You can’t hide in your happy shell of self-confirming relationships becuase the folks who you don’t know or associate with will make you care. If you lived in Virginia where they are attempting to make it a crime to call the Governor an “A## ##LE” you end up dealing with these people directly or at the wrong end of a gun barrel held by a police officer just doing his job.
I have clients who are conservatives but I also have clients who are big time Democrat donors. I go to school with a bunch of folks who wept and held vigils when Trump was elected. Its not like I am changing their minds, but I am resisting the bits of “bat shit crazy” that I can. I find myself facing the “anti-patriarchy” speaches by saying. “I am a patriarch.” Because, I am. I have grandkids and I love them. My thoughts keep going to “What am I doing for this next generation” as this is where old guy noodles go when they love. Hating patriarchs is just as bad as hating husbands. I call them on it. I call them on “white privilige” because I grew up as a poor dirt farmer’s boy. Saying such things is just racism by narcissistic reflection, but it is just racism when you get down to it and I call them on this.. just the same.
I haven’t found the secret key but mostly it seems to begin by busting the frame they suppose in their name calling. This is why they HATE Trump.. he owns their name calling and calls them names back.
I don’t live in VA. I live further SOUTH! Where we don’t have these crap holes as friends. I have plenty of GOOD friends who I am completely happy having. You can go pal up with them if you desire, go for it pal. But, very soon, you may find yourself in one of their reeducation camps as you aren’t one of them, or are you?