But that’s the thing: he didn’t start out as socially conservative. Neither did my other friend who was just a fiscal conservative who just slowly slid over to blaming “woke” for everything and no longer approves of my “lifestyle”, which is about as boring as can be but being an enby is apparently a choice now – at least she hasn’t told me she’s dreaming of genocide, so there’s that.
The one fiscal conservative I know who hasn’t started sliding into full-on fascist bullshit is still more than happy to associate with eg. the “I want all minorities to go away” dude and tell me to “respect differences of opinion” if I make it clear I won’t be OK with bigotry. That just leaves me thinking that he probably agrees more with those people than he wants to let on, but being an actual (municipal) politician he doesn’t want to say it out loud.
I feel you. The polarization of social media and news made a lot of people shift more extreme over the last decade. I knew some perfectly decent people that started to blame immigrants and climate initiatives for their financial struggles. After failing to compel them into being more understanding of the truth, I had no choice but to stop talking with them. Once someone puts more faith in a Facebook meme than tax proposals on government websites, it’s hard to have a productive conversation.
![[CW: transphobia] How can they not see this is what's coming‽](https://sopuli.xyz/pictrs/image/aac8d0a6-f3d8-47c7-8c62-6b57b518b99b.webp){kind=link}
But that’s the thing: he didn’t start out as socially conservative. Neither did my other friend who was just a fiscal conservative who just slowly slid over to blaming “woke” for everything and no longer approves of my “lifestyle”, which is about as boring as can be but being an enby is apparently a choice now – at least she hasn’t told me she’s dreaming of genocide, so there’s that.
The one fiscal conservative I know who hasn’t started sliding into full-on fascist bullshit is still more than happy to associate with eg. the “I want all minorities to go away” dude and tell me to “respect differences of opinion” if I make it clear I won’t be OK with bigotry. That just leaves me thinking that he probably agrees more with those people than he wants to let on, but being an actual (municipal) politician he doesn’t want to say it out loud.
I feel you. The polarization of social media and news made a lot of people shift more extreme over the last decade. I knew some perfectly decent people that started to blame immigrants and climate initiatives for their financial struggles. After failing to compel them into being more understanding of the truth, I had no choice but to stop talking with them. Once someone puts more faith in a Facebook meme than tax proposals on government websites, it’s hard to have a productive conversation.