A friend from High School told me I was “alienating everyone you’ve known”. I can only assume it was from my multiple posts concerning governmental actions. I’d be lying if I said it didn’t bother me, but I don’t mind sharing why I started posting so much, and why I won’t stop.
Starting around 2017, I started seeing lots of negative posts from old friends that just seemed way over the top, particularly the ones painting Democrats as basically evil, certainly unpatriotic, and definitely hating America. I never responded to them; I really didn’t post much of anything. And that was because I didn’t want to alienate anybody.
I posted two political things in 2017, zero in 2018 & 2019, one in 2020, zero in 2021, 2022 & 2023, and once in 2024, when I posted this in October:
“I rarely post about politics, because I don’t want to offend friends. But I’ve come to realize that they don’t worry about offending me. I think it’s probably because they assume that, surely, everyone agrees with them. Nothing could be further from the truth. Trump has caused incredible division & chaos for 9 years now, over 10% of my life. Every day is a new insult & another degradation. I really, really, don’t want to spend the last 10% of my life living like this. I just want normalcy.”
I did not get “normalcy”. We got Trump, his minions, and a move towards authoritarianism and fascism.
This year, 2025, after 9 years of ignoring all sorts of inflammatory posts, I decided I was not going to be quiet. I realized that silence indicates agreement, and I most certainly did NOT agree! So as of today (Dec 13), I’ve posted 233 times about the Trump White House actions.
It turns out that my original observation was mostly correct. Trump-supporting friends assumed that everyone they knew must agree with them, and are shocked and offended when we don’t. I’ve had a cousin who unfriended me, at least two High School friends that also did, and the spouse of my college roommate. I’ve been accused of “Trump Derangement Syndrome”. I’ve been asked about the “Biden crime family” when I bring up Trump family grifting and corruption. And now, “alienating everyone you’ve known”.
I really wish I had not alienated anyone, but I have always offered to discuss our different positions. Not a single person has ever taken that offer, so I offer again below, if you’d like to comment.