Losing Friends: Reader Mailbag Edition
I felt seen this week.
In last week’s newsletter, I opined about what it feels like to give up on a friendship with someone who has embraced conspiracy theories or fringe ideologies. I wrote about two friends I drifted from over the last few years. One had become a hardcore crypto-bro (not the worst) and high-key antisemite (absolutely the worst). The other was espousing increasingly alarming, vitriolic comments about trans people. I asked you all for examples and brother I got an earful. Nothing in the history of the newsletter has elicited more responses. Most of this week’s newsletter is going to be dedicated to sharing those replies but before I get there I want to address two things.
The MAGA Question - If I'm being honest, when I sat down to write the piece, I wasn't even contemplating the whole mess of MAGA-ness and Trump Delusion™ that has ensnared much of the country since 2015. Speaking of ensnaring the nation, it's also worth noting that Trump Delusion™ is a bipartisan affliction. There are millions of liberals and lefties that are as wrapped up in their hate of Donald Trump as his fiercest sycophants are in defending him. This is why TV ratings for his rallies and the volume of memes about his various indictments are so high. Hate watching is real and national media covers the circus because there’s a vast audience for it. If that audience dried up, so would much of the coverage… but here we are.
There are also millions of people that voted for Donald Trump that don’t really rock with him, they just cast a negative vote against their perception of the Democratic Party. I’d reckon there are far fewer “true believers” than most of us think but if you have one in your circles, that would likely be exhausting.
I also didn't bring up the “MAGA driving people apart” thing because I feel that's been thoroughly discussed elsewhere like here, here, and here. That said, multiple people in their responses brought up watching their loved ones slide into the MAGA-verse and the exhausting mental gymnastics it takes to view one of the most unethical men in American public life as the “chosen vessel of God.” Others shared about how MAGA was a gateway into much dumber and darker places like QAnon conspiracies and far right militant and militia groups.
“Nathan, why not just mind your own business?” - one reader wrote a lengthy reply that came down to “Nate, why is your biz if X believes Y about Z.” This resulted in a lengthy exchange, the crux of my argument being that I believe in lateral accountability and bigotry isn’t welcome in my circles. If I may appropriate Drake:
I been losing friends and finding peace
Honestly, that sounds like a fair trade to me
I don’t tolerate bigotry in my classroom, why would I allow it at my dinner table, or elsewhere in my peer group. I’m just not built like that.
Now, onto reader responses and stories
From a reader from the UK - They think this really about age, being more comfortable about what you tolerate and more comfortable in your own skin. They said, “Loved this edition; I know many Berts. Yes, your circle does get smaller as you age as your tolerance for stupidity wanes.”
From an Army veteran - “I've lost several of my Army friends to the conspiracy grift. Despite them being in the position to have access to the information that directly refutes their hollow and mistaken path, they insist on counter-factual bigotry. Early in their transition to depravity I put in the effort. Now, I can't be bothered.” This response hit me because it’s demonstrative of two trends: the normalization of far right political activity among US law enforcement and the increasing rejection of inconvenient facts about one’s political tribe. The reader went on to give this rather depressing example about a former FBI agent with pretty fundamental misconceptions about the sources of recent political violence in the US. But when shown FBI data to the contrary, he claimed “globalists have taken over” the agency.
That was fatiguing to paraphrase. I can’t imagine trying to walk someone back off that cliff.
From a current high school student - “Your Bert and Ernie anecdotes really had me thinking. It's weird keeping and maintaining friends as a teenager—the whole point of our lives right now is change… I try really hard to be open minded and accepting of all of them and of people's identities—I think the hardest part is just trying to figure out at what point you let some of those friendships go as people really change. I'm definitely one to do the emotional labor—probably too much—I think it's been when that load gets too heavy and with no effect that I've let my Berts go.” That’s a young person with a sense of justice also trying to find a balance. Their response in contrast to the one from the UK shows people in different seasons of their journey. It’s likely the student’s patience will wane with time, as mine has, but I’m glad they’re inspired to do the emotional labor now.
Lastly, from a former colleague in Tacoma - I went to HS with a guy who was always pretty chill. He became a massage therapist and got into wellness culture. It was all normal until he went off the anti-vax deep end. Now he’s really into colloidal silver and aligning your chakras as a defense against government mind control (emphasis added).
Oh, dear.
Public service announcement: if you don't know why colloidal silver home remedies are to be avoided, you should go ahead and watch this. Paul “did his own research”—don’t be Paul. RIP Paul.
Speaking of the silver thing, I had forgotten about the health & wellness industrial complex and the growth of the granola mom to anti-vaxx acceleration machine the internet has wrought. This is a form of self-delusion that has dire long-term consequences for all of us. For example, the return of polio. According to Wired, “transmission was eliminated in the US in 1979, all of the Americas in 1994” but reappeared in the wild in New York State in 2022. That’s not great.
There were several other replies but these covered the main themes. I appreciate everyone’s responses. They helped me get my head around my own choices when it comes to Bert and Ernie. One reader said “I hope Bert & Ernie don’t read” the newsletter. I replied, “I hope they do.”
Recommendations and Bits for the Week
Over on the pod, we have a conversation with author Brian Panowich. The Georgia based author is a master of the southern noir genre. We had a wide ranging conversation which included the phrase “copity cop” (you gotta listen to get it) and culminated in discussion of how he could integrate the ongoing Young Thug trial into his next book. It’s a spoiler free conversation, so even if you haven’t read his books, you should feel safe diving in. I’d love to hear your thoughts.
Speaking of Young Thug, Bakari Sellers put his audience on to a podcast, King Slime, which is about Young Thug's YSL record label and his arrest and ongoing trial in Georgia. Young Thug and nearly two dozen co-defendants are facing RICO charges in Georgia. The prosecutor, Fani Willis, happens to be the same prosecutor charging the former president under the same RICO laws. The podcast is fascinating and the trial has all sorts of First Amendment, freedom of expression implications. Moreover, there are questions about the way that laws that were constructed to take down the Mafia are being applied to street gangs. It's from iHeartRadio so there's too many damn commercials, (three breaks—three ads each—per episode) but it's an excellent listen. Peep episode one below.
Lastly, there’s some updates on the situation with LastPass that I wrote about in March. You should read this as a primer and we’ll detail that whole mess next week. It’s a hotmess.
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See you next week!
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