I grew up in southeastern Oklahoma, and I still have many friends and relatives in the area. It is an impoverished area, but also one of the reddest areas in one of the reddest states in the country. Obama was largely viewed as the Antichrist of the past eight years.
In my adult life, after graduating from college in Texas I lived in Europe on three different occasions, and lived five years in one of the bluest states — Hawaii. As a result, I have been exposed to a lot of different cultures and a lot of different viewpoints.
I also write publicly about the energy sector, and my Facebook profile is public. This has led to many “friends” on Facebook that I don’t personally know. As a result of this, my Oklahoma origins, and subsequent travels, I have Facebook friends (as well as “friends”) from across the political spectrum.
I would guess that the breakdown of my FB friends is about 10% far Right (and maybe 1% extremists — more on that below), 10% far Left, and then about 40% that are moderately Right and about that many that are moderately Left. I try not to be overtly political on my Facebook page, because of the extreme range of views. Political discussions usually devolve into the far Right screaming at the far Left, with everyone in the middle saying “Can’t we just get along?” As for me, my views don’t fit neatly into a box. I have been accused both of being a liberal (I believe in universal health care, marriage equality for gay people, legalization of marijuana) and of being a conservative (primarily for what I would deem moderate views on energy policy).
But I can see all of my friends’ FB feeds, and one thing I have noticed lately is that many people that I had considered to be moderately Right have started to embrace and spread Trump’s divisive rhetoric.
This week one of my good friends from high school (which was admittedly nearly 35 years ago) who I considered to be in the moderate Right group posted this status update: “Not all Muslims are terrorists, but all terrorists are Muslims.”
I stared at the comment in disbelief, and resisted my urge to immediately respond. I walked away, thinking “He will delete that shortly when he realizes how ridiculous that comment actually is.”
But 10 minute later, I checked it, and he had 10 likes (but no replies). I couldn’t take it any more, and replied “I am sorry, but does the name Timothy McVeigh ring a bell?”
I got a few likes on that comment, and some people began to chime in and tell him they didn’t agree with his comment. He responded to me “Point taken, but are you seriously going to ignore all of the Islamic terrorism to focus on one act that happened more than 20 years ago?”
That was starting to devolve into the absurd, but I responded that there were plenty of more recent acts of Right wing terrorism, including (from initial reports) one from the previous day in Quebec. His opening statement, I noted, was clearly false.
A few others began to comment (as so often happens with my FB friends on the Left who may notice when I comment on one of these absurd claims), and this morning I found that he had deleted his post.
Now you may ask why I keep friends like this on my Facebook. There are even a handful who are full-blown Holocaust denying Nazi sympathizers (as well as some who seem would legitimately be considered to be Communist sympathizers), and while I have kicked off a few here and there that really got out of hand, I mostly keep them around for two reasons. One, I am an optimist, and so I try to use opportunities here and there to at least engage them and move them away from extremist views. But the other reason is that even if I can’t, I want to get inside their heads. I want to understand why they see the world the way they do. Where they are getting their information. How they are formulating their arguments.
What I saw during the election season was a nation deeply divided. The divisions are nasty, and I don’t foresee a good outcome. Some were talking openly about violent revolution if Hillary won (3-4 people on my Facebook), but I knew that no matter who won the next four years were unlikely to be marked by peaceful demonstrations.
I am more uncertain about the future than at any time in my life, but I don’t think this ends well. Trump’s actions are emboldening and encouraging intolerance and hatred, which I see firsthand daily on my Facebook feed.