A Breakup Letter to a Former Friend and Coworker
americaisabeautifulthing.com
Xxxxx,
I’m 67 years old, I’m a US Army veteran, I’ve lived overseas for many years in both Europe and Asia, and I’ve traveled the planet including 13 months riding a motorcycle around the world, the Sahara Desert crossing sticks in my memory. I’ve been married to the same woman for over 30 years, I founded and ran a business for 28 years (you know that, you worked for me), I put two kids through college without debt, paid off our house and had enough money left over to retire. I spend my summers traveling the southern states on my motorcycle talking to people I meet and writing about them (last summer I was in Iowa, Missouri, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama (including a NASCAR race at Talladega!), Tennessee, North Carolina, West Virginia and Ohio). I subscribe to several newspapers including the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, the Guardian, BBC News and Al Jazeera; I read a lot and I am passionately and unabashedly liberal in my beliefs.
Having laid out a little of my history and perspective, and you know me as a co-worker and an employer, besides, I have to ask: Do I seem delusional? Do I seem like a person likely to be seduced by propaganda, false media and angry friends? If I do, stop reading. You shouldn’t read shit from delusional people.
If you’re still reading, here’s a quick thought experiment for you: apparently, a lot of people believe that Trump’s 4 indictments and 91 felony charges in 4 different jurisdictions are a “deep state” operation orchestrated by Joe Biden or his henchmen. A scenario like that would require that literally thousands of people be able to keep a complicated storyline absolutely secret not just for years but for the rest of their lives. Nobody, not attorneys, not juries, not court officials, not clerks, secretaries, police officers, or janitors can disclose their secret enterprise, despite the fact that revealing the secret would earn them thousands (or millions) of dollars and hours and weeks of TV fame. Does that seem likely? Really? People are people.
Now, let’s talk about you: I assume from your messages that your news sources are primarily Fox, OAN, Newsmax, Qanon and the various other websites, blogs and social media outlets that inform the MAGA faithful as well as the friends and people you choose to surround yourself with. And from those sources and associates, you have taken on a world view that is both false and destructive, a world view that is vengeful, bigoted and cruel, a world of lies, partial truths, conspiracy theories, self-dealing, self-aggrandizement and nonsense. The MAGA arguments are not something you will convince me of; in fact, it is not a conversation that I’m willing to be part of. But it is something you should reflect on.
And so, my former friend and co-worker, I wish you the very best. I warn you that outside the media and social bubble that you now live in, the world looks much different, it believes in science, humanity, justice and equality, it believes in an imperfect country forever working to better itself. That’s the America I believe in and want to be part of. Let’s go our different paths.
Steve
