Yeah the whole friends and family thing was definitely a big curve ball once I became politically aware for the first time. I remember first hearing about how much hate and criticism people had for Trump supporters and I remember thinking "What??? No way my friends would actually ever act like that. That's ridiculous to consider".
And I sought to disprove this to myself by publicly announcing on Facebook that I was going to be voting for Donald Trump and that he embodies everything America should want in a leader and alpha male role model.
Having come from a very liberal college just a few years prior to this, I ended up receiving an outrageous amount of backlash and had several old friends criticize me and even a few who flew off the handle, called me a misogynistic, racist, white supremacist, and then unfriended me lol.
I'll always remember how stunning it was to have been shown all at once hiw tribalist all my old "friends", were, despite having been really close with most of them for 5 years.
When it comes to how I dealt with it though, I would say that since I was already in that "post college" transition period where most of my peers moved back home for work or grad school, I was already in a sort of limbo of having left my previous community of friends anyway, so it didn't feel like I lost as many friends as it would have if I was still in college.
But it definitely was still kind of a bummer to have even furthered that distance between many friends I initially thought I wanted to keep in touch with. I've always been good at making friends though so it didn't bother me too too much.
As for the family element, my family is pretty apolitical for the most part although they definitely still listen to the media passively and consider them to be trustworthy. But only my younger brother is brainwashed and anti Trump. The my parents listen to me when I told them about how great Trump was so that was at least okay.
When the switch flipped, it didn't cause me panic at all. In fact, I think the reason I was redpilled so naturally and easily once I started paying attention was because everything I was suddenly figuring out made so much sense and lined up perfectly with suspicions I had about the world for a very long time. I was always into conspiracies and loved researching for fun so seeing the media agenda unfold in front of my eyes served as a puzzle piece that I never knew I was looking for but fit perfectly into a slot on my board that had the exact shape of the piece.
It definitely did resonate with me regarding wondering even more so than ever about what else I had been conditioned to believe might end up having been a big lie as well. But it wasn't mind boggling, it kind of felt exciting to set forth into the world with a new set of eyes.
And I sought to disprove this to myself by publicly announcing on Facebook that I was going to be voting for Donald Trump and that he embodies everything America should want in a leader and alpha male role model.
Having come from a very liberal college just a few years prior to this, I ended up receiving an outrageous amount of backlash and had several old friends criticize me and even a few who flew off the handle, called me a misogynistic, racist, white supremacist, and then unfriended me lol.
I'll always remember how stunning it was to have been shown all at once hiw tribalist all my old "friends", were, despite having been really close with most of them for 5 years.
When it comes to how I dealt with it though, I would say that since I was already in that "post college" transition period where most of my peers moved back home for work or grad school, I was already in a sort of limbo of having left my previous community of friends anyway, so it didn't feel like I lost as many friends as it would have if I was still in college.
But it definitely was still kind of a bummer to have even furthered that distance between many friends I initially thought I wanted to keep in touch with. I've always been good at making friends though so it didn't bother me too too much.
As for the family element, my family is pretty apolitical for the most part although they definitely still listen to the media passively and consider them to be trustworthy. But only my younger brother is brainwashed and anti Trump. The my parents listen to me when I told them about how great Trump was so that was at least okay.
It definitely did resonate with me regarding wondering even more so than ever about what else I had been conditioned to believe might end up having been a big lie as well. But it wasn't mind boggling, it kind of felt exciting to set forth into the world with a new set of eyes.