The American political divide
Today I came across a reference to this 2009 speech by Charles Krauthammer, where he said this:
I said some years ago that the genius of Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes was to have discovered a niche market in American broadcasting — half the American people.
It’s still more or less that 50/50 split, although TV cable news in general has become less influential and there are more varied alternatives, particularly online. There are also lone voices on the right at other networks, such as CNN’s Scott Jennings, who apparently is getting a well-deserved raise.
The leftward skew of most of the news on TV and elsewhere is driven by a number of things. I am pretty sure that the main one is that many or most of the people writing it and broadcasting it are true believers in their cause. They think they are helping to make sure that that stupid and unwashed 50% on the right doesn’t swell to become a far greater majority, and they are hoping that by reducing the American public’s exposure to any truth that might help the right, they are ultimately helping to shrink that 50% (and yes, I know; it might already be more than 50%).
I don’t ordinarily talk about politics to my friends. That’s not new for me; it’s something I can’t ever remember doing. It’s not that I didn’t have any interest in the topic for all those years. It’s just that I had no need to talk to friends about it. Friends were for other things – and besides, did we even differ? I didn’t know and apparently I didn’t care.
I recall, for example, that when I went back to graduate school in the 1990s, I’d been in school for two years in a very small program where I knew all of my fellow students very very well indeed but until the election of 1992 I didn’t know their politics. And the only reason I learned their politics was that the day after the election of Bill Clinton people came into class and mentioned that they were happy about the results. I remember being a bit surprised that everyone seemed to be a Democrat, but it had no special emotional importance to me and I saw it mostly as a curiosity.
It’s not that way anymore for so many people. Recently I lost another friend, not to death but to politics. This was someone I’d been close to for nearly forty years but who stopped talking to me with the election of Trump to a second term. She’d been aware of my differing politics for twenty years, but her TDS apparently finally reached a point where she is consumed by some combination of dread, fear, and hatred so powerful that she simply cannot talk to anyone on the right. And this is the case even though I virtually never talked about politics to her and she cites no specific offense on my part. It was enough merely to know that I am on the side of something she has come to feel is incredibly evil and dangerous.
And please don’t respond by saying something like “she was never really a friend” and “you’re better off.” She was a very good friend for almost four decades, and I don’t feel the least bit better off. As I get older, the loss of friends for any reason is extremely painful, and I find old friends to be irreplaceable.
I’ll close with this:
Maintaining a friendship (or any other human-to-human relationship) over an extended period of time is something that requires effort from both sides. Even if there’s no outward acrimony that develops, there’s always creeping estrangement that occurs naturaly when people don’t put effort into keeping in contact.
It’s sort of ironic that in an age where the barriers to communication are almost nonexistent, when technology of smart phones and social media have made it very easy to communicate with any other person on the other side of the planet at any time, that many people seem to feel more lonely now than people likely did back in the days of writing letters and waiting months between correspondences.
It’s also sad that the rise of social media has apparently lead to the rise of outrage culture, where people they need to express their outrage in order to achieve some sort of social currency I guess. It’s a sad commentary on human nature that some people feel they need to end all communication with certain close friends and family members over political differences that at one time would have be tolerable.
Obviously don’t know the details of Neo’s case but it seems to me a large percentage of these falling out’s occur on Facebook as opposed IRL.
I have never been on Facebook and yes I have heard through others that various friends or cousins are loons but I never see that and they never see me saying anything so when I see them they are just an old friend or my cousin like they have always been.
Social media is such a negative force in our culture that it is hard to find something that has not been negatively affected by it.
Griffin; Nonapod:
I’m not on Facebook, and I don’t think this friend is either. She used to be active on Twitter, and maybe that was a factor.
We have talked on the phone at least once a week for over 3 decades (we don’t live near each other). What I would call a close friend and even a very close friend. We had long kept in touch quite often.
neo,
Of course, you are different than most of us in that you post your political opinions daily and while it’s not under your name I assume virtually all of your friends know this is you so they could be reading your ‘horrible’ opinions silently all while maintaining a friendship until at some point they just break.
But even that is ridiculous because really what normal well adjusted person cares what a friend or distant relative thinks about the ‘current thing’.
The entire mindset is beyond me.
It’s not that ‘she was never really a friend’. It’s that she had occult shortcomings as a human being that you’d never seen before. Given your age range, you might not rule out deterioration upstairs on her part.
==
I have a dear cousin who went through a period where she’d put her middle-aged son on some sort of probation over his defenses of Trump. (She’s an odd duck, an actual street-level Republican NeverTrumper). I wasn’t clear what the characteristics of it were. What’s curious about that is that she grew up in a family where political opinions were held but held only lackadaisically. Her mother was an astute woman who voted every year, but politics did not take up much rent-free space in her head. Her sister has been a devoted pentacostalist who devotes her mind space to scripture. Her son has occupied various places on the spectrum over thirty years. At least one of her daughters is a registered Republican. Her nephew is an opinionated Bernie Bro, but people just take him as he is. Her militancy on this subject makes no sense. (I’m not the one with the Fakebook account in this house and I have been told by the holder to keep my mouth shut thereupon, so cousin and I have avoided having words).
==
I do note when my siblings call me on the phone, the one who starts something over politics is not me. Which is interesting as I have always been the most political and had the worst temper. (And they swallow whole the worst sort of snake-oil; my sister believes the ‘voter suppression’ nonsense and my brother thought the persecution of Gen. Flynn was perfectly reasonable).
Condolences on the loss of your friend, Neo. Every loss hurts, and at our ages losses are more frequent. I am carefully not talking about politics at all with my California relatives, and they’re doing the same. At least they’re not refusing to communicate with me. Yet. There is an issue which, if they ever force me to express my opinion about it, might lead to denunciations and shunning from their side.
What a loss, not only for us, but for these people who allow lifetime connections to be destroyed.
I find it hard to imagine having “friends” whose thoughts and attitudes fundamentally differ from mine. I would deem those with such fundamental differences as aquaintances, not friends. We are not talking religiosity here, not Catholic vs Protestant vs Jew vs atheist. We are talking right vs wrong, are we not? So homework (thinking things through) is required as a duty to myself and to others. And I find those on the Left as just flat-ass wrong.
I feel for you, Neo. As I already documented I’ve lost a friend of over 60 years; we met in 4th grade and were the best of friends until this past year. Also lost 2 more from way back in grad school.
There has to be some mass psychosis affecting that 30% of the population. ( I base that number on the polls after Trump’s speech which polled at an astonishing 70%). I see great fear from these people that drives their overwhelming hatred of Trump, and by extension, anyone in anyway even remotely associated with him.
Cicero: we had very much in common for decades. It’s they who suddenly decided I was persona non grata. How they decided to throw away decades of close friendship is baffling to me.
I see great fear from these people that drives their overwhelming hatred of Trump,
==
I’m not seeing any fear. I’m seeing a great deal of confusion on the part of some and a great deal of aggression on the part of others.
I second what Cicero stated. I have “friends” who believe what they want to believe about Trump, Biden’s mental sharpness, manmade global warming, illegal immigrants, and many other things despite all empirical evidence to the contrary.
It’s completely useless to discuss such topics with them. They just get angry.
In the end, if you can’t talk about normal subjects with someone, that person can only be an acquaintance, not a real friend.
I remember when I was in my twenties and an idiotic leftist myself, I had two friends who were Republicans, and we did the good-natured ribbing to each other. I recall giving one friend a Hanukkah card with a picture of George Bush Sr on it wearing a yarmulke and the caption was “Hanakuh Bush.” It never would’ve dawned on me to cut them out of my life because of politics.
More recently…
I am pretty quiet on Facebook about politics. I have a lot of Facebook friends who work “unfriend” me over it. One is a friend of over forty years. She waxes hysterical about Trump periodically on Facebook. But politics was not why we became friends. My husband keeps telling me that I shouldn’t be closeted, but I don’t want to lose friends. Again, it wasn’t politics that drew us together as friends.
I would equate what happened on January 6 to a similar psychosis the left is feeling towards Trump.
In the lead up to January 6, parts of the internet were aflame with certainty that Trump was going to declare martial law and seize the voting machines. Declare new elections. It was insane what was being said.
And people were believing it. Which explains part of the crowd that showed up on Jan. 6.
On the left side, the Hitler speech Biden made may have been the galvanizing event that pushed the left over the edge. Or it could have been another event Russiagate, etc.
But the delusions are similar, though polar opposite politically.
I think for the most part, the those on the right that bought into this propaganda/psyops have recovered. Less so for the left.
I just watched the video at the end of the post. He expresses exactly my thoughts and feelings. So sad.
ArtDeco: oh there’s definitely great fear…from the “He’s shutting down SS and Medicare, to starting WW3, to putting everyone not a Republican in concentration camps or just gunning them down.” The paranoia is deep.
Really sad to read these stories.
Human contact is vital. Even if a friend committed murder I’d likely stay in touch with him or her.
For the regular Mass attendees in the crowd, just last week we heard a Jewish guy admonish, “How can you say to your brother,’Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye?”
I am grateful to those who spend time with me* despite my many flaws. Why would I jeopardize their fellowship and grace for a brief feeling of sanctimony?
*I know how tedious and taxing it can be. I’ve spent decades with myself!
physicsguy et alia,
I know what you write is true regarding just how paranoid and unmoored many are, but do they not read history books or have family members who lived in generations prior?
In dark moments of madness whatever future fears I imagine I might face from the government pale in comparison with what my grandparents and their parents lived through; what my wife’s parents lived through in Europe.
Maybe send them a copy of Steven Pinker’s, “The Better Angels of our Nature?”
The fellow who has cut off Dr. Saad tells him that ‘Trump is targeting my community’. You have to ask yourself what that could possibly mean in the mind of the uttering party.
It’s sad … but … I can’t think of the word … to know I’m not the only one who has lost friends of decades standing because I didn’t support H, BO, and FJB or their policies. Never mattered before those 3 – even during Willy; now it’s a damningly important difference.
ArtDeco: oh there’s definitely great fear…from the “He’s shutting down SS and Medicare, to starting WW3, to putting everyone not a Republican in concentration camps or just gunning them down.” The paranoia is deep.
==
These are delusions. You have to ask yourself why people are susceptible to them.
RE: Perkins Coie and the “FBI workstation,” located in their office since 2012,” which reportedly could access information in the NSA database.
I saw a mention of this workstation in some story several years ago, and moved on, not, until just now, understanding it’s great significance.
Such access to the NSA database reportedly gives you the “keys to the kingdom,” access to almost anything and everything.
And here this law firm, connected to the DNC and Hillary, has had access to all of this information starting way back in 2012!
Trump’s Executive Order, in addition to stripping the people at Perkins Coie of their security clearances, also requires the removal of this FBI workstation.*
* See https://www.sgtreport.com/2025/03/president-trump-removes-perkins-coie-security-clearance-and-fbi-workstations-from-within-law-firm/ and
https://www.bizpacreview.com/2025/03/07/trump-halts-security-clearance-for-employees-with-steele-dossier-linked-perkins-coie-1527522/
It is not 50/50 there are more conservatives than leftists. The Left puffs itself up for a variety of reasons.
==
“These are delusions. You have to ask yourself why people are susceptible to them”
Exactly. That is the great mystery to me. People much smarter than I am in the working of the mind could maybe answer. As I said. I’m totally baffled.
I’m so sorry, Neo. It’s so painful.
I have had something like this happen with both of my two closest lifelong friends, both times over politics, both times their choice, not mine. In one case we have sort of patched it up, because we missed each other, but our old easy closeness is gone. In the other, it’s more complicated. But I find myself now wondering if I’ll ever have a good friend again, other than, thank goodness, Mr Whatsit. It’s lonely.
The Democrats just keep digging.
Yo!
Take a look at the New Democrat political ad featuring eccentric, blue haired, ancient Connecticut Representative Rosa DeLauro, the message delivered using the slang you might hear from some high school kid.
It’s cringe taken to a new and even lower level.
I believe that the current Achilles Heel of the Democrats is the transgender thing. I think there is a reason the mainstream leftist media has mostly ignored or denied the various stories of the recruitment of kids , the mutilation of children’s bodies with drugs and surgery, and people being intimidated by trans friendly mobs, etc. If the average older aged democrat understood how deep this cult has driven into the social fabric, more would abandon the Democrats. As is, the mainstream media often portrays the whole thing – when they cover it at all- in vague terms of ” trans rights ” or ” LGBTQ rights.”
Here is 81 year old Rosa Delauro’s Democrat political ad, in which she throws around a lot of teenage slang, I guess in an attempt to appear relevant, and to attract more high school and college age voters.*
Watch it, if you dare! It’s going to be hard to forget, and not in a good way.
* See https://x.com/rosadelauro/status/1839425333097058415
Art Deco and physics guy-
You wonder why and how paranoid delusions are so widespread today.
– we lack incidence data BUT the MSM is generally culpable. We are awash with their fixation and reporting (often of nonsense). The bloodier the better, especially if the perp is “Euro-American”,i.e. not black or brown. Race is now so often not reported, but the FBI data including race are shocking: non-whites are majorly(4-5x) more violent than whites.
There has arisen an attitudinal synchronization of government, most “news” sources, and big corporate CEOs in this regard.
Soon this anti-white bias will lead to an explosion, which the Deep South will lead. In the meantime, the degradation of the founders plus their creation, the USA, continues.
“The trouble with our Liberal friends is not that they’re ignorant; it’s just that they know so much that isn’t so.” Ronald Reagan
I suspect that when Reagan used the term “Liberal friends” he was not referring to the cultural Marxists of his time. Who now compose so much of the democrat party’s base and nearly all of its current leadership.
The democrat party has become a traitorous cancer within the body politic. As they are committed, by whatever means are necessary, to the fundamental transformation of America into The United Socialist States of Amerika. Failing that, they’ll settle for its destruction.
Neo, my deepest sympathies on the loss of your friend.
I find this kind of behavior crazy. Actually crazy. Really, it is some kind of mental/emotional tying oneself up in knots.* These people are letting ephemeral ‘scare talk’ coming at them from the airwaves override their ‘lived experience’.
I can’t believe I used that expression.
I choose to deliberately avoid politics around my friends and relations – including my beloved daughter – in order to avoid triggering someone. They know where I stand and we leave it at that. Love it when someone comes out as conservative to me. Then we dish!
*By now everyone has heard this response to the ‘hitler’ accusation; ‘ If he’s really hitler then why don’t you take up arms and stop him?
Lots easier to sacrifice a dear friendship on their moral altar instead. Scapegoating. Crazy – but so much less risky.
RTF @ 5:53:
“*I know how tedious and taxing it can be. I’ve spent decades with myself!”
Well, at least in this venue you strike me as a pretty interesting and engaging fellow.
International traveler, variety of interests and experiences, etc.
And also not yet retired, which might be somewhat unusual compared to most of us here?
How do you find the time to visit after a full day or week or work?!!
physicsguy on March 7, 2025 at 7:54 pm said:
[citing Art Deco] “These are delusions. You have to ask yourself why people are susceptible to them”
“Exactly. That is the great mystery to me. People much smarter than I am in the working of the mind could maybe answer. As I said. I’m totally baffled.”
I am no smarter than you about the workings of the mind, but I have a similar bafflement in regard to religious belief (aka faith) vs. rational/logical analysis. I have come to the conclusion that we have evolved parallel mental capabilities to expand our reasoning and our need for spiritual support. Both seemed to aid socialization and cooperation, hence survivability of early hominins and eventually humans. But some of us have a balance that minimizes the transcendent side, and others have or need more of that. I am still looking for scientific evidence to support this hypothesis so do my best to retain an “open mind”.
We also recognize that much of ideology and political views have a cultish and/or semi-religious influence on some people. Nothing new there. But there could be 2 or 7 evolved mental “elements” that interact to create the results we see among our friends, current or former.
Apologies on the loss of the friend. Same happened to me. Never ever talked politics w my ex-friend, but she just saw some election post I had “liked” online, and decided that 20 years of friendship mattered less than that. It was blindsiding. Alarming and heartbreaking to see similar stories in all these comments. I must admit it’s hardened my heart. Leftism is a mind poison, as crazy-making as rabies.
All of these stories are so similar: a sudden break of a friendship or even family relationship, often without warning, often due to what most of us would consider something “small” – it’s not like you (speaking generally) got a break-up text because they saw you in a KKK robe in front of a burning cross!); or else an abrupt ending of a long “truce” of not discussing politics because of what someone else did (usually Trump).
What I don’t understand: IF the aggrieved party is certain that you (still speaking generally) have joined the Dark Side, and is truly your friend or a close relation, why aren’t they trying to persuade you to come back to the Light? Why are they abandoning years, or decades, of good times without making some effort to persuade you to change your mind?
And if they have concluded that overt persuasion is probably not going to work, why not keep up the friendship so that they can influence you with their Good Example and eventually nudge you into giving up your heretical notions?
Don’t they care enough to try and save you?
@ Snow > “Such access to the NSA database reportedly gives you the “keys to the kingdom,” access to almost anything and everything.”
But but but — Elon Musk is going to steal our Social Security Numbers!
@ Snow > “It’s cringe taken to a new and even lower level.”
https://notthebee.com/article/rad-democrat-congresswomen-release-super-smash-bros-video-to-appeal-to-the-youth
“Choose Your Fighter”
I have wondered about this, it seems to be a factor in the young and the ‘getting older’ group. For the younger people I have seen it as a short cut to feeling superior, particularly if their life isn’t heading in a positive direction. For the older group, of which I am one, it seems to be a reflection either of ‘making up for’ not reaching the heights they expected of themselves (the same short cut for feeling morally superior) or simply not enough to do in their day so they became obsessed with the political news. I think the ages in the middle are too busy working for a living and raising kids 🙂
Sandra, Good Morning.
No, even with the older group, the sense that they are soo superior to anyone on the right is very prevalent. I’ve been told many times by people who have never worked in science that I must be the worst scientist ever because I don’t ” believe” in climate change. Their use of that verb tells me everything i need to know about their scientific knowledge, yet they are so much smarter than I am due to their expansive knowledge of non-linear hyrodynamics.
Neo, I’m sorry for your loss and sorry for your friend’s loss, too. It’s likely just as sad for her, whether she admits it or not. What a burden outrage is.
The is a part of the people on the left/prog side that are so convinced that they are right they will destroy anyone or thing that does not agree. This is where concentration camps start.
Brainwashed—SATURATED—with hate.
Intelligence has nothing to do with it.
In fact, intelligence may actually exacerbate it.
The question is, how susceptible is one to allowing themselves to be brainwashed?
And unfortunately(!?), the association—the EQUATION—of HATE with VIRTUE, which is the brainwashing methodology OF CHOICE**, as we have witnessed during the Obama/“Biden” regnum (yes, singular) AND during the 70-year Communist juggernaut AND during the Thousand-Year Reich, is a huge, perhaps insurmountable, force multiplier.
Some, even many, former Democrats^^ have been—FINALLY—able to see through the Democratic Party’s ultra-destructive ambitions, see through the lies, see through the outrageous criminality and corruption (even if I doubt that ANYONE could have predicted the unfathomable extent of what DOGE is continuing to expose).
** Together, in many cases, with huge doses of FEAR.
^^ Bill Ackman is just one prominent example:
‘“Resign In Disgrace!”: Bill Ackman Says Democrats Need “Complete Reboot”’—
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/resign-disgrace-bill-ackman-says-democrats-need-complete-reboot
And of course there’s Musk, RFK,Jr., Gabbard
It would appear that Gaad’s black friend , who claims that Trump is “targeting” blacks (Like young DJ, from Trump’s speech? 🙂 ), is an academic. His TDS appears to be more based on his membership in academia than in his being black. Support of Trump among academics– offhand closer to 5% than 10%. Current support of Trump among black voters has increased from 16% vote in the November election–now around 25-30%. Black males voted 21% for Trump– and 31% of black male voters under 45 voted for Trump. From 2016 to 2024, the black vote for Trump increased from 8% to 16%.
I will be visiting my New England hometown this year. If politics come up with old friends, as it probably will (one friend served a term in the state legislature), I will say that because neither they nor I will be able to change the others’ minds on their political views, I will not participate in political discussions. If they want to discuss among themselves, I will listen in. If they want to find out how I evolved from a progressive of the left to an evil right winger, I will tell them.
At least one “friendship” was terminated from politics. In a previous visit, a hometown friend, in discussing old classmates, mentioned that a classmate living out West was a Tea Party supporter. I replied that wasn’t far from my political views. “That’s because you live in Texas.” I replied that my political views originated in my hometown. My friend replied that our meeting was terminated because he needed to review information relating to a town government board meeting that evening. (There WAS a meeting..)
I decided that someone who told me why I thought as I did, but was not willing to hear MY explanation of why I thought as I did, was not a friend. (I had followed up and was in effect informed that no, he was NOT interested in hearing my explanation.) I was reminded of William F. Buckley’s crack that liberals say they want to hear alternate views, but are shocked when those alternate views are expressed.
@ Gringo > “I was reminded of William F. Buckley’s crack that liberals say they want to hear alternate views, but are shocked when those alternate views are expressed.”
Indeed.
One of our sons had to break up a romantic relationship that was great on every level EXCEPT she felt free to express all of her political opinions, but was NOT interested in hearing his (guess the Parties).
I’m tending toward the theory that Democrats of the doctrinaire variety are subliminally aware that their ideology & policies can’t compete in fair and open discussions, so they just don’t talk about them, which means not talking about yours as well.
To be fair, the doctrinal purity shut-downs also ran in the opposite direction when there actually was a dominant conservative Moral Majority, which is what the Sixties Liberals (and their Leftist allies) fought against, sometimes with good reason.
However, as some of the Red Pilled Democrats have said (starting with Reagan?), “I did’t leave the Democat Party, the Democrat Party left me.”
Don’t you love all the Capital-Letter_Labels we can use now?
I recall a fortunately casual acquaintance whom I realized was not only intolerant of others’ views, but was upset to learn that others actually HAD differing views!
@ MrsX > “What a burden outrage is.”
That’s one of the rationales for Christ’s admonition to forgive “seventy times seven,” although I have to admit I’m having trouble with that one, given the extent of fraud, lies, and damage that have been caused by the Democrats AND Republicans over the last (name your number) years.
@ Ray > “upset that others actually HAD views!”
I’ve seen a lot of memes on that one!
AesopFan: “… caused by the Democrats AND Republicans over the last (name your number) years.”
Sorry, I don’t do “bothsidism” on this one. Republicans are obviously far from perfect, but the Dems are in a league of their own when it comes to perfidy, from moral to legal.
When the vast majority of the near reality environment, such as media and education, is dominated by the Left, and has been for over 40 years, people become that environment. Plus, part of the message has been, the right are evil.
It’s much easier to be of the Left. For all their talk of tolerance, compassion, etc., it doesn’t seem to apply when it comes to certain relationships.
@ Ray – Totally agree that the Democrats are in a uniquely bad league, but there have been plenty of Republicans in the same game.
This happened to me in the past few weeks. Someone I have been friends with since the late ’70s, whom I talk with maybe half a dozen times a year, contacted me. I know we disagree strongly on politics, but I am fine with completely ignoring politics, to chat about anything else. This time the person would not go for that, and seeing that I did not join in on the correct denunciations (I was trying to ignore/bypass), the person called me terrible names and said we had no basis for a friendship. It stung. I feel badly that the person seems to have so much darkness inside now that no aspect of the person’s interior life is not covered with it.
To be fair, the doctrinal purity shut-downs also ran in the opposite direction when there actually was a dominant conservative Moral Majority, which is what the Sixties Liberals (and their Leftist allies) fought against, sometimes with good reason.
==
The Moral Majority existed from 1979 to 1989. They were ‘dominant’ only at the institution Mr. Falwell himself founded.
==
There were, up until about 1966, disciplinary rules on campuses which inhibited sexual conduct between male and female students. There have been particular institutions where a certain perspective was dominant. You would have to go back to 1940 if not earlier to find an era where a ‘conservative’ perspective was modal outside of the Southern United States.
@ Art Deco > “You would have to go back to 1940 if not earlier to find an era where a ‘conservative’ perspective was modal outside of the Southern United States.”
Agreed, and I should have made it more clear that I was speaking in that general sense, and using “moral majority” as a short-hand label, as I don’t know if there is any designation that encompasses the totality of the time where Christian morality was dominant, or at least professed in public despite private deviations from it, along with a conservative culture, especially in clothing and language (there have always been “underground” exceptions, but they were acknowledged to be underground).