I am a regular reader of Neo’s blog, and an occasional commenter. I am using a different pseudonym than usual to tell this (true) tale.
R2L on November 1, 2025 at 12:03 am wrote, in the “Musings on Divorce” comments: “Given that a very large fraction of what is discussed here is about politics, I wonder how many marriages are dissolving due to conflicts between TDS and MAGA.”
I cannot say “dissolving” in my case, but I do have a tale to tell. I might have generated pages and pages to fill with lurid examples of whining and self-pity, but no one (including moi) would want to plow through them. Accordingly, I am omitting an awful lot.
My wife Chloe [NOT her actual name] had never been political. I had long characterized her as “a liberal with her head screwed on,” meaning that she might fit in along the left-right spectrum near Hubert Humphrey, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Paul Tsongas, and (dare I mention?) John Fetterman — if she were political. But she had never been, and life sailed along harmoniously.
Then Trump sashayed down that escalator, and my life began to change dramatically, “at first gradually, then suddenly.” At first, her TDS was largely personality-driven. Donald Trump is an extremely flawed person, and Chloe focused like a laser on those flaws. But one focus led to another, and over the ensuing months, she became interested, very interested, in politics.
Uh-ohh.
The Trump 45 and Biden 46 regimes were bad enough, as conversations became unpleasant more and more frequently. Chloe would often end a conversation when she saw that I was becoming more and more agitated. She had the hard left talking points at the ready in her quiver, and when I pointedly refuted them, she’d warn me that my blood pressure was in danger of rising. My protestations that my blood pressure was now already up too high (thank you) were of little avail.
I need to mention here that I never initiated any political conversation with her. (I stayed clear, but there was eventually one exception, when I could no longer take something she was urging upon me, and I really and angrily lit into Biden 46 and ilk. But that was not initiating.)
Then Trump 45 decided to try to become Trump 47. By now, there would be a steady stream of left talking points, which I could tell were originating in what she was viewing on line. Earlier on, I would refute those points as they came up, and we would end up mutually disgruntled. But more and more often, I would simply walk out of the room. I really wearied of refuting her points with counter-points that were immediately available on line, but Chloe is never interested in digging beyond what her left websites are telling her. (For example, I have mentioned the Twitter files numerous times, and each time after the first, when I asked if she was familiar with them, she’s said “no”.)
(An additional illustrative example: Trump said Liz Cheney should be put before a firing squad to be executed. !NO!, there is readily available video of what Trump actually said and what he was getting at, but what’s the use? Chloe persisted in that delusion despite my pointing to what was actually said.)
I would try to point out that these discussions (again, never initiated by me) inevitably resulted in my getting quite agitated, and (increasingly emphatically) please stop doing it. Chloe said I needed to be responsible for my own reactions. Fair point, very fair point, but my counter-point was and is that after years (by now) of this happening over and over and over, my reactions were resulting from the cumulative build up, so please, Chloe, stop.
She said at some point that she was trying to get me to see what she was seeing, how the country’s going to hell, how Trump is doing X, Y, and Z, and how Trump is a pedophile, a rapist, etc. etc. etc. As a political semi-junkie, I’m familiar with virtually all the talking points she was presenting, but the point is (and she finally said as much), she was making it part of her mission to get me to See The Light. I likened it to Jehovah’s Witnesses visiting my house regularly, telling me essentially the same things at every visit, all to get me to come over to their side and convert. She seemed very unmoved by that analogy.
(Much omitted at this point.)
Then Charlie Kirk was shot. She mentioned that the shooter’s parents came from a Republican family, so yes, okay. I feared what might be coming, and that didn’t take long at all. The shooter shot Kirk, Chloe said with characteristic emphatic confidence, because he (the shooter) thought Kirk wasn’t far right enough. The shooter, you see, was a right-winger. “Chloe, STOP.” Then another sentence that I don’t recall any more. “CHLOE, STOP!” Then something an hour or two later. My blood pressure by now must have been 300/250.
We ate lunch separately that day and stayed separate all day, but I figured I’d try to calm the waters before dinner. I explained how we are living in two separate universes, and, as many earlier conversations had amply demonstrated, these conversations inevitably end up with me very agitated and Chloe very disgruntled. I went on, reasonably calmly this time, for maybe twenty minutes, explaining what I think was behind our unpleasant interactions: not expounding on how my universe was the correct one and hers wasn’t, but on how we just had no common ground on which to base these conversations (so Chloe, please STOP doing this).
Finally I said I’d spoken my peace. Chloe said, “can I speak my peace?” Well, sure, certainly. But Chloe’s “peace” did not touch on our personal interactions but instead, it consisted of a series of more, mostly reiterated, left talking points. I swear.
So be it.
Then something erupted about a week ago about the East Wing. “Erupted”, as in “volcanic.” WHY??? What’s the blankety-blank point? After yet another calming down, I wanted again to speak about our interactions, and I succeeded for a bit, but then, out of the blue, she began again about the East Wing. (Chloe’s mental modus operandi is to often suddenly pivot to a different subject without hint or notice.)
I was beside myself. “I am trying to talk about us, about our relationship, and you’re going on again about the East Wing??? I can’t believe this. What is more important right now, our relationship or the damn East Wing?” AFter only a short hesitation, she responded quiety, “Our relationship.” Whew.
Now it was really drawing to a climax. Before, I had cited Jehovah’s Witnesses as an abstract analogy, but this time I felt it was time to be direct and personal. I spoke angrily, “Can you imagine what it’s like being married to someone who is after you continually, like those Jehovah’s Witnesses, relentlessly trying to get you to change your world outlook?”
And then, more calmly now, “Can you agree that even if my intemperate reactions to you are misguided, that even if I (and not you) am responsible for my reactions, that it is reasonable to take those reactions into account when we’re interacting?” Chloe very quietly said “yes.”
That is what gives me hope for the future. Things had become very depressing and bereft of joy (again, many specifics are omitted), especially when assessing my future. It seems a little better now. Finally.
I’d looked forward to a retirement in which I was going to live peacefully and harmoniously, in which the tugs and jolts of the world might leave me unscathed (hadn’t I earned at least that?). I’d had one, for a good stretch. The most recent stretch has rendered that vision a cruel practical joke. I had not married this, I never would have chosen to marry this, but reality intervened in an unexpected way.
I think and hope a bridge has finally been crossed. I cling to a glimmer of hope now.
To everyone who has read this far, thank you, thank you for reading. “God bless us everyone.”
3i atlas:
Prayers for you and your wife.
I never found Elizabeth Taylor all that appealing.
3iatlas,
great choice for a pseudonym…a sudden possible alien encounter in your home.
Your terrible experience is an extension of what I’ve been trying to understand for the past year or so. TDS does seem to be a true mental disorder, and me being a physicist with no good understanding of mental conditions, it baffles me. As I’ve mentioned I have a BiL who has gone over the edge since the election in essence calling half of his family Nazis. I’ve lost 3 friends of over 40 years to TDS. It’s inevitable I guess that it would hit marriages and other romantic relationships.
As we have discussed here many times, I’m afraid Kirk’s assassination may be just the beginning of more TDS violence against the right. What the endgame is, I don’t know.
That’s a painful history, but one that is probably being repeated in a lot of houses across the country. I don’t recall a Republican previously engendering so visceral a reaction as we have seen with Trump. I supported him in three elections, more because of whom he was running against than because I find him an attractive candidate.
My wife supports him without reservation. For me, I look at foreign policy decisions that appear to have been reached without adequate staff research and support and I grit my teeth. Worse yet, I see him monetizing the office (a local radio station carries his advertisement for a Trump wristwatch and another for Trump running shoes) and I cringe. And now we have the Trump cryptocurrency and I want to tear my hair out. But my wife is fine with all of that. So we don’t discuss any of it.
All of which is to say I have an inkling of where you’re coming from, but my example is certainly not as urgent or painful as yours. What can I say except good luck, and I wish you well.
So Trump is often ” rough around the edges”. Not as much now as his first term , but it’s still there. I was almost a ” never Trumper” in 2016 but voted for him anyway due to the alternative.
That being said, notice how many also react to some one very mild like Riley Gaines.
It’s not as widespread, but it’s still there.
Jon baker (12:12 pm) said: “notice how many also react to some one very mild like Riley Gaines.”
That is a very good point. In a way, it goes along with Trump’s declaration that “they’re not after me, they’re after you; I’m just in their way.”
It’s frightening.
3i atlas, I’ll pray for you and your wife. God knows who you are, so my anonymous prayers will go to the right household.
3I, please consider finding a good marriage counselor. I doubt that your problem is rare. There ought to be standard, successful approaches.
Also, please consider giving up political discussions. Did you two get married for politics? Then, don’t get divorced over them.
In fact, consider giving up all politics for two weeks. Say your doctor said so. Fill time previously spent following and discussing politics with a new interest: gardening, minor league baseball, Elizabeth Taylor’s violet eyes, …. (And, if your wife wants to talk politics, listen politely, but don’t engage — doctor’s orders.)
Sounds like he’s been trying for a long time to avoid talking about politics. It’s “Chloe” who wouldn’t stop.
@3i atlas
Some of my old girl friends have gone politically nuts in just that way. Whole groups who used to hang out together have gone crazy that way. All I can say is that I lucked out and married none of them. I honestly don’t think I could live with a Democrat these days, politics has become an important character trait.
The problem started with the election of Bush and 9/11 and it has become far worse in the ensuing years.
Jon baker: “I was almost a ” never Trumper” in 2016 but voted for him anyway due to the alternative”
In 2016 I had a lot of doubts about Trump. But I had no doubts about Hillary so I voted for him.
We are witnessing the power of MSM propaganda, tied to the same in the educational establishment, media, NGOs, and government workers, to name only the most obvious. Goebbles would be envious: such success, and all without top-down control!
Spousal abuse can take many forms.
3i atlas’ narrative describes one of them.
I endured similar abuse for years.
It was not politically based, just plain old meanness.
And it gets progressively worse.
I doubt there is a cure.
I felt so much better after divorce, though I did experience PTSD for a few years.
3I atlas, good luck. Counselling might help. Finding common interests other than politics might help.
I thank God that my wife and are politically compatible.
Now, to the video. Impressive vascularity by the71 year old. I didn’t catch the name of the supplement they use, but here’s one that increases vascularity.
Nitro Surge, available at Amazon.
I spent five years doing Masters (over 50 years old) body building – 1995-2000. And continued to work out hard until I was 84. There were no supplants that increased vascularity when I was competing, so I never had that extreme vascular look.
It’s not easy, but anyone who commits to working out three days a week and eating properly can be quite fit and look good as long as your general health holds up. (And a fitness lifestyle improves your general health.)
I loved being in the gym with a plan to improve my strength and endurance. My wife worked out also, so we were always together at the gym.
Unfortunately, after a near death experience due to a surgery in 2017, I have been too weak to work out hard. I now have a small routine that I do four days a week at homme. It includes multipole trips up and down our stairs, some squats, some modified pushups, and walking for twenty to thirty minutes. It exhausts me, but “movement is medicine,” so I keep at it.
The problem started with the election of Bush and 9/11 and it has become far worse in the ensuing years
It’s hard to draw a bright line as to when this “problem” really started, but I believe there are a few clear inflection points. To clarify, I’m defining the “problem” as being mainstream (D) voters gradually becoming more and more extreme in their intolerance of differing political viewpoints to the point where longtime friend groups, families, and marriages must be be torn asunder due to percieved moral imperatives bordering a fanitical.
It’s hardly new for most liberal media outlets to describe prominant Republicans as Hitler obviously. But despite that, I believe most mainline Democrat voters used to dismiss those sorts of accusations as the hyperbole that they clearly were, and they’d rarely accuse the regular Republicans and/or Conservatives in their lives of being outright evil simply for voting a certain way and supporting certain policies. Perhaps that changed slightly in the years immediately following 9/11 during the Iraq war, where more mainstream Democrats began using terms like “Warmonger” and otherwise categorizing people as evil a bit more freely.
I think the election of Barrack Obama may have been a crucial turning point. Obama did moralize about the percieved failings of regular Republican voters. We all remember the infamous “bitter clingers” remark. And later, Hillary Clinton’s “basket of deplorables”.
The rise of Social Media was another big cultural change point, exposing regular people to more and more extreme viewpoints and interpretations of events. Even mainstreaming certain ideas that were widely considered to be outright absurd just a few years earlier.
And the arrival of Trump changed things too, with his unapologetic brashness which both endeared him to lots of people and galvanized other people against him. Extreme ideas often engender extreme opposition.
So here we are in 2025 with large groups of mainstream Democrats who appear to believe that people who support Trump and/or his agenda can only be pure evil. It’s like they’ve been indoctinated into a huge cult or something. Of course, they’d say the same thing about their opposition.
I got nothin’, but perhaps a 25 yr old Arnold Schoenburg’s String Sextet op.4 “Verklärte Nacht” (28:48) might be of some use: https://youtu.be/vqODySSxYpc
Nonapod:
My political change was around 2003-2004, and I most definitely experienced it.
atlas:
So sorry you’re experiencing this.
Thanks very much to everyone who’s expressed interest in my tale, including Neo. Thanks for the prayers. Prayers are real and can be practical. I take them seriously.
Kate is right, I’ve been avoiding politics at home for years. AppleBetty suggests a marriage counselor, but practically all marriage counselors, along with people in the caring professions, are left to left-er, and I have no faith at all in their ability to adhere to a neutral line in any counseling. How many of them would tell me I’m the problem, when all I’ve been trying to do is mind my business? But thank you, AppleBetty, for taking the time to converse. “Give up political discussions”? Gladly, gladly.
JJ, we had common interests in the former days. People both do and don’t change, and now we’ve got to get something back. That’s where AppleBetty is spot on.
Thank you again, good people.
I wouldn’t vote for one of the Democrat terrorists on a dare. I don’t care how “rough around the edges” Trump is. I only care what he does.
”AppleBetty suggests a marriage counselor, but practically all marriage counselors, along with people in the caring professions, are left to left-er, and I have no faith at all in their ability to adhere to a neutral line in any counseling. How many of them would tell me I’m the problem, when all I’ve been trying to do is mind my business?”
I was going to bring up this very point, but you’re already there. So all I can say is “Good luck.” As you can see, many of us have had similar issues. Again, good luck.
”Perhaps that changed slightly in the years immediately following 9/11 during the Iraq war…”
It was definitely the 2000 election and/or 9-11 that brought this on. Those two events happened so close together in time it’s hard to say which is the driver, but that’s when this phenomenon really took off.
During that time I was doing a lot of travel for business, so I met a lot of different people, many in our most leftist cities, but this happened all over. I also ended up eating alone in a lot of different bars and restaurants (hooray for expense accounts!).
I noticed in conversations that I had directly and also in conversations happening around me, that almost every conversation from late 2001 until mid 2008 (the Obama election season) eventually turned to the war. People would start out talking about work, or sports, or the weather, but eventually the conversation would almost inevitably turn to the war: Among conservatives it would turn to Osama bin Ladan and how to destroy Al Qaeda, and among liberals it would turn to George W. Bush and how to destroy……the Republicans.
The language in each case was almost identical. Republicans saw the terrorists as an evil enemy that needed to be destroyed, and the Democrats saw the *Republicans* as an evil enemy that needed to be destroyed.
The first time I heard that I was shocked, but then it happened again, and again, and again, and over and over again all over the country.
There was something about 9-11 that caused left-leaning people to snap, and it’s gotten worse since then with each passing year. I thought eventually such passions would fade, but no. They just keep getting worse. Where it will end, I don’t know, but things don’t look good.
I think there’s been a secular decline in the inclination of professional class leftoids to see themselves as residents of a country where people have competing objects and worldviews between which we have means of mediation and adjudication. They fancy institutions are theirs and the public discourse is theirs. People competing for positions in institutions and for a place in discussions are conceptualized as burglars. This will not end well.
I’ve suspected for some time that counselors are hired by wives to (1) badger the husband into seeing things her way or (2) to provide the wife with reasons to serve papers on the husband. I wouldn’t trust them.
==
3i atlas–I admire your patience and fortitude. I can only imagine how upsetting (blood pressure!) it has been. I’m not on social media, but the little I see of family members (thankfully extended ones, not our children nor their spouses), lash out with misinformed, uncharitable political opinions–it is especially irritating. I am very glad that you feel you have arrived at a point that gives you hope. I wish you and your wife the very best.
A/k/a 3i atlas: Thanks for sharing. Hope things improve. Prayers.
Nonapod: good observations. Thanks.
To a return of civility. God bless all.
RE: 3I/Atlas–Thirty days have passed since NASA instruments apparently took the clearest images of the”comet” 3I/Atlas, and Harvard’s Astrophysicist Dr. Avi Loeb is getting pissed at the fact that NASA has withheld these pictures, nor will the scientist in charge of getting those pictures even reply to Dr.Loeb’s inquiries about these images.
Yet, when Kim Kardashian said that she thought that the moon landings never happened, the NASA administrator replied to Kardashian within 15 minutes. *
You believe yourself a “star” because you can read the words someone else wrote and simulate the appropriate emotions, you are central casting pretty, you can play a musical instrument very, very well, compose music, write a lyric, write a book or play, dance, conduct an orchestra, or paint a picture, and people will pay you for your talent.
Somehow, mysteriously, by virtue of your talent and celebrity–and while you may not have even finished high school—you suddenly feel it your duty to publicly opine on complex issues of public policy, science, economics, politics, foreign affairs, or national defense; on issues having nothing to do with your talent, telling people what they should think, or even how they should vote.
And the crazy part is that apparently some sizeable number of people give your bloviations–you untutored celebrity “opinions”–credence, and may be swayed by them.*
There is a large gambling scandal erupting which has already involved 30 players, a coach, and organized crime. The scandal is likely to broaden.
______________________________
That morning, the FBI announced that more than 30 people had been charged in two separate but related criminal investigations. Terry Rozier of the Miami Heat and Damon Jones, a former Cleveland Cavaliers player and assistant coach, were among the six people arrested for their alleged roles in a sports-betting conspiracy. Chauncey Billups, the head coach of the Portland Trail Blazers and a Hall of Fame player best known for his tenure with the Detroit Pistons, was among the 31 people arrested for their alleged roles in a scheme to rig illegal poker games with ties to organized crime.
I can’t watch basketball anymore. The game has become so antiseptic, so bloodless. I was an 80s Celtics fan. Back then there were stakes. Players played like they were fighting for their lives, not their careers or endorsements.
I’m not surprised that the modern atmosphere would yield people manipulating the game behind the scenes for money.
Thanks once more to all, and especially to those who may have missed my thanks earlier in the day.
I’m no saint, believe me. But I do think I have been pissed on unnecessarily, and I think I had a tale to tell that is relevant, building on R2L’s comment. My motive was not to lick my wounds, or to have others do it for me, but to offer an illustration of what’s going on.
F thinks that my tale is “probably being repeated in a lot of houses across the country.” I sure as hell hope not. But I do know, as we all do, that long standing relationships are being threatened and canceled by divisions that are not of our making.
“Chloe” seems unaware for the most part of exactly what she was doing. My job now is to practice the sentiment recorded in Luke 23:34, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do,” spoken by a figure who was REALLY misunderstood and mistreated. Puts it in a perspective.
Good night, all.
3i atlas
@neo: I start wondering if this is AI, but I guess not:
It’s worth wondering. I get confused too.
There are a lot of videos out there called AI slop, because they are generated on the cheap with AI tools and designed to elicit clicks and revenue, with minimal interest in accuracy or value.
This video has recognizably imperfect human voices and the images likewise.
But AI slop will keep getting better.
Kudos to the jacked Mr. 71!
3i atlas, part of the reason I mentioned the TDS-MAGA issue is that I am facing a much milder version of what you describe. I think we will outlast Trump, and if necessary Vance. We have too much invested to throw that away.
But for the country as a whole, it may well involve a “come to Jesus” realization for the media and social media celebrities and pundits, about how the march through the institutions has indoctrinated so many of them. A real drop off in critical thinking? Including some on the Right. Most of us here now “accept” Trump, with reservations that he could still go over a cliff [as Kevin Roberts may be approaching?]. But it also feels good to have a real executive leading the executive branch, even when we disagree with any particular policy element or extent.
So how and when did pre-TDS take hold? Partly via Gramsci, the Frankfurt School, probably Alinsky, et al. And the Republicans accepted, or resisted poorly, the “responsible” elements of the welfare state or the Great Society, so the camel’s nose got under the tent and such compassion and largess got distorted. Now we have a socialist mayoral candidate for NYC!
Plus when the USSR collapsed the common enemy was gone, and no substantive “vision” was available from Bush, Sr. We floated along with a vague “city on a hill” or “beacon for mankind” creedal view, not realizing that the CCP would never become “democratic” nor Islam be truly benign. Nor anticipating the impact of immigration on many European countries!!
When 911 happened, we still accepted the Bush-Saudi oil connections, the idiocy of a “religion of peace” and of building nations in our image. But many of us began studying Islam to greater or lesser degrees and learned its true nature [“chauvinistic supremacy” per Bruce Thornton]. So one group of us could not learn about or accept that our world was not “all in” for the American solution for politics and economics. It basically came down to Sowell’s constrained vs. unconstrained visions.
But it has taken a few decades for the Right to finally stop being politically polite to seem politically correct. For the Tea Party reaction to reassert itself. And most recently the DOGE and related revelations about the Leftist government self funding its agenda via NGO’s, etc., in addition to the private sector Leftists (and probably Russia and China?).
I suspect many here can insert a dozen other elements that I have forgotten or glossed over.
In case no one mentioned it above, the Web and the smart phone have connected everyone 24/7 (if they want to be that connected). Before that, people went about their lives and their business and tried to get along with each other. It was considered impolite to discuss religion or politics.
Nowadays, we can spew our hate or disdain to the world, anonymously, 24/7.
Thanks, Steve Jobs!
“I’ve suspected for some time that counselors are hired by wives to (1) badger the husband into seeing things her way or (2) to provide the wife with reasons to serve papers on the husband. I wouldn’t trust them.
==” Art D.
The words of someone whoi has never been in counseling. 🙂
I understand than counseling has gotten a bad rep, based a lot on the LBGTQ+ issues. There are, however, good counselors out there. (And some are men.) And you can ask some questions before committing to counseling that may help.
Such as:
How many couples have you counselled?
What do you see as success in helping a married couple?
What are your politics?
Do you assign homework?
Etc.
Yes, you can ask questions to find out if you’re a good fit for that counselor. Nothing is worse than spending some time in counseling and deciding the counselor isn’t a good fit for you.
A good counselor will help you to define the problems and explore ways to narrow the differences or even come to agreement on problems. A good counselor will ask you to do homework. (reading, mental exercise’s, listening to tapes, etc.) You get out of counselling what you are willing to put into it. Do you want to solve the problems, or do you just want someone else to tell you you’re right and your partner is wrong? Agreeable change may not be possible, but at least you know that you explored that avenue fully.
It isn’t easy because it requires you to look at a relationship in depth and explore some uncomfortable questions.
Yes, I’ve done marriage counseling, and we found a way to renew our relationship. If it had not worked, I might not be so positive about it. But I would know I had given it a good try.
Caveat: Don’t go to your partner’s therapist for couple’s counseling.
‘Nuff said.
From The Forward, a New York City Jewish Israeli explains why she’s voting Mamdani for Mayor….
Correct me if I’m wrong, but her “thinking” is all about feelings!
“Mamdani isn’t anti-Israeli or anti-Jewish. He’s pro-justice. He’s a New Yorker who believes, as I do, that no one’s safety should come at the expense of someone else’s. His campaign has pledged a large increase in anti-hate crime programming — the opposite of neglecting our safety.”
She’s an idealist at best, who’s absorbed the indoctrination of the neo-Marxist Woke.
I assume shes’s young and an AWFL. We’re in trouble in the USA….
@ F > “Worse yet, I see him monetizing the office (a local radio station carries his advertisement for a Trump wristwatch and another for Trump running shoes) and I cringe. And now we have the Trump cryptocurrency ”
At least Trump is honest about his huckstering.
It’s a given that all politicians will pad their bank accounts through insider trading, “excess” campaign funds, hiring family for campaigns and staff, and publishing their memoirs with amazingly generous advances — because the books themselves are often remaindered straight off the press.
To set on the other side of the ledger: he donates his salary to various causes; funds flag poles and ballrooms, and pays for a lot of “incidentals” to the “PR” work of the president.
If people like him enough to buy his merch, I’m okay with that.
At least the “donations” are small enough they aren’t swaying his policies and actions, unlike the high-roller donors funding the Democrats.
Not counting what they scam from the taxpayers who DON’T like what they are doing.
But in a good, just, virtuous, MORAL cause, no doubt!!
– – – – – – – – – –
TJ,
actually she’s deranged.
File under: [More than] 50 shades of delusional.
The words of someone whoi has never been in counseling.
==
1. I’ve had relations who have been in counseling.
==
2. I’ve been active in fora (e.g. Helen Smith’s) where self-identified counselors have admitted these are issues in their profession.
==
3. I have family members employed in the social-work-and-mental-health trade. Not the wisest people in this world.
==
Now we hear about ‘the good counselors’. I realize there are capable mental health professionals. Now, you tell me that there’s a 25% chance that the circuit breaker associated with that outlet over there has shut off. So feel free to stick your fork in it. Because that’s what you’ve just told me to do.
Indeed. F: “probably being repeated in a lot of houses across the country.”
Yes, and His patience and commitment. 3I: “Chloe” seems unaware for the most part of exactly what she was doing. My job now is to practice the sentiment recorded in Luke 23:34,
Me too. JJ: Yes, I’ve done marriage counseling, and we found a way to renew our relationship. If it had not worked, I might not be so positive about it.
Conflicting roles. Huxley: Caveat: Don’t go to your partner’s therapist for couple’s counseling.
R2L:
“ Most of us here now “accept” Trump, with reservations that he could still go over a cliff [as Kevin Roberts may be approaching?]”
Of course, you’re temporising by way of reply.
But to the contrary, Trump has learned — like those of us not taken in by the psy ops and propaganda media — who his friends are and exactly who his enemies are.
Such significant growth minimizes the weird vulnerability you impute, and imply most of us share. Wrong, here at last.
Nonapod states that it’s hard draw a hard line when this socio-piolitical division became normative.
I disagree. It happened during the proto-fascist Obamunist years. Obama seized the nascent radical takeover in education, as always, vociferously supported “Teachers Unions.”
Even in the 2008 election. The imagery at the Denver DNC convention in 2008 was pure fascist. And the collective ardor for an unreformed Marxist — skilled in misdirection and killing straw men — nauseated me.
By re-election time or soon after in 2013, I recall a pleasant synchrony with a woman at a bar. Chemistry was developing.
Then politics became the topic of chat.
She only had complete disdain for George W Bush. I countered with something only a misanthrope would reject: what about Bush getting antivirals to people in Africa suffering from the HIV-AIDS crisis? He negotiated lower prices from pharmaceutical companies and got a steady supply to the needy there.
Nope — her body language turned closed, and she could not be mollified. What had been on was now turned off. She brooked no praise or approval for Bush. Bush was (although she didn’t use the term) evil, and all supporters had to be shunned.
Throughout my life until that time, I’ve had women-friends of both political persuasions pretty much equally. At this exact point, I knew that an implacable divide among people had arisen.
Thus, dating and socializing in general had changed.
Only the failures of establishment medicine over Covid and Trans-madness child mutilation has altered and dented their moral shield.
Therefore, I’m quite unsurprised by the reports of relationship failures above.
It also applies to the siloing of public intellectuals. For example, Skeptic magazine founder Michael Shermer: a two years ago, in an interview, politics arose. And Shermer declared his one hero against Trump was Representative Liz Cheney.
It’s the company he keeps that keeps him ignorant of what a monster she’d become to normies and the Right. Now we find out that the document destroyer had been connecting her Polosi Committee shilling with Prosecutor Jack Smith, prepping to weaponize law and destroy all Trump dissent.
So, what to do? Two avenues. Get you CommieKKKrats to visit Newsbusters.org website. Here, you’ll find documented context correcting the massive media lies.
Secondly, find the people your problem trusts. Get them to follow them on X.com. Criticism on there will put doubt and questioning into their minds.
Accepting criticism kills zealotry.
@ Barry – the Cat’s source makes the BCF short video clip more understandable, although I recognized it jumbled some different parts of his speech to mislead viewers.
IOW – he did say what they showed, but not WHEN and in the context they described. As with the NYTs et al: every word in the story can be true, and the thing as a whole a lie.
I am a regular reader of Neo’s blog, and an occasional commenter. I am using a different pseudonym than usual to tell this (true) tale.
R2L on November 1, 2025 at 12:03 am wrote, in the “Musings on Divorce” comments: “Given that a very large fraction of what is discussed here is about politics, I wonder how many marriages are dissolving due to conflicts between TDS and MAGA.”
I cannot say “dissolving” in my case, but I do have a tale to tell. I might have generated pages and pages to fill with lurid examples of whining and self-pity, but no one (including moi) would want to plow through them. Accordingly, I am omitting an awful lot.
My wife Chloe [NOT her actual name] had never been political. I had long characterized her as “a liberal with her head screwed on,” meaning that she might fit in along the left-right spectrum near Hubert Humphrey, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Paul Tsongas, and (dare I mention?) John Fetterman — if she were political. But she had never been, and life sailed along harmoniously.
Then Trump sashayed down that escalator, and my life began to change dramatically, “at first gradually, then suddenly.” At first, her TDS was largely personality-driven. Donald Trump is an extremely flawed person, and Chloe focused like a laser on those flaws. But one focus led to another, and over the ensuing months, she became interested, very interested, in politics.
Uh-ohh.
The Trump 45 and Biden 46 regimes were bad enough, as conversations became unpleasant more and more frequently. Chloe would often end a conversation when she saw that I was becoming more and more agitated. She had the hard left talking points at the ready in her quiver, and when I pointedly refuted them, she’d warn me that my blood pressure was in danger of rising. My protestations that my blood pressure was now already up too high (thank you) were of little avail.
I need to mention here that I never initiated any political conversation with her. (I stayed clear, but there was eventually one exception, when I could no longer take something she was urging upon me, and I really and angrily lit into Biden 46 and ilk. But that was not initiating.)
Then Trump 45 decided to try to become Trump 47. By now, there would be a steady stream of left talking points, which I could tell were originating in what she was viewing on line. Earlier on, I would refute those points as they came up, and we would end up mutually disgruntled. But more and more often, I would simply walk out of the room. I really wearied of refuting her points with counter-points that were immediately available on line, but Chloe is never interested in digging beyond what her left websites are telling her. (For example, I have mentioned the Twitter files numerous times, and each time after the first, when I asked if she was familiar with them, she’s said “no”.)
(An additional illustrative example: Trump said Liz Cheney should be put before a firing squad to be executed. !NO!, there is readily available video of what Trump actually said and what he was getting at, but what’s the use? Chloe persisted in that delusion despite my pointing to what was actually said.)
I would try to point out that these discussions (again, never initiated by me) inevitably resulted in my getting quite agitated, and (increasingly emphatically) please stop doing it. Chloe said I needed to be responsible for my own reactions. Fair point, very fair point, but my counter-point was and is that after years (by now) of this happening over and over and over, my reactions were resulting from the cumulative build up, so please, Chloe, stop.
She said at some point that she was trying to get me to see what she was seeing, how the country’s going to hell, how Trump is doing X, Y, and Z, and how Trump is a pedophile, a rapist, etc. etc. etc. As a political semi-junkie, I’m familiar with virtually all the talking points she was presenting, but the point is (and she finally said as much), she was making it part of her mission to get me to See The Light. I likened it to Jehovah’s Witnesses visiting my house regularly, telling me essentially the same things at every visit, all to get me to come over to their side and convert. She seemed very unmoved by that analogy.
(Much omitted at this point.)
Then Charlie Kirk was shot. She mentioned that the shooter’s parents came from a Republican family, so yes, okay. I feared what might be coming, and that didn’t take long at all. The shooter shot Kirk, Chloe said with characteristic emphatic confidence, because he (the shooter) thought Kirk wasn’t far right enough. The shooter, you see, was a right-winger. “Chloe, STOP.” Then another sentence that I don’t recall any more. “CHLOE, STOP!” Then something an hour or two later. My blood pressure by now must have been 300/250.
We ate lunch separately that day and stayed separate all day, but I figured I’d try to calm the waters before dinner. I explained how we are living in two separate universes, and, as many earlier conversations had amply demonstrated, these conversations inevitably end up with me very agitated and Chloe very disgruntled. I went on, reasonably calmly this time, for maybe twenty minutes, explaining what I think was behind our unpleasant interactions: not expounding on how my universe was the correct one and hers wasn’t, but on how we just had no common ground on which to base these conversations (so Chloe, please STOP doing this).
Finally I said I’d spoken my peace. Chloe said, “can I speak my peace?” Well, sure, certainly. But Chloe’s “peace” did not touch on our personal interactions but instead, it consisted of a series of more, mostly reiterated, left talking points. I swear.
So be it.
Then something erupted about a week ago about the East Wing. “Erupted”, as in “volcanic.” WHY??? What’s the blankety-blank point? After yet another calming down, I wanted again to speak about our interactions, and I succeeded for a bit, but then, out of the blue, she began again about the East Wing. (Chloe’s mental modus operandi is to often suddenly pivot to a different subject without hint or notice.)
I was beside myself. “I am trying to talk about us, about our relationship, and you’re going on again about the East Wing??? I can’t believe this. What is more important right now, our relationship or the damn East Wing?” AFter only a short hesitation, she responded quiety, “Our relationship.” Whew.
Now it was really drawing to a climax. Before, I had cited Jehovah’s Witnesses as an abstract analogy, but this time I felt it was time to be direct and personal. I spoke angrily, “Can you imagine what it’s like being married to someone who is after you continually, like those Jehovah’s Witnesses, relentlessly trying to get you to change your world outlook?”
And then, more calmly now, “Can you agree that even if my intemperate reactions to you are misguided, that even if I (and not you) am responsible for my reactions, that it is reasonable to take those reactions into account when we’re interacting?” Chloe very quietly said “yes.”
That is what gives me hope for the future. Things had become very depressing and bereft of joy (again, many specifics are omitted), especially when assessing my future. It seems a little better now. Finally.
I’d looked forward to a retirement in which I was going to live peacefully and harmoniously, in which the tugs and jolts of the world might leave me unscathed (hadn’t I earned at least that?). I’d had one, for a good stretch. The most recent stretch has rendered that vision a cruel practical joke. I had not married this, I never would have chosen to marry this, but reality intervened in an unexpected way.
I think and hope a bridge has finally been crossed. I cling to a glimmer of hope now.
To everyone who has read this far, thank you, thank you for reading. “God bless us everyone.”
3i atlas:
Prayers for you and your wife.
I never found Elizabeth Taylor all that appealing.
3iatlas,
great choice for a pseudonym…a sudden possible alien encounter in your home.
Your terrible experience is an extension of what I’ve been trying to understand for the past year or so. TDS does seem to be a true mental disorder, and me being a physicist with no good understanding of mental conditions, it baffles me. As I’ve mentioned I have a BiL who has gone over the edge since the election in essence calling half of his family Nazis. I’ve lost 3 friends of over 40 years to TDS. It’s inevitable I guess that it would hit marriages and other romantic relationships.
As we have discussed here many times, I’m afraid Kirk’s assassination may be just the beginning of more TDS violence against the right. What the endgame is, I don’t know.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWnrh40_2m4
==
Rosemary Clooney
3i atlas:
That’s a painful history, but one that is probably being repeated in a lot of houses across the country. I don’t recall a Republican previously engendering so visceral a reaction as we have seen with Trump. I supported him in three elections, more because of whom he was running against than because I find him an attractive candidate.
My wife supports him without reservation. For me, I look at foreign policy decisions that appear to have been reached without adequate staff research and support and I grit my teeth. Worse yet, I see him monetizing the office (a local radio station carries his advertisement for a Trump wristwatch and another for Trump running shoes) and I cringe. And now we have the Trump cryptocurrency and I want to tear my hair out. But my wife is fine with all of that. So we don’t discuss any of it.
All of which is to say I have an inkling of where you’re coming from, but my example is certainly not as urgent or painful as yours. What can I say except good luck, and I wish you well.
So Trump is often ” rough around the edges”. Not as much now as his first term , but it’s still there. I was almost a ” never Trumper” in 2016 but voted for him anyway due to the alternative.
That being said, notice how many also react to some one very mild like Riley Gaines.
It’s not as widespread, but it’s still there.
Jon baker (12:12 pm) said: “notice how many also react to some one very mild like Riley Gaines.”
That is a very good point. In a way, it goes along with Trump’s declaration that “they’re not after me, they’re after you; I’m just in their way.”
It’s frightening.
3i atlas, I’ll pray for you and your wife. God knows who you are, so my anonymous prayers will go to the right household.
3I, please consider finding a good marriage counselor. I doubt that your problem is rare. There ought to be standard, successful approaches.
Also, please consider giving up political discussions. Did you two get married for politics? Then, don’t get divorced over them.
In fact, consider giving up all politics for two weeks. Say your doctor said so. Fill time previously spent following and discussing politics with a new interest: gardening, minor league baseball, Elizabeth Taylor’s violet eyes, …. (And, if your wife wants to talk politics, listen politely, but don’t engage — doctor’s orders.)
Sounds like he’s been trying for a long time to avoid talking about politics. It’s “Chloe” who wouldn’t stop.
@3i atlas
Some of my old girl friends have gone politically nuts in just that way. Whole groups who used to hang out together have gone crazy that way. All I can say is that I lucked out and married none of them. I honestly don’t think I could live with a Democrat these days, politics has become an important character trait.
The problem started with the election of Bush and 9/11 and it has become far worse in the ensuing years.
Jon baker: “I was almost a ” never Trumper” in 2016 but voted for him anyway due to the alternative”
In 2016 I had a lot of doubts about Trump. But I had no doubts about Hillary so I voted for him.
We are witnessing the power of MSM propaganda, tied to the same in the educational establishment, media, NGOs, and government workers, to name only the most obvious. Goebbles would be envious: such success, and all without top-down control!
Spousal abuse can take many forms.
3i atlas’ narrative describes one of them.
I endured similar abuse for years.
It was not politically based, just plain old meanness.
And it gets progressively worse.
I doubt there is a cure.
I felt so much better after divorce, though I did experience PTSD for a few years.
3I atlas, good luck. Counselling might help. Finding common interests other than politics might help.
I thank God that my wife and are politically compatible.
Now, to the video. Impressive vascularity by the71 year old. I didn’t catch the name of the supplement they use, but here’s one that increases vascularity.
Nitro Surge, available at Amazon.
I spent five years doing Masters (over 50 years old) body building – 1995-2000. And continued to work out hard until I was 84. There were no supplants that increased vascularity when I was competing, so I never had that extreme vascular look.
It’s not easy, but anyone who commits to working out three days a week and eating properly can be quite fit and look good as long as your general health holds up. (And a fitness lifestyle improves your general health.)
I loved being in the gym with a plan to improve my strength and endurance. My wife worked out also, so we were always together at the gym.
Unfortunately, after a near death experience due to a surgery in 2017, I have been too weak to work out hard. I now have a small routine that I do four days a week at homme. It includes multipole trips up and down our stairs, some squats, some modified pushups, and walking for twenty to thirty minutes. It exhausts me, but “movement is medicine,” so I keep at it.
It’s hard to draw a bright line as to when this “problem” really started, but I believe there are a few clear inflection points. To clarify, I’m defining the “problem” as being mainstream (D) voters gradually becoming more and more extreme in their intolerance of differing political viewpoints to the point where longtime friend groups, families, and marriages must be be torn asunder due to percieved moral imperatives bordering a fanitical.
It’s hardly new for most liberal media outlets to describe prominant Republicans as Hitler obviously. But despite that, I believe most mainline Democrat voters used to dismiss those sorts of accusations as the hyperbole that they clearly were, and they’d rarely accuse the regular Republicans and/or Conservatives in their lives of being outright evil simply for voting a certain way and supporting certain policies. Perhaps that changed slightly in the years immediately following 9/11 during the Iraq war, where more mainstream Democrats began using terms like “Warmonger” and otherwise categorizing people as evil a bit more freely.
I think the election of Barrack Obama may have been a crucial turning point. Obama did moralize about the percieved failings of regular Republican voters. We all remember the infamous “bitter clingers” remark. And later, Hillary Clinton’s “basket of deplorables”.
The rise of Social Media was another big cultural change point, exposing regular people to more and more extreme viewpoints and interpretations of events. Even mainstreaming certain ideas that were widely considered to be outright absurd just a few years earlier.
And the arrival of Trump changed things too, with his unapologetic brashness which both endeared him to lots of people and galvanized other people against him. Extreme ideas often engender extreme opposition.
So here we are in 2025 with large groups of mainstream Democrats who appear to believe that people who support Trump and/or his agenda can only be pure evil. It’s like they’ve been indoctinated into a huge cult or something. Of course, they’d say the same thing about their opposition.
I got nothin’, but perhaps a 25 yr old Arnold Schoenburg’s String Sextet op.4 “Verklärte Nacht” (28:48) might be of some use: https://youtu.be/vqODySSxYpc
Nonapod:
My political change was around 2003-2004, and I most definitely experienced it.
atlas:
So sorry you’re experiencing this.
Thanks very much to everyone who’s expressed interest in my tale, including Neo. Thanks for the prayers. Prayers are real and can be practical. I take them seriously.
Kate is right, I’ve been avoiding politics at home for years. AppleBetty suggests a marriage counselor, but practically all marriage counselors, along with people in the caring professions, are left to left-er, and I have no faith at all in their ability to adhere to a neutral line in any counseling. How many of them would tell me I’m the problem, when all I’ve been trying to do is mind my business? But thank you, AppleBetty, for taking the time to converse. “Give up political discussions”? Gladly, gladly.
JJ, we had common interests in the former days. People both do and don’t change, and now we’ve got to get something back. That’s where AppleBetty is spot on.
Thank you again, good people.
I wouldn’t vote for one of the Democrat terrorists on a dare. I don’t care how “rough around the edges” Trump is. I only care what he does.
”AppleBetty suggests a marriage counselor, but practically all marriage counselors, along with people in the caring professions, are left to left-er, and I have no faith at all in their ability to adhere to a neutral line in any counseling. How many of them would tell me I’m the problem, when all I’ve been trying to do is mind my business?”
I was going to bring up this very point, but you’re already there. So all I can say is “Good luck.” As you can see, many of us have had similar issues. Again, good luck.
”Perhaps that changed slightly in the years immediately following 9/11 during the Iraq war…”
It was definitely the 2000 election and/or 9-11 that brought this on. Those two events happened so close together in time it’s hard to say which is the driver, but that’s when this phenomenon really took off.
During that time I was doing a lot of travel for business, so I met a lot of different people, many in our most leftist cities, but this happened all over. I also ended up eating alone in a lot of different bars and restaurants (hooray for expense accounts!).
I noticed in conversations that I had directly and also in conversations happening around me, that almost every conversation from late 2001 until mid 2008 (the Obama election season) eventually turned to the war. People would start out talking about work, or sports, or the weather, but eventually the conversation would almost inevitably turn to the war: Among conservatives it would turn to Osama bin Ladan and how to destroy Al Qaeda, and among liberals it would turn to George W. Bush and how to destroy……the Republicans.
The language in each case was almost identical. Republicans saw the terrorists as an evil enemy that needed to be destroyed, and the Democrats saw the *Republicans* as an evil enemy that needed to be destroyed.
The first time I heard that I was shocked, but then it happened again, and again, and again, and over and over again all over the country.
There was something about 9-11 that caused left-leaning people to snap, and it’s gotten worse since then with each passing year. I thought eventually such passions would fade, but no. They just keep getting worse. Where it will end, I don’t know, but things don’t look good.
I think there’s been a secular decline in the inclination of professional class leftoids to see themselves as residents of a country where people have competing objects and worldviews between which we have means of mediation and adjudication. They fancy institutions are theirs and the public discourse is theirs. People competing for positions in institutions and for a place in discussions are conceptualized as burglars. This will not end well.
I’ve suspected for some time that counselors are hired by wives to (1) badger the husband into seeing things her way or (2) to provide the wife with reasons to serve papers on the husband. I wouldn’t trust them.
==
3i atlas–I admire your patience and fortitude. I can only imagine how upsetting (blood pressure!) it has been. I’m not on social media, but the little I see of family members (thankfully extended ones, not our children nor their spouses), lash out with misinformed, uncharitable political opinions–it is especially irritating. I am very glad that you feel you have arrived at a point that gives you hope. I wish you and your wife the very best.
A/k/a 3i atlas: Thanks for sharing. Hope things improve. Prayers.
Nonapod: good observations. Thanks.
To a return of civility. God bless all.
RE: 3I/Atlas–Thirty days have passed since NASA instruments apparently took the clearest images of the”comet” 3I/Atlas, and Harvard’s Astrophysicist Dr. Avi Loeb is getting pissed at the fact that NASA has withheld these pictures, nor will the scientist in charge of getting those pictures even reply to Dr.Loeb’s inquiries about these images.
Yet, when Kim Kardashian said that she thought that the moon landings never happened, the NASA administrator replied to Kardashian within 15 minutes. *
So, what is going on?
* See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwE72RRjFDU
Jack Ciattarelli for Governor – – do you know anyone in New Jersey? Send them this post!
https://commoncts.blogspot.com/2025/11/jack-ciattarelli-for-governor-do-you.html
Winsome Earl-Sears releases devastating ad on Abigail Spanberger – Video
https://commoncts.blogspot.com/2025/11/winsome-earl-sears-releases-devastating.html
You believe yourself a “star” because you can read the words someone else wrote and simulate the appropriate emotions, you are central casting pretty, you can play a musical instrument very, very well, compose music, write a lyric, write a book or play, dance, conduct an orchestra, or paint a picture, and people will pay you for your talent.
Somehow, mysteriously, by virtue of your talent and celebrity–and while you may not have even finished high school—you suddenly feel it your duty to publicly opine on complex issues of public policy, science, economics, politics, foreign affairs, or national defense; on issues having nothing to do with your talent, telling people what they should think, or even how they should vote.
And the crazy part is that apparently some sizeable number of people give your bloviations–you untutored celebrity “opinions”–credence, and may be swayed by them.*
* See https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2025/11/jennifer-lawrence-regrets-ever-weighing-politics-urges-fellow/
Re: Meanwhile back in basketball…
There is a large gambling scandal erupting which has already involved 30 players, a coach, and organized crime. The scandal is likely to broaden.
______________________________
That morning, the FBI announced that more than 30 people had been charged in two separate but related criminal investigations. Terry Rozier of the Miami Heat and Damon Jones, a former Cleveland Cavaliers player and assistant coach, were among the six people arrested for their alleged roles in a sports-betting conspiracy. Chauncey Billups, the head coach of the Portland Trail Blazers and a Hall of Fame player best known for his tenure with the Detroit Pistons, was among the 31 people arrested for their alleged roles in a scheme to rig illegal poker games with ties to organized crime.
https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/whats-next-in-nba-gambling-scandal-lingering-questions-about-chauncey-billups-terry-rozier-and-the-league/
______________________________
I can’t watch basketball anymore. The game has become so antiseptic, so bloodless. I was an 80s Celtics fan. Back then there were stakes. Players played like they were fighting for their lives, not their careers or endorsements.
I’m not surprised that the modern atmosphere would yield people manipulating the game behind the scenes for money.
Thanks once more to all, and especially to those who may have missed my thanks earlier in the day.
I’m no saint, believe me. But I do think I have been pissed on unnecessarily, and I think I had a tale to tell that is relevant, building on R2L’s comment. My motive was not to lick my wounds, or to have others do it for me, but to offer an illustration of what’s going on.
F thinks that my tale is “probably being repeated in a lot of houses across the country.” I sure as hell hope not. But I do know, as we all do, that long standing relationships are being threatened and canceled by divisions that are not of our making.
“Chloe” seems unaware for the most part of exactly what she was doing. My job now is to practice the sentiment recorded in Luke 23:34, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do,” spoken by a figure who was REALLY misunderstood and mistreated. Puts it in a perspective.
Good night, all.
3i atlas
@neo: I start wondering if this is AI, but I guess not:
It’s worth wondering. I get confused too.
There are a lot of videos out there called AI slop, because they are generated on the cheap with AI tools and designed to elicit clicks and revenue, with minimal interest in accuracy or value.
This video has recognizably imperfect human voices and the images likewise.
But AI slop will keep getting better.
Kudos to the jacked Mr. 71!
3i atlas, part of the reason I mentioned the TDS-MAGA issue is that I am facing a much milder version of what you describe. I think we will outlast Trump, and if necessary Vance. We have too much invested to throw that away.
But for the country as a whole, it may well involve a “come to Jesus” realization for the media and social media celebrities and pundits, about how the march through the institutions has indoctrinated so many of them. A real drop off in critical thinking? Including some on the Right. Most of us here now “accept” Trump, with reservations that he could still go over a cliff [as Kevin Roberts may be approaching?]. But it also feels good to have a real executive leading the executive branch, even when we disagree with any particular policy element or extent.
So how and when did pre-TDS take hold? Partly via Gramsci, the Frankfurt School, probably Alinsky, et al. And the Republicans accepted, or resisted poorly, the “responsible” elements of the welfare state or the Great Society, so the camel’s nose got under the tent and such compassion and largess got distorted. Now we have a socialist mayoral candidate for NYC!
Plus when the USSR collapsed the common enemy was gone, and no substantive “vision” was available from Bush, Sr. We floated along with a vague “city on a hill” or “beacon for mankind” creedal view, not realizing that the CCP would never become “democratic” nor Islam be truly benign. Nor anticipating the impact of immigration on many European countries!!
When 911 happened, we still accepted the Bush-Saudi oil connections, the idiocy of a “religion of peace” and of building nations in our image. But many of us began studying Islam to greater or lesser degrees and learned its true nature [“chauvinistic supremacy” per Bruce Thornton]. So one group of us could not learn about or accept that our world was not “all in” for the American solution for politics and economics. It basically came down to Sowell’s constrained vs. unconstrained visions.
But it has taken a few decades for the Right to finally stop being politically polite to seem politically correct. For the Tea Party reaction to reassert itself. And most recently the DOGE and related revelations about the Leftist government self funding its agenda via NGO’s, etc., in addition to the private sector Leftists (and probably Russia and China?).
I suspect many here can insert a dozen other elements that I have forgotten or glossed over.
In case no one mentioned it above, the Web and the smart phone have connected everyone 24/7 (if they want to be that connected). Before that, people went about their lives and their business and tried to get along with each other. It was considered impolite to discuss religion or politics.
Nowadays, we can spew our hate or disdain to the world, anonymously, 24/7.
Thanks, Steve Jobs!
“I’ve suspected for some time that counselors are hired by wives to (1) badger the husband into seeing things her way or (2) to provide the wife with reasons to serve papers on the husband. I wouldn’t trust them.
==” Art D.
The words of someone whoi has never been in counseling. 🙂
I understand than counseling has gotten a bad rep, based a lot on the LBGTQ+ issues. There are, however, good counselors out there. (And some are men.) And you can ask some questions before committing to counseling that may help.
Such as:
How many couples have you counselled?
What do you see as success in helping a married couple?
What are your politics?
Do you assign homework?
Etc.
Yes, you can ask questions to find out if you’re a good fit for that counselor. Nothing is worse than spending some time in counseling and deciding the counselor isn’t a good fit for you.
A good counselor will help you to define the problems and explore ways to narrow the differences or even come to agreement on problems. A good counselor will ask you to do homework. (reading, mental exercise’s, listening to tapes, etc.) You get out of counselling what you are willing to put into it. Do you want to solve the problems, or do you just want someone else to tell you you’re right and your partner is wrong? Agreeable change may not be possible, but at least you know that you explored that avenue fully.
It isn’t easy because it requires you to look at a relationship in depth and explore some uncomfortable questions.
Yes, I’ve done marriage counseling, and we found a way to renew our relationship. If it had not worked, I might not be so positive about it. But I would know I had given it a good try.
Caveat: Don’t go to your partner’s therapist for couple’s counseling.
‘Nuff said.
From The Forward, a New York City Jewish Israeli explains why she’s voting Mamdani for Mayor….
“I’m an Israeli who lives in New York. Here’s why I’m voting for Mamdani
Forward.com ^ | November 02, 2025 | Libby Lenkinski”
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/4350521/posts
Correct me if I’m wrong, but her “thinking” is all about feelings!
“Mamdani isn’t anti-Israeli or anti-Jewish. He’s pro-justice. He’s a New Yorker who believes, as I do, that no one’s safety should come at the expense of someone else’s. His campaign has pledged a large increase in anti-hate crime programming — the opposite of neglecting our safety.”
She’s an idealist at best, who’s absorbed the indoctrination of the neo-Marxist Woke.
I assume shes’s young and an AWFL. We’re in trouble in the USA….
@ F > “Worse yet, I see him monetizing the office (a local radio station carries his advertisement for a Trump wristwatch and another for Trump running shoes) and I cringe. And now we have the Trump cryptocurrency ”
At least Trump is honest about his huckstering.
It’s a given that all politicians will pad their bank accounts through insider trading, “excess” campaign funds, hiring family for campaigns and staff, and publishing their memoirs with amazingly generous advances — because the books themselves are often remaindered straight off the press.
To set on the other side of the ledger: he donates his salary to various causes; funds flag poles and ballrooms, and pays for a lot of “incidentals” to the “PR” work of the president.
If people like him enough to buy his merch, I’m okay with that.
At least the “donations” are small enough they aren’t swaying his policies and actions, unlike the high-roller donors funding the Democrats.
Not counting what they scam from the taxpayers who DON’T like what they are doing.
Related?
You betcha.
“BBC faked Trump’s Jan 6 speech”—
https://blazingcatfur.ca/2025/11/03/bbc-faked-trumps-jan-6-speech/
But in a good, just, virtuous, MORAL cause, no doubt!!
– – – – – – – – – –
TJ,
actually she’s deranged.
File under: [More than] 50 shades of delusional.
The words of someone whoi has never been in counseling.
==
1. I’ve had relations who have been in counseling.
==
2. I’ve been active in fora (e.g. Helen Smith’s) where self-identified counselors have admitted these are issues in their profession.
==
3. I have family members employed in the social-work-and-mental-health trade. Not the wisest people in this world.
==
Now we hear about ‘the good counselors’. I realize there are capable mental health professionals. Now, you tell me that there’s a 25% chance that the circuit breaker associated with that outlet over there has shut off. So feel free to stick your fork in it. Because that’s what you’ve just told me to do.
Oh, Canada.*
This guy pretty much nails it.
* See https://rushbabe49.com/2025/11/03/guest-author-john-konrad-v-american-on-canada/
(quick comments)
Indeed. F: “probably being repeated in a lot of houses across the country.”
Yes, and His patience and commitment. 3I: “Chloe” seems unaware for the most part of exactly what she was doing. My job now is to practice the sentiment recorded in Luke 23:34,
Me too. JJ: Yes, I’ve done marriage counseling, and we found a way to renew our relationship. If it had not worked, I might not be so positive about it.
Conflicting roles. Huxley: Caveat: Don’t go to your partner’s therapist for couple’s counseling.
R2L:
“ Most of us here now “accept” Trump, with reservations that he could still go over a cliff [as Kevin Roberts may be approaching?]”
Of course, you’re temporising by way of reply.
But to the contrary, Trump has learned — like those of us not taken in by the psy ops and propaganda media — who his friends are and exactly who his enemies are.
Such significant growth minimizes the weird vulnerability you impute, and imply most of us share. Wrong, here at last.
Nonapod states that it’s hard draw a hard line when this socio-piolitical division became normative.
I disagree. It happened during the proto-fascist Obamunist years. Obama seized the nascent radical takeover in education, as always, vociferously supported “Teachers Unions.”
Even in the 2008 election. The imagery at the Denver DNC convention in 2008 was pure fascist. And the collective ardor for an unreformed Marxist — skilled in misdirection and killing straw men — nauseated me.
By re-election time or soon after in 2013, I recall a pleasant synchrony with a woman at a bar. Chemistry was developing.
Then politics became the topic of chat.
She only had complete disdain for George W Bush. I countered with something only a misanthrope would reject: what about Bush getting antivirals to people in Africa suffering from the HIV-AIDS crisis? He negotiated lower prices from pharmaceutical companies and got a steady supply to the needy there.
Nope — her body language turned closed, and she could not be mollified. What had been on was now turned off. She brooked no praise or approval for Bush. Bush was (although she didn’t use the term) evil, and all supporters had to be shunned.
Throughout my life until that time, I’ve had women-friends of both political persuasions pretty much equally. At this exact point, I knew that an implacable divide among people had arisen.
Thus, dating and socializing in general had changed.
Only the failures of establishment medicine over Covid and Trans-madness child mutilation has altered and dented their moral shield.
Therefore, I’m quite unsurprised by the reports of relationship failures above.
It also applies to the siloing of public intellectuals. For example, Skeptic magazine founder Michael Shermer: a two years ago, in an interview, politics arose. And Shermer declared his one hero against Trump was Representative Liz Cheney.
It’s the company he keeps that keeps him ignorant of what a monster she’d become to normies and the Right. Now we find out that the document destroyer had been connecting her Polosi Committee shilling with Prosecutor Jack Smith, prepping to weaponize law and destroy all Trump dissent.
So, what to do? Two avenues. Get you CommieKKKrats to visit Newsbusters.org website. Here, you’ll find documented context correcting the massive media lies.
Secondly, find the people your problem trusts. Get them to follow them on X.com. Criticism on there will put doubt and questioning into their minds.
Accepting criticism kills zealotry.
@ Barry – the Cat’s source makes the BCF short video clip more understandable, although I recognized it jumbled some different parts of his speech to mislead viewers.
IOW – he did say what they showed, but not WHEN and in the context they described. As with the NYTs et al: every word in the story can be true, and the thing as a whole a lie.
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/bbc-faked-trumps-jan-6-speech/
The real issue to address is that the Beeb’s top echelons dismissed complaints at the time, and aired the fake video anyway.