For years... okay, for most of my life... I've dealt with being completely out of synch with my family when it comes to social justice and/or politics. I grew up during the sixties and seventies in a small Indiana city, and I totally bought into the liberal messages of the public service announcements of that era.
Right off the bat, that put me at odds with my own mother, a condition that has continued more or less unabated to this very day.
And yet, though I have always played a liberal alien to my hometown's science fiction movie conservative villagers, I was always able to find common ground with those close to me - neutral territory where we could safely admit we liked or loved one another even if we didn't agree on a damned thing.
These days, though, that neutral territory is shrinking to postage-stamp dimensions.
I recently bit the bullet and joined Facebook. I did it solely to reconnect with someone not from my hometown whom I lost touch with when I relocated to Portland, but others quickly found me and demanded to be friended. I didn't really mind reconnecting with others, so I granted all such requests and issued a few of my own.
One of those who found me quickly was an old college friend and sometime employer. He runs a local news publication and I often wrote for him. He's a dyed-in-the-wool Republican - something I somehow didn't realize when we were in college - and I even helped him with some projects during his unsuccessful run for a local office. I did that because I liked him and felt he would do his best if elected.
However, once I granted his friend request on Facebook, I was bombarded by his frequent posts, most of which deal with his politics. I'm now forced to see that my friend is completely immersed in the teabagger mentality, repeating Fox News lies and nasty labels with gleeful intensity. This is something I never wanted to see in him, and it's a huge reason I've not pursued Facebook much since I joined.
I really didn't want to see my friend's blatant insanity trumpeted for all to see on a major internet site. Before, it was merely a possibility. Now, it's reality, etched in the eternal memory of Facebook's copyright and the Internet Wayback Machine.
My brother, last seen as an Obama supporter and voter, has since become a devotee of Fox News. I found this out when my teenager went home to Indiana for a visit over the summer and proceeded to engage in heated political debates with his uncle. My mother has since confirmed my brother's unfortunate transformation. (She, interestingly, has become decidedly more liberal in the last couple of years, still willing to give Obama - for whom she voted - the benefit of the doubt and desperately worried for his safety from all the hateful crazies.)
I haven't spoken directly to my brother or my college-publisher friend in nearly a year. Now? I'm afraid to. I am too uncomfortable with their stated beliefs, which are decidedly more radical (not to mention NUTS) than they were when I left. Additionally, I have another pretty close friend who is not just Republican but conservative Christian. I would love to talk to him, too, but something is stopping me from calling.
I'm a pragmatic liberal, open-minded even to the point of granting that even conservatives can have valid viewpoints. I don't need someone to agree with my views in order to like them or befriend them. But there's a new wind blowing through the country these days, and it's leaving - or exposing - a lot of ugliness. I am starting to feel that things are not like they used to be, even a year ago. I am concerned that people who listen to Fox News and believe what they see and hear there are rapidly moving to a place where they are beyond hope of reaching them with rational arguments. I am disgusted by people who spew such hatred and ugliness, and it makes me profoundly ill to realize that people I have known and cared about and even loved now think this way and repeat such untruthful trash... and BELIEVE IT.
So what do you think? Is it possible to remain friends (or loved ones) with people who have gone over to "the dark side?" Because I am honestly torn and terribly confused.