Ugh, I hate clapping such terrible, yet true, information. Once again, you’re reporting on sobering/terrifying facts.

I just had a conversation with an old high school friend this past weekend, reconnecting after decades. We were able to have a civil, agree-to-disagree discussion. Yet it’s eerie how many of the points you made about the fascist playbook turned up in the course of our conversation. Every one of them, point for point. That tells me that the propaganda is working.

Yet I think my friend was able to cut past the bs and communicate his real concerns. Concerns that are not limited to the MAGA crowd, ones that we all share. He stated his discontent with the current economic environment. The dollar doesn’t go as far anymore. He fears for the future of his children. Regardless of where he misguidedly places the blame and desperately seeks escape via the Rapture, the root of his anxieties is the same as the “lefties”. We need to remember this common ground as we enter what is increasingly becoming the certain unrest that we’re about to experience.

One more anecdote from my trip home. I decided to spend some time with my brother and nephew. I hadn’t been in the truck with them 5 minutes before my nephew, out of the blue, asked me who I preferred, Trump or Biden. I of course answered honestly, if given the choice between only those two, I choose Biden. He then proceeded to casually (haha jk!) threaten my life. To be clear, I never truly feared for my life. But joking or no, it was wholly inappropriate for those words coming from an armed 10 year old in the back seat behind my while my brother drove with an AR at his right side, saying nothing other than “Drop it boy!”, which of course he didn’t “drop it” because my brother never disciplines him… This is just one example of a new generation being raised in the MAGA cult.