from the moment she told me she didn't feel well at all after her second shot. It was the thing I dreaded from the moment she said she was getting vaxxed. But she was a kidney transplant patient and someone in such fragile condition, I felt I had no right to express my reservations. I simply said I was not planning to take it, myself.
The vax blew up that kidney. A gift like that, coming from another family's anguish, and those vicious morons trashed it.
For me, now, anything that comes after from the second Trump Administration, that'll be gravy and gingerbread. I got what I needed. As el gato malo said, Nemesis.
Every time I tell her story, the threads full of anguish, from so many people who lost their own precious ones, is almost too much to contemplate. The degree of agony those bureaucrats and politicians engendered in the world--we really need Genghis Attila J. Trump but we'll make do with what we got.
>To have strong beliefs of one's own and to be able to form strong loving relationships with those who don't share all of them is a very rare human quality.
I'm early GenX. You just described the neighborhood I grew up in, in the poor working class rapidly deindustrializing city where my ancestors first settled in the early 1600s, but that was destroyed by the time I was preparing to start my career and form a family.
I am so sorry for the loss of your dear Sue. The love of my life passed this summer, and it is very hard indeed to live without someone who can be 10000% trusted to put relationship ahead of differences. Their love shows us what life and relationships CAN be.
It breaks my heart often these days that "relationship" is not only so rare now, but means something so brittle, self-centered, and easily shattered. It feels "by design."
I am very sorry to know of your own grief. The concept of "getting past" something and for which people sometimes go to paid listeners to be instructed on how to do is quite dishonest. One learns to go on regardless because time itself keeps moving our little boat on the tide no matter what we want, but there's always that baffled feeling that reality has changed so cruelly, right under our feet. This is true of any loss whether a true friend or a life partner or any other beloved one. The piece missing out of your life doesn't get filled.
BlueSky is for BlueAnons. They are so deep in the echo chamber asylum, they don't even notice that the walls are padded. You cannot reason with a demoralized person, but they're <10% of the population.
Not sure about that low percentage. I'm pretty sure 3/4 of my coworkers are hard-cord libtards. Then again, I AM in communications....
I would bet that if you get them alone, couple of drinks, a lot of them would share their misgivings
Wait until they get to experience the joys of "content moderation". It all sounds wonderful, until they find themselves slightly out of step with the groupthink and find themselves "moderated".
The true believers just thank the System for the correction and adjust.
But why does this tail (read, “icky, gross backside of the dog”) assume it can and should always, rightly wag the dog?
Narcissism.
It’s true… Ana Navarro on The View yesterday opining on Mika and Joe jetting to Palm Beach needed to tell firmly tell us that she “ would never accept an invitation from Trump” …😂😂😂 seriously girlfriend, not to worry… their persistent hubris and self appointed “ gravitas” is testimony to their narcissism. The naked emperor analogy is over used, but yes, that. The legacy media’s ratings are plummeting , at some point one would think that would knock them off their high horses…
Maybe their saddles have training wheels. That's the reason they don't fall. 😉😊😋😂
They should send her an invitation, by mail, on fancy gilded paper, and see what happens...Maybe even offer to let them shoot an episode from Mara Lago!
Make sure the audience is covered in plastic a la a Gallagher concert because their heads would likely explode.
^^This!^^
They still think they are the majority
They've completely climbed up their own ass. I'm also enjoying watching this total disintegration of their cultural hegemony. I wrote a similar article basking in victory, take a look if you have the chance: https://alwaysthehorizon.substack.com/p/seize-the-memes-of-production While this cultural combat is far from over, it's nice to take a week to enjoy yourself after a victory this monumental
Yes ... yet they are scrambling to organize, and are generating calls to block the most scary, unethical, authoritarian menaces in Orange Man Bad's cabinet. Seems like they're most terrified of .... Bobby Kennedy and Tulsi Gabbard(!!!!!!)
Because the deranged media tells them those are the most dangerous.
Objectively, there are real reasons for some concern with Trump and some of his picks, and plans, and more reasons for curiosity and to keep an open mind.
But of course the biggest fears are the ones least tethered to reality. The ones with the clearest integrity, the most liberal values, the ones that sane lefties may say, "At least Bobby and Tulsi will bring some heart-centered balance to The Bad Man".
They fear that which has the most integrity. But there are a lot of good people believing what they're told. I despise the media ....
<10% FOR SURE, AND SHRINKING
I got an earful of this sort of thing in my book group meeting just last night. One member announced— first thing she said after she took off her coat and stomped into my living room— she had arranged to celebrate Thankgiving WITHOUT the Trumper relatives, they were disinvited, and it would ONLY be people with whom she could stand to be, and they would all grieve.
Goodness, I said. What would you like to drink?
And then we all had a very civilized conversation about the novel we had met to discuss, of a lonely lady of long ago.
Sometimes these vestiges of my pre-covid life seem really exotic to me, what can I say.
It would be interesting to somehow anonymously inform her that one (or more)of the group she just had such a lovely time with finds her political isolation repugnant and (gasp) voted for Trump. Would she think huh I guess I CAN get along with and have good conversations with those I disagree with politically…or would she rage quit?
I'm not saying this is right for everyone, but for me, where I am, I think it's long past the time for trying to argue or to show them anything. They can lift a finger and find out all sorts on things online. But they won't. They can also put two and two together and come up with something besides 7. I just let them be. I put my efforts where they're likely to have more impact.
You won't change them...and you are a good person. I play with a ukulele group and I really like all the people I play with. I would say the majority of the players (older women) didn't vote for Trump. We don't bring it up though...we stick to music and having fun. I did tell a few that they "would be fine" during 2020 when we didn't meet for awhile. They quit the group and I have no contact with them- their choice...(sigh)
Same here at this point.
I would agree. Unsollicited advice is more enraging than useful.
My sister would choose a third option - shut down all conversation she thinks *might* lead to politics or religion, even if the book had neither theme. She works to control all conversation so that her worldview is never challenged. Talking to her is shouting across the DMZ. She’s so lonely and isolated. It’s heartbreaking. Her friends are fawning sycophants, something that somehow makes it lonelier. She refers to her brittle narcissism as ‘evolved’. I wish I could pull her out of it and we could laugh together again.
Don't know her, but guessing, Rage quit.
I’d have said, HaVE fun with the vegan turkey and dairyless mashed potatoes, plus prepare to cook and spend yourself silly bc, uh, MOST of the best cooks and most willing to spend to cook the”yums” are (wait for it), those of us who can afford it bc we have been (wait…), conservative.
Also, we haven’t “had to” buy a lot of blue hair dye and head shavers.
I’ll be over here with 14 veggies, GREAT turkey & gravy, terrific steak, ham, and about 10 desserts— with real dairy and real… ALL the things, surrounded by all the normies and the deliciousness they tend to bring.
I won’t be pouting. I’ll be FULL, fat and sassy!
We had the experience for years where we cooked a great meal for, so called, friends but somehow they never reciprocated and invited us over. One couple actually said to us that we should have them over again. I told them "I think it is your turn." We never saw them again. Over the years our invitation list kept getting triaged down to only a couple of friends that have remained so for over 50 years.
How about “ I’m sorry, I’m out of your brand of Kool Aid, how about a big glass of reality?” Somewhere along the line, I learned that narcissists stop maturing around 8 years old, which would explain these displays of ridiculously immature behavior.
Hence, "woke." past participle. Finished learning.
That's the old "They'll be sorry when I'm gone!" mindset. Maybe not so much. The Trumper group might have their own party and be delighted that Miss Stick-Up-Her-A$$ isn't present. She'll never even imagine that and she'll probably never even know.
How splendidly mature of you.
Kudos to you because I’m sure it never occurred to her, you could’ve helped her back ON with her coat, saying you had arranged to spend the book club without the Kamalites, that she was disinvited and you would be spending book club ONLY with those you could stand, and you would all do the very opposite of grieve! 😝
Splendidly mature. LOL. That beats being decrepitly mature, I guess. That reminds me, one of my favorite true life characters was a British officer in East Africa in WWI who was known to all behind his back as "Splendid Haha." Because no matter what anyone said to him, apparently, he said, "Splendid! Haha!"
On a more serious note, though, this encounter I described is for me a common one and I always find it both sad and disconcerting. I'm fine with how I dealt with that particular person and situation, but it's not always clear in the moment what would be best to say or do. I would imagine that each of us here in the weeds of bad cat's comments section have had some heartbreaking times, but in all, we wouldn't be here if we weren't pretty tough, and blessed with a good sense of humor. Thanks for being here.
Definitely not always clear in the moment indeed. Last week I went to a party and had an absolute ball telling a bunch of rich Dutch leftists I voted for Trump and actually had some good conversations. But yesterday I had a meeting with the other voluntary librarians at school and could not open my mouth when one of the teachers started bad mouthing parents who request their constitutional right to exempt children from sex ed in 6th grade, mostly because it has turned into extreme ideology in recent years. You win some you lose some I guess. But I do relish getting lost in the weeds here with you. It really does give me strength to go on!
Loved your subtle ironic poke at your friend. "And then we all had a very civilized conversation about the novel we had met to discuss, of a lonely lady of long ago."
Like!
> Goodness, I said. What would you like to drink?
Beautifully done.
What is it about cats and their war ears that never fails to amuse?
innate species charisma.
The only pet that bites the hand that feeds it, doesn't care, and still gets fed!
what can we say?
when you got it, you got it.
I miss my 2 furry bosses. 😿
I've always served feline furry bosses until 4 years ago. My life is simpler and my furniture is in much better shape, but I miss those rascals.
Well,
cats, dems and border jumpers…
Those are kitty kisses...! <3
True🐾❤️
Dogs have masters. Cats have staff.
I must have dysfunctional dogs. They are the masters. Any sense of me being a master is delusional.
Yeah, that saying needs a caveat for Jack Russell Terriers. They da boss.
Our dogs have trained us much better than we have trained them. I can assert authority from time to time but unless I use "the voice," they do what they will regardless of what I have instructed them to do. The worst is our terrier mix; very willful.
"But my family is sleeping..."
"I said bark."
https://knowyourmeme.com/photos/1887932-dogs
I thin the voice is from Dune, so I'm mixing genres.
My terrier mix is a willful beast too. At best he will do what I want to avoid FOMO (which he has in spades, any time I leave the house he's panicked, when back I get a parade of kisses and jumping and walking on hind legs). Quite the change from the girlboss black cat I had as my last quadruped companion, who was like "oh, it's just you again" when i'd return!
Dogs have poop bags, Cats have terrain.
Not if you live in the country and walk the dogs on country roads. I used to have a cat that would take the walks with us, too. He would actually disappear for several days then we found he would visit neighbors and mooch meals.
Omigosh...."war ears" 🥰🥰 I'm stealing this!
I have friends(well they may not consider me a friend anymore) who fall into this category. They are good people. They are not strong people. I want to help them, but I am now the enemy. I hate the purveyors of this nonsense intentionally destroying the weak minded for their own satisfaction....and there is absolutely nothing I can do about it.
You can be there for them when they come to their senses. At which time they will need unjudgemental friends like you. You're right, you can't talk them out of the cult, but you can show and support them when they're ready.
The people I know in this state of mind CRAVE the mindset they are in- gives their lives meaning somehow. I swear people LOVED the drama of masks, distancing and lockdowns. This is the replacement for all that- they won't admit we were lied to, shots were stupid and thousands got rich from the hype pushed at us. This is the new theater.
They need a religion and since most won't truly believe in a God, they find a substitute. The Climate Change devotees do the same thing. They need something larger than themselves to make their lives meaningful but reject conventional religions for the most part. (As an aside, the conversion of significant numbers of native-born British women to Islam is exactly because it gives them meaning and order in their lives. Most Christian denominations have become so accommodating to the latest popular cultural fad that there's little satisfaction in adhering to them. They are weak, where Islam is strong.) They have their sacraments and their sins but most notably most of these cults do not allow for redemption of sin. Once condemned, always condemned.
It's ironic that those who give lip service to diversity and inclusion are so ready to exclude those whose opinions diverge from their own.
Spot on! I have a family member who disdains Christianity (she was raised in a nominally Christian household), but thinks that any other religion (Islam, Buddhism, pantheism, whatever) is just so "spiritual" and meaningful. In a similar way, to her, all "people of color" are superior to white people (she is white). I think she is equal parts intrigued (i guess?), and also convinced that people who are non-white and/or non-Americans are somehow more virtuous...and thus she is showing her own virtue and intellectual superiority in embracing them. It's hard to explain, especially since I don't understand it. But it's very annoying.😆
Great post this morning!
Adam Coleman’s comment is spot on. It’s so bizarre to me how people will believe some stranger’s assessment of friend and family they’ve known and had relationships with for YEARS. And cut those people off by someone else’s command to do so. But I guess it goes with the same mentality of taking the shots and wearing the masks. Blind obedience and adherence to group think. It is a very cultish mindset which is funny because they kept accusing US of being part of a cult 🙄
I bet Alex Winter has a “hate has no home here” and a “be kind” sign in front of his house or on a bumper sticker too 😑🙄
You just know there is a BLM flag or sign on that lawn.
Pretty damn reliable that they accuse others of what they themselves are doing. Classic pairing of projection and denial.
Something worth highlighting is that in such an explicit echo-chamber, the purity spiral will crank up to 11, as virtue-signalling and diminishing profit go off the cliff.
Very true.
If you make a comment on social media that doesn't offend anyone, then you have usually said something with no value at all.
Ryan, I'm very offended.
I'm offended that you're offended!...;)
My home is getting pretty cold already. I said to my wife that "we should at least burn a few faggots", "faggots" being bundles of wood. I guess we can add that to the long list of things we can't say these days.
Back in the day, I would for a global cooperation in Ireland. The Irish were chain smokers and called cigarettes "faggots" or "fags". On a training trip to Ohio manufacturing headquarters, I was having lunch with some of the Irish in the company cafeteria. We had finished eating and were having coffee when one of the chain smokers said "I would really like to suck on a fag right now". The entire cafeteria went dead quiet. He looked around at the people staring at him in shock. Oblivious to the vernacular he said to the rest of us at the table "You Yanks have taken this non-smoking thing too far".
I was working at the front desk of a hotel when a guest asked me where they could smoke a fag. I knew what he meant but the initial thought was,he wants to kill a faggot? As soon as he left I busted out laughing.
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
I thought they were cigarettes. My wife still burns enough of those to warm the house. (unfortunately)
Thank you! There's must be lots of value to what we are saying.
Lolol.
Honestly, social media just baffles me. I have no desire to post my inner thoughts on a page where someone can critique or criticize them.
I have no desire to post who I voted for.
I have good friends who I can have conversations with. Not all friends have the same conversations
I’m happy
Substack is the only place I post my arrogant, humble, erroneous and snarky opinions. I never have commented on Youtube Twitter Facebook (also known as You twit face).
I learned my lesson from early blogs, and Linked In (when I was taking some courses at the time Lynda was bought by linked in and the climate changed so that any politically incorrect anti-narrative questions & opinions would get bullied).
Sadly, at least where I live, social media leaks into real life, where it's a 'given' that professional, middle and upper class people vote BLUE - and since I don't talk about any political stuff, they assume I voted as they do. It's very strange.
Yes, they will all be looking for the slightest offense, the slightest micro aggression. They will tear each other apart.
That's what they do. I was briefly a member of the lefty blogosphere, years ago, when blogs were new. There was a major battle over the use of the word "lame" - I used it as a slangy pejorative and this nut who had a popular blog (and has since become queen Wokester nutjob) was alllll over it with the insults and the horror that I'd use a word that might somehow someway negatively affect someone with disabilities.
Within a year or 2 I was really done with most lefties. The ones who still like to identify as lefties but voted for Trump are the only ones I can stand as they at least have some ability to change their thinking instead of blindly adhering to the dictats of the blue cult. They are the ones who battle big pharma and are anti-war. So they stuck to their principles while the blue cult moved ever more authoritarian.
Look at Trump's inner circle pictures. Most of them were once democrats. And, like Ronald Reagan once said: "I didn't leave the democrat party the democrat party left me. Same with most of the doctors that spoke out against the Covid lock down mask up policies and the subsequent inoculations.
I think Trump and Reagan were both democrats at one point.
Yes.
Yes, I was too at one point. I only turned Republican in 2015 and I really don’t like the Republicans because they are not conservative at all. They are getting ridiculous!!
I think there are only a few Presidents that were legit elected instead of selected. Those like Reagan and Trump both had "minder" VPs. HW Bush was CIA directer, Pence? where did he come from and who selected him for Trump. The election stealing became over the top in 2020. We can see how they are still at it in this election despite the overwhelming win of all three branches.
I was an independent most of my life. I always voted. It used to be that at the county level we could vote for the person we thought could do the job best. It did not matter so much if they we D or R or third party. Those days are gone because the parties vote in lock step from the top to the bottom. They have forgotten that they are supposed to be working for all the people when elected. Trumps MAGA (and MAHA) populist movement is the only bright spot at present. The economy is so scary that people must vote in their best interests. Now, as I write this, they are talking about impeaching Biden and removing him via article 25 and having Harris be President until January 20th. What are they actually planning to do with that?
Indeed. Will they reach escape velocity in there?
The so-called Democrats, who gave us FOIA, who fought against the war machine in Vietnam and pushed for civil rights became everything they supposedly were against because they became the moral busybody tyrants that CS Lewis refers to when he said, “those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”
They think they are the good ones and they can’t see their own cognitive dissonance. All one has to do is talk with enough legal immigrants who escaped a tyrannical government and work with too many incompetent DEI hires to get it and realize America is on the cliff of totalitarianism.
And, if the new cabinet does play out the way Trump envisions, the reality might prove to more and more of these moral busybodies that the Twitter Files was only the first layer of the onion of corruption. It needs to happen, but we will not be eating popcorn.
Nietzsche said, “Out of chaos comes order.” But what kind of order will it be?
On the cliff? Feels like we are desperately hanging onto one of the tree roots that grew off the edge.
Like the order Napoleon established out of the French revolution chaos (dictatorship/authoritarian).
Moral chaos leads to cultural chaos which leads to political chaos which produces dictatorship.
Civil rights is an alternative system of law to the United States Constitution, deliberately framed to weaken the latter. Like income tax, it should have absolutely no place in this republic.
😂😂😂I asked my sister, a few days after the election, if she had recovered. She then went into this ramble about the majority vote, she will accept the majority’s vote, she does not understand it, but now she will just pay more attention to her plants. I then said, I was not asking you about the election results, I was asking about your week looking after the grandkids.
😅
I was in a religious cult for 25 years. A fairly mild one but all the cult symptoms were there. At one time, they made a couple with several children divorce because they married without permission from the local church. My sister was thrown out because she would not move 50 miles with no job and 2 young children to be able to get to church every week after a divorce from an abusive husband they initially refused to honor. The “divorce counselor” betrayed her confidence and told her husband what she said. We were encouraged to stay out of the world. Much of that abuse was stopped under new leadership. I certainly know a cult when I see one. The Democrats are a cult, damaging people everyday. I’m glad I’m out. I thank God I’m out of the Democrat’s cult.
Oh wow. Its always amazing to me that smart people like you can get involved with a cult.
I'm so happy you got out of it. That's a testament to your courage and character.
I was very young and looking for something it had wonderful people and actually the church recognized its many errors and changed fundamentally to accept Christ and grace totally. That really never happens. But it did where I was. Of course, 2/3 of the church left but I stayed because I felt God was at work where I was. People changed when they “got it”. You could see it in their lives. The joy. The love, The repentance. Women took big roles in pulling us forward. I actually did a couple of sermons and planned events, was a worship leader, led outreach. . It was an exciting time to see Jesus working with us. I eventually left to seek a congregation in my town (we drove miles to other cities to meet) which turned out to be a Methodist church. The liturgy was a bit stuffy for me since I was leading more contemporary music and freewheeling services. It worked until the second masking after 8 months of vaccination. I have not found a church locally. I think I’m still looking for the vibrant Christ led church that repented and took Jesus into their hearts. Right in front of me. I know they are out there but I just can’t get going. Staying when so many left meant losing many friends but being born again I stepped fully to be led by Christ. Covid showed me the evil we have to fight and be aware of. To put it all into Gods hands. Blessings, Ryan. I look forward to your comments. You seem a friend now. 😀
Amen!
I have people I love who are still mainlining the left's koolaid. I can't cut them off and let them drift into the void. They are wonderful people, whose hearts are in the right place but all they take in for information is CNN or worse.
I guess it will be an epic struggle to somehow hold on to them and if the opportunity arises, throw them a lifeline and tow them back to reality.
It is a difficult issue for me. I actually cut ties with a sibling a few years ago, and sometimes I question that decision. However, I haven't gotten over being called racist, being treated like a plague rat, being considered a village idiot because I didn't believe "The Science", etc. Even when my mother died likely as a result of the covid jab, there was no recognition, As a result, I lost all respect for my sibling as a human being, so it's kind of pointless at this point to try to repair. It is sad.
A person I love dearly has never accused me of anything, never been unpleasant to me, she just swallows CNN/MSNBC whole. She's intelligent, creative and beautiful. So unlike your average lefty. She's even religious.
I'm determined not to let her be sucked into the cult of madness. Don't have a plan, but I need one.
Same
This ramped up hard during Trump One, but the real coup was completed during Covid.
Whatever created the conditions for it, the result of creating such blatant and binary group-affiliation symbols as masks, distancing, drinking one’s g&t while freezing to death in the garage, and, the one ring to rule them all: insisting on knowledge of, and judgment over, other people’s medical choices, was to make a meta-virtue-signal rubric: the willingness and *desire* to denounce, and broadcast denouncement, as a means of assuring in-group security.
But why? What is the chronic disease for which this is the acute expression?
I think it is the sense of total overwhelm at having been forced into a fundamentally incompatible and unworkable multiculturalism-of-everything in which no values, or standards, or even biological and scientific rules, are universal and shared. People are actually dying *to* be broken up into smaller groups, and, as is so often the case, completely misidentifying the enemy and the direction that healing should move in.
We need a break-up in a big way. Our abusers have gotten a pass for too long-some might feel they got it over 150 years ago and have been rubbing it in ever since. You better believe that if the people starving and freezing and living in tents with infants were in NO instead of NC, we’d be hearing about it daily.
The problem is, that desire to shrink the world back to something that makes sense is being manipulated by venal and amoral and broken people for their own edification, and the remediation of their own internal dissonance, rather than being channeled into freedom.
But some people saw, and have acted, and are acting. We must keep this momentum.
Be patient, they all got the mRNA magic.
LOL
> What is the chronic disease for which this is the acute expression?
It's called "communism."
"Alex Winter" is the one who seems hate-filled, reactionary, and proudly low-info. "I refuse to talk to you or even hear what you say because you're so deplorable" pretty much encapsulates all those attitudes. Also, he can't spell "disparagingly".
Strange things are afoot at the Circle K.
I don't have much of a problem with people retreating into their own smaller and smaller bubbles. Have at it. They just can't be trusted anywhere near power.
Even saying that there are only two genders irritates the hell out of me. There are NO genders outside of linguistics. What there are are two SEXES: one male, female. Say it loud and proud.
I am going with infinite or uncountable genders. certainly not 8. that's divisive. gender in an expression of the personality of the particular individual at that time and place.
Well, sure. The guy who invented the concept of "heresy" has had as durable an impact on the world as the guy who invented the wheel.
For all we know they might've been the same. He needed that wheel to be able to more efficiently go hunting for heretics.
To have strong beliefs of one's own and to be able to form strong loving relationships with those who don't share all of them is a very rare human quality. My beloved friend of 51 years, murdered by the vax, was one. She became a born-again Christian 15 or so years after we first met. And since I'd had my own silly adventures on the road of life, we understood each other quite well. We never let anything come between us, especially because we were so very much alike in all the big things. Only the specific details were particular to each of us.
If there were more of Sue in the world we'd be in a far better place.
One of my best friends is a liberal, but not a rabid one, she at least gets some of the extreme stuff is nonsense. She got accelerated cancer a year after 2 rounds of the jab. I am positive the vax caused her disease but of course I will never say that to her. This is heartbreaking stuff.
If someone insisted on slapping a label on me it would have to be "classical liberal" too.
The only place I could share and celebrate the excitement and then joy of Election Night was with all my Substack friends. My real-life people ain't the least glad but they ain't the sort to hurl me into the wilderness.
Yeah I would say classical liberal as well. BTW, what happened to classical liberal arts? Now it's postmodernist garbage. Ugh!
You know that viciously-derided viewpoint "I don't know nuthin' about art but I know what I like?"
We need to reclaim that as pure truth.
May her memory be for a blessing ❤️
Thank you, my dear.
It is, every day. It's because she said "sure!" when I asked if we could hitchhike together, in 1973, that I would eventually have my son.
Hard to believe there was a time (not so long ago, really) when two women would think of thumbing a ride, just for the adventure. I’m so sorry she was stolen from you.
It was in France, yet. We met in a youth hostel and there was just something about her. Whatever my other deficiencies I got some pair of antennae.
Election Night, when PA was called, that was the first time I felt like my old self again. I was a different self from the moment she told me she didn't feel well at all after her second shot. It was the thing I dreaded from the moment she said she was getting vaxxed. But she was a kidney transplant patient and someone in such fragile condition, I felt I had no right to express my reservations. I simply said I was not planning to take it, myself.
The vax blew up that kidney. A gift like that, coming from another family's anguish, and those vicious morons trashed it.
For me, now, anything that comes after from the second Trump Administration, that'll be gravy and gingerbread. I got what I needed. As el gato malo said, Nemesis.
I’m so sorry 💔
Nemesis. Absolutely.
Every time I tell her story, the threads full of anguish, from so many people who lost their own precious ones, is almost too much to contemplate. The degree of agony those bureaucrats and politicians engendered in the world--we really need Genghis Attila J. Trump but we'll make do with what we got.
>To have strong beliefs of one's own and to be able to form strong loving relationships with those who don't share all of them is a very rare human quality.
I'm early GenX. You just described the neighborhood I grew up in, in the poor working class rapidly deindustrializing city where my ancestors first settled in the early 1600s, but that was destroyed by the time I was preparing to start my career and form a family.
I am so sorry for the loss of your dear Sue. The love of my life passed this summer, and it is very hard indeed to live without someone who can be 10000% trusted to put relationship ahead of differences. Their love shows us what life and relationships CAN be.
It breaks my heart often these days that "relationship" is not only so rare now, but means something so brittle, self-centered, and easily shattered. It feels "by design."
I am very sorry to know of your own grief. The concept of "getting past" something and for which people sometimes go to paid listeners to be instructed on how to do is quite dishonest. One learns to go on regardless because time itself keeps moving our little boat on the tide no matter what we want, but there's always that baffled feeling that reality has changed so cruelly, right under our feet. This is true of any loss whether a true friend or a life partner or any other beloved one. The piece missing out of your life doesn't get filled.
I believe that this is called a cult. Blind obedience to individuals or causes.
Don’t worry the mother ship will be here soon .