Jan. 6, 2021

I had an experience with an online friend who was screaming about stolen elections after Trump lost.

I attempted to engage with this person -- you might recall that after November, the Trump team went into a frenzy of court filings, all of which they lost, and demanding vote count audits, all of which failed to prove anything other than "Trump Lost," -- but the dialogue between my friend and I sorta broke down.

It amounted to "Trump won, we believe it, and that settles it, and YOU HAVE TO RESPECT OUR BELIEFS."

I found this disturbing. "If I said that same thing when YOUR candidate won an election, you wouldn't respect MY beliefs," I replied. "You'd want proof of my claims. You'd want evidence that would stand up in court. Trump's lost SIXTY court cases so far, including one in front of the Supreme Court that HE appointed. Why should I accept your beliefs as fact?"

Her response was something along the lines of "Well, you'll SEE what happens on January Sixth."

I remember the sixth rather vividly; I spent the afternoon teaching middle school children with a frozen grin pasted on my face while watching my phone out of the corner of my eye the whole time and wondering if this is the chapter in the book where the country "slides into dictatorship."

And probably the worst part of the whole thing was that a person I considered a friend KNEW THIS WAS GOING TO HAPPEN. "Yup, we're taking control of the government, now, and YOU PEOPLE'S votes aren't going to count any more. We don't NEED proof, because we BELIEVE REAL HARD!"

Sigh.

This friend is rabidly anti-abortion. Far as she's concerned, abortion is murder, we believe it, that settles it, and we will NOT stop until anyone who does or abets this process is in JAIL! No room for opposing view points, of course. Talk all you want, but it WILL be OUR way. OUR beliefs are the RIGHT beliefs, and YOURS don't MATTER!

It WILL be OUR way.

January Sixth taught me an important lesson: some people are prepared to do this exact same thing with American politics. Talk all you want, but your votes will no longer be allowed to matter...