I would write “The Ethicist,” but I’m a better ethicist than he is, so I’m asking you.
I have a friend, a neighbor, who has been very kind and caring since my wife died in 2024. She’s about 20 years younger than I am, divorced, and desperately lonely. She’s also brilliant, politically obsessed, and furious at the world. Spuds likes her two dogs, and we all go to the nearby dog park together whenever our schedules mesh. She checks on me when she hasn’t heard from me for a while (which is annoying but still considerate). She sends me food; she invited me to have Christmas dinner with her and her then-boyfriend last year.
She is also as Trump Deranged as anyone I know, which is saying a lot. Her progressive mania is extreme: on Facebook and other social media she goes from one stream of furious posts on the latest leftist cause to another. Currently she is determined to have the seven men accused of sexual assault in the Cornell mess tried, convicted, and if possible, castrated.
My friend, like so many people I know infected with woke hysteria and Trump Hate, confidently rants to me about her obsessions because she assumes that nobody she likes and views as intelligent could possibly have any opinions different from hers. I’ve written about this phenomenon before. I just let her do it, because she needs to talk, and eventually I get her to move on to another subject, make her laugh, or try to get a word in edgewise that has nothing to do with politics.
For me, this is a pure Julie Principle situation: she’s a good and generous person, she’s intelligent, she needs a friend, she’s a great Scrabble player, and as long as she doesn’t try to run my life (which she is always on the verge of attempting), I’ll accept her quirks and obsessions and concentrate on what’s admirable about her, which is a lot.
However, she excises anyone from her life who doesn’t conform to her political beliefs. She is estranged from her family and both of her children. She recently told me that she made a list and that I am one of just 17 people she feels comfortable talking to. Somehow, she has concluded that I have the same political beliefs she does, which means, among other things, that she has never googled me or done any research online. I have a rather large cyber-footprint, including Ethics Alarms, of course. I know, with near certainty, that she would be crushed if she learned about my positions on many of the issues she feels passionate about, including the Cornell 7. When a dinner date recently told her he had voted for Donald Trump, she got up and walked out of the restaurant.
I feel like I am deceiving my freind, and yet I also don’t believe political views are relevant to personal relationships unless they are the basis of those relationships. I have many more than 17 friends, and the idea of ending a relationship because someone doesn’t agree with me about, well, anything is alien to my being.
Heck, I even have friends who are Yankee fans.
Is the most ethical course to continue to allow her to think I meet her self-harming extreme standards she demands of friends, or to be transparent, let her know more about me and guarantee that she will be angry, disillusioned, and cancel me as she has so many others?
This is a true ethics conflict, with valid ethical justifications on both sides of the question. Kindness or honesty? Inflicting pain in the cause of transparency for its own sake? My friend is incapable of embracing the Julie Principle.
Now what?
This young woman’s story is such a sad commentary on the damage wrought by our culturally stoked political polarization.
Since you and your acquaintance are not ‘intimately’ involved by any measure, you are not deceiving her by choosing merely to listen as she rants. You do not owe her an explication of your views.
It sounds as though this relationship has tangible value for both her and you. For that reason, I recommend leaving the situation as it is, for as long as it can survive (i.e., until she either Googles you, opens her mind, or both).
Tried to comment last night but it has disappeared. Testing…
Test successful. Nothing from you in SPAM or under moderation. If only this had happened to “Cassandra’s AI Agent” and “A Friend”…I’l be talking soon with WP’s “Happiness Engineers.”
Testing WordPress word filters…
TDS
Testing WordPress word filters…
Ass
Testing WordPress word filters…
Trump
Testing WordPress HTML Tag filters…
“I’ve only got a few minutes before I have to get back to work”
Testing possible comment length filter by breaking up my earlier longer comment into separate paragraphs…
You have a unique opportunity to observe TDS in its native environment (brain rot la la land), it’s almost like a case study, don’t blow it.
There’s nothing wrong with a person not revealing their political and/or ideological motivations. This is a free country and who we vote for and support politically is “secret” unless we choose to reveal it to others. I very rarely talk about politics around family or close friends, there’s far too many other things to talk about. It’s a very small niche of people with whom I talk openly about politics. My politics are my business unless I choose otherwise.
If your tolerance wains, remember, you’re a business owner that needs to work and promote your business to pay bills, so set time limits when you “need” them. Something like, “I’ve only got a few minutes before I have to get back to work” is a simple way to limit contact when tolerance is low.
When politics is the topic; revealing how you feel about Trump, the person, will certainly make a TDS sufferer smile with approval. You have plenty of your own anti-Trump quotes to use, you’ve been writing them since 2016, use what you know! Since she’s suffering from TDS and everything is about Trump, it should be relatively easy to steer clear of actual policies in favor of Trump’s privileged adolescent personality and other unethical pompous ass behaviors. Again, use what you know.
I’m guessing that this lady has led an interesting life, learn more about what her life was like before Trump entered politics and TDS rotted her brain. You’ve led an interesting life too. I bet she would be interested in your theatrical experiences; the vast majority of people involved in the theater are lefties.
Remember, ideological chasm walls can be bridged by the solid foundation of human commonalities.
Remember, ideological chasm walls can be bridged by the solid foundation of human commonalities.
Now to test posting my long comment as a reply…
Posting the longer comment failed, again.
There appears to be something limiting the overall length of a comment posted.
I wrote, “There appears to be something limiting the overall length of a comment posted.”
This was a false assumption, EC’s comment was significantly longer than mine.
I’m at a loss, but everything seems to point to either a CSS issue or maybe some version of Alizia hacked you with an AI tool to troll some of the commenters; that second theory is way, WAY out in left field.
I just posted my longer comment on my WordPress blog and it posted fine so it doesn’t appear to be a core WordPress programming issue.
There might be something wrong with the CSS blog appearance theme that you’re using. They do automatically sent out updates once in a while for themes, maybe that’s what’s going on. I’m using the “Independent Publisher 2” theme, which one are you using?
I guess I could have done all this testing on your “Alert! Commenting Problems…” post instead of this one. Duh Steve. Sorry about that.
Feel free to delete all the testing messages if you like to clean up the thread.
My original comment was something like this:
I have a close friend of 45+ years, we have many similar interests, cars, motorcycles, home remodeling, etc. A few years ago he flipped over to the ‘dark side’ and has serious TDS. When this was discovered, after a heated argument and a cooling off period, we both agreed to set aside our political interests, since neither of us will ever convince the other to change. In the interest of keeping the friendship, we have agreed to table any discussion of politics. If one inadvertently references to something seen on the news, a quick ‘lets not go there’ will stop the conversation. At times its a bit confusing, and sometimes angering, but I won’t lose my friend over this.
In your case, it would appear that your friend is not mature or intelligent enough to do the same. I would surmise that eventually when she realizes your position, like others she will terminate the relationship. Thats unfortunate but I don’t see much hope for anything else.