Our oldest daughter will be 29 in November. She has a wide circle of friends, most of whom are scattered across the country, so Facebook is how they stay in touch.
Let’s just say her voting for Trump this last November hasn’t gone over well -- at all. And she’s having a very rough time of it. Really struggling. Partially because that’s how lefties do you, but also because she’s genuinely trying to understand them and, crucially, have herself be understood. She’s highly intelligent, extremely articulate, and very careful with her language, but she’s still getting what we old-timers would call “flamed.” It’s hurting her heart enormously and as a result, it’s hurting mine, her mother.
And I don’t know how to help her. I’m struggling. She’s going through her foul progressive baptism like I did nearly twenty years ago with the coming of Obama on the scene. Back then, I had no idea how they’d lie, cheat, scheme, and steal, every minute of every day, without ceasing, without remorse, without, seemingly, any sense of fatigue. I had no idea how widespread it was. Oh, I knew the media and academia were hopelessly liberal, but I had no idea how poisonously progressive they were. I had no idea how intractable they were. Immune to any kind of reason or, as social media likes to call them, “receipts.”
One of our daughter’s most trafficked Facebook posts was one heavy with “receipts.” She provided all the proof any reasonable person would need to understand her thinking regarding the matter at hand. She used the Washington Post, The New York Times, etc. Outlets they hold dear (mostly). Nope. No good. They responded with “the feels.” She even asked, specifically, to please respond with links of their own, because she was open to their arguments and should they make good one, well-reasoned, with facts, she was open to having her mind changed, or at least colored a bit. She’s very much a wet-behind-the-ears conservative, still finding her way, wanting very much to be, as she said in her words, “a bridge” between where she is and where they are.
Nope. No good. One woman, a friend who is 40, responded by slamming the door on their friendship. Our daughter helped her bury a foal of hers who died at the barn they both kept horses at. One doesn’t dig graves for foals with someone without bonding with them. It was a profoundly sad experience for everyone there at a barn that, unusually, didn’t have any “divas” in it. It was a word-of-mouth operation where the only way you could get a place for your horse was if someone knew you and you were good people. She spent several years there before she moved out of state. I guess our daughter was good people until her friend found out she voted for Trump. And that was it. It was over. Bond broken.
So this friend is gone. It hurt her. She has three other friends who voted for Kamala and are “full liberal” according to her. One is here, one is out of state, and one is another one of our daughters who is gay. I knew this child, who will be 27 in November, leaned towards liberal, especially given her lifestyle, but hearing “full liberal” from her sister was jarring, and disappointing. It’s weird, because she’s pro-gun, so that’s not very progressive. She’s also against “trans-ing” kids under 18. So that’s not very progressive. She also believes color shouldn’t matter, so, again, not very progressive, so I’m hoping she won’t be lost to us, despite her sexual orientation. She knows her father and I regard “marriage” as between one man and one woman and wishes we didn’t feel that way but it’s done nothing to distance her from us. Of our three daughters (we have just the three children) she’s the most ecumenical. She’s finishing up her Masters and will be a working counselor by this time next year. She has a servant’s heart, God bless her. Maybe she can help our other daughter “bridge” the gap between her and her friends. Because I’m at a loss. I regard myself extremely lucky to have the full love and affection of my three daughters, despite all our differences. They are thoughtful, reasonable young women.
Would that their friends be similarly situated.
Image: AT via Magic Studio