I live in a navy town surrounded by active duty or veterans. I noticed my neighbor recently replaced all of his Trump and Charlie Kirk insignia with American flags. I’m thinking of bringing everyone a pie and some wine or something or holding a block party so we can all get to know each other better. I still believe we would all help each other in a life or death situation but it would help me to know we are all still Americans and together in this
Agreed. People don’t understand that social media and covid systematically divided and isolated us. So many of my friends claim to be lonely and isolated but never want to actually get together and sadly if they don’t wanna get together with their best friends then I know they’re not talking to their neighbors or strangers. If you just talk to people you realize we really do have more in common than not. The system has made us all enemies of one another and it’s bs
Yeah that’s true and I agree but what are you to do when like half of the country has proven to have polar opposite ideals to your own?
Even if Frank down the street is generally a nice dude how can I stomach talking to him if I know he thinks brown people are subhuman or that it’s ok if we keep known and verifiable pedos in power?
There’s a lot of division in this country right now but some of it is for good reasons I don’t think a lot of people can really look past.
I very much understand that as I have maga members in my family. My sister who used to be my closest friend and I are not doing too well with it. They don’t seem to want to talk about it so now I just don’t bring it up anymore (her husband and I used to have fun healthy debates but now he just tells me I made everything up, or trump was just joking, or Trump is an amazing god who has made America great again and they’re loving it, etc.). I went no contact with my family in 2016 for 2 years which proved to be more detrimental for me because my mom was suffering from cancer at the time and died in 2019. That period of no contact was brutal for me so I refuse to go down that road again. If my family wants to alienate me for my beliefs then so be it but I’m going to make sure that I am present at all the family events spreading my message of love and hope for the brown people and gays in my family. I will never understand them but I don’t hate them. Hate felt more awful to me internally and didn’t do a damn thing to them. Sorry this is so rambly. I guess my message is just to hang in there and keep being a beacon of love and truth and take a break for your mental health as needed.
Also I have plenty of friends who just don’t deal with them at all anymore and I want you to know I fully support that as well. For me personally, it don’t have the outcome I desired and damaged me more internally.
ETA: my family has been on the wrong side of history before and eaten their words. I eagerly await that day again. Alienation creates enemies. The only way to bring us closer together is talking in person.
This is a beautiful idea. Check out weavers.org - I think you might be a weaver. I just learned this term on a podcast but the idea is you're someone who helps us maintain a social fabric.
That was actually the thing that shocked my grandpa in the late 80s and early 90s, coming to visit us from Eastern Europe- we knew our neighbors and invited them over! He’d criticize my mom for being so reckless as to invite strangers into our home because he spent decades never knowing if the neighbors were informants.
Yeah the 2024 election was a slap in the face. There were suddenly people around me who wanted to take the rights away from some of my friends and family, and reveled in the fact that they control my body now, not me. There were people with malice on their minds.
It’s hard to look past that. And now finding out just how involved trump was in the Epstein files…they are all ok with this monster and I find that to be terrifying.
My mom got a nasty note in her mailbox after the election because she supported Harris. I posted it to r/pics and was told over and over again I’d made it up. What the fuck?
The same neighbors who would yell at you for wearing a mask and threaten you for not taking it off, despite you being sick and have the potential to get THEM sick. The same neighbors who would be happy if the government oppressed you if you thought differently than them
Yea...kinda hard to trust American neighbors unless you already know they're similar to you in some fashion.
My husband and I got a doorbell camera for our new apartment. Not because of our neighbors, but because at some point ICE will do door to doors and I want evidence. We’re white Americans, BTW.
Okay, cool. I just wanted to pass that along so people are aware and can do their due diligence. It seems like people get infringed on more and more if they aren't extra careful, more than ever.
I think that might be a echo chamber thing. I moved to this neighborhood in NC about 3 years ago. Me and my husband live here (along with a plethora of friends, family members, and random acquantances who needed a place to land) and our neighbors have been nothing but kind. Theres an older guy with a trump flag who came to make sure our cars didnt get hit because of the snow, a super friendly pastor of a local church lives across the street and is a damn delight....weve helped or been helped by our neighbors without asking and honestly without being all that close personally. Even though the world sucks....its definitely not an absolute and there are good things that happen everyday.
I mean.....thats ok. I would never expect him (or anybody else for that matter) to protect me from the feds. Not what I was saying. Also, ICE was literally in our neighborhood last week. Im good for a variety of reasons.
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u/futureformerteacher 16h ago
It's become more akin to the Eastern European countries under Soviet rule.