AMUSING, INTERESTING, OUTRAGEOUS, or PROFOUND

Not defending any of your points and I agree with you on all of that is detestable. I might still have a little hope for my fellow Americans in that I would take that -providing it is genuine sentiment - to mean we can still talk about it and see where the common ground is. I don't see this as a 'friend' that we can get to hug or even hangout with, but rather suggest that the lines of communication have not complete been abandoned. Kinda like a MAGA family member, I still love them, but I hope and try to get them to wake up, even if seems impossible.

The word I used with someone is coherence. It all has to match up, inside and out. Being ND helps, voice timbre reveals a lot.

This is some cult bullshit. Build a narrative that paints large segments of society as irredeemably monstrous, say good followers morally must not engage, except with hostility, that's obligatory. This is a toxic mindset incompatible with a functioning civil society.

Have you heard them say "friends" even in our tribal political society?

I see it more as:

"We disagree politically, but that doesn't mean we can't be friendly!" 

Or:

"We disagree politically, but that doesn't mean we can't be civil!"

Everyone has strong emotions about certain topics, but that does not mean people can't talk it out over time to try and change their initial opinions on topics, especially family members or neighbors.

I get reminded of this:

How One Man Convinced 200 Ku Klux Klan Members To Give Up Their Robes [Dwane Brown | August 20, 2017]

https://www.npr.org/2017/08/20/544861933/how-one-man-convinced-200-ku-klux-klan-members-to-give-up-their-robes

jasonroygaston 2d

I'm so tired of being told, "We disagree politically, but that doesn't mean we can't be friends!" Dude, if your political opinion is that children shouldn't be fed, that the poor shouldn't be housed, that the sick shouldn't be cared for, that women shouldn't control their bodies, that Americans can't marry who they love, or that certain people shouldn't exist... Yes, that most definitely means that we can't be friends.