Dealing with increasingly extreme political views in a good friend

[RandomNameChangeAlgorithm]

I think its a hand-hold needed more than actual advice.

I have a friend who I've known for 30 years and who I've been through a lot of my life with. At her best, she's a wonderful friend. She can be entertaining and good fun, very intelligent and very supportive. She's been with me through most of the most significant parts of my life.

Increasingly her political views are become pretty extreme (on the right). Having been someone who described herself as a "left winger" and "progressive" for most of our friendship, she has now pivoted in the space of about two years to being someone who is "open to hearing from" Tommy Robinson, believes that Muslims in the UK are a threat to our safety, goes on ad nauseam about the grooming gangs etc. Believes the current government is antisemitic. Has very extreme views on gay people: she's gone from a position of being anti-trans (which I don't agree with but is more understandable) to basically saying all gay people have been brainwashed by the left. Everything, and I mean everything, is "woke".

To be really clear: I don't agree with any of these positions and I find some of them abhorrent but I acknowledge her right to hold these views. I'm pretty much a centrist, politically, slightly left of centre but not an extreme leftist (I was always politically to the right of her). But I'm very relaxed about being friends with people from different backgrounds and discussing different viewpoints, I just can't stomach having to endlessly debate this stuff. It's impossible to talk about anything else and I find it exhausting and just want to talk about normal things once in a while.

I've previously said to her that she and I will never agree on, for example, the need to expel Muslims from the UK, I respect that its her right to hold these views but I find them abhorrent and upsetting and can we just agree not to talk about this subject as I find it difficult. But she won't accept this and will always bring every discussion around to this, without fail. I can't spend more than about ten minutes in her company or on the phone talking about anything neutral without a rant about Muslims or gays or the "woke media". It's as if its some sort of compulsion, an attention seeking thing to bring everything back to her political position.

I suppose I've got to a point where I find this so toxic and exhausting I can't deal with it any more and have been avoiding spending time with her and I feel guilty. I've been wrestling with whether to tell her directly why I can't handle it or just let the friendship drift. She's lost touch with a lot of our mutual friends from the past recently because people can't deal with the politics: old friends have basically ghosted her and I know she is sad and confused about this. I sort of feel she is owed an explanation, we've known one another for so long, but I also can't face getting into a long debate about why I've been brainwashed by the woke media etc etc. I don't have the mental bandwidth for it.

Do I owe this to her? Or should I just accept that the friendship is over.

@RandomNameChangeAlgorithm thanks for expanding on that point

You say "The point is there is a huge difference between being gay and being trans". I agree.

it sounds like she's fallen for the forced teaming - but a lot of people have, because that's what it was designed to do. In fact, I'm surprised she can't see through that.

Question remains though, what happens about your friendship? I'm sorry you're in such a tough spot.

Here we go, a conspiracy theorist who is debating strangers’ sexuality. It used be only acceptable to be heterosexual. Now it’s acceptable to be ANYTHING and that’s amazing. It is rather odd that it bothers so many people.

One of the reasons why political conversations are such a pain in the arse is that people often make weird blanket statements, and when you drill down to what they actually mean, it's not reflected in the headline! And also I think social media has created so many niche phrases, if you're not in the same very small circuit, you may not fully understand the terms they're using.

I basically don't talk about politics in real life. I admit that's partly because I'm surrounded by people who think very differently than I do. I do talk to my mum because that's safe territory. But if I tried to have a conversation, I would bet money that we'd be using different shorthand terms to mean different things.

That's part of the reason I think it's such a shame to fall out over it. I can see a lot of alarming of stuff in what your friend says but I can imagine you don't want to question her further.

I do think we were better off when it wasn't a norm to talk about politics.

caveat - still a bit shocked by this - someone I thought was perfectly normal, partly because I had ignored some warning signs maybe? - turned out to be a full on racist as in ethno nationalist, who would have me removed from the country on the basis of my heritage/skin colour. (I don't use the time racist liightly - I think that's very damaging and I also think it's the casual use has created conditions for actual racism to thrive).

I had thought that someone like her would not be friends with someone like me. but she helped me out when my dad died and she helped me out when I was ill and other things. I hope that she's changed, but I had to cut off relations with someone like that. I really didn't feel I had a choice. How can you hang out with someone who actually thinks you should be deported to a country you've never even seen?

Her closest friend had similar heritage to me and I discovered afterwards that they fall out on a regular basis!

If she was a romantic partner you’d have no truck with saying it’s over and you no longer wish to see them. This seems harder to do with friends so they tend to be ghosted or tolerated. It would be better to tell her you no longer enjoy her company and wish her well but your friendship is over.

I think age tends to be something that affects what you talk about. Our Reform “friends” seem to assume we agree with them. At times we might be on the same pitch but mostly we don’t think like them. 30 years ago we didn’t talk about politics with them. We had work, dc, holidays, pets etc to talk about. All they do now is tell us we don’t know anything and how they are right about everything. One thing has not changed - he’s still talking very disrespectfully about his former wife whom he divorced 25 years ago! Now they have Reform zeal and it’s replaced any standard conversation.

None of our other friends have changed like this. I know what they think politically because we touch it occasionally but they are not Reform zealots - none of them! So we remain friends for 50 years. We respect each other and don’t tell each other how to think.

It isn't AMAZING if you are a young lesbian and a 50 year old man is pressuring you into sex because he is a 'lesbian with a penis'.

That's what she is talking about, which is why you can't just take blanket statements and why people have to put spin on things to make themselves feel righteous and better than people pointing out that a man who says he is a lesbian is a straight man and a predator if he is targetting women.

It is ok to say you don't understand the complex arguments, pretending everything is AMAZING because of the old days is just virtue signalling.

I have a former close childhood friend whose political views have become extreme, although on the far left, and I have had to distance myself from her. I am left-wing myself but her views have just become extreme and she is always militant in her views, unable to see another point of view and subscribes to lots of what I consider conspiracy theories. She spends most of her time in a political echo-chamber and shouts down anybody who disagrees with her views. I tried to remain friends with her and tried asking that we avoid talking about politics but she didn’t listen, our friendship group live all over now so we communicate a lot via WhatsApp groups, I tried making a new ‘lighthearted/ no politics’ group to share life updates and light chat but even then she hi-jacks almost everything with a political point or an accusation. In the end I realised I didn’t enjoy any of my interactions with her and have had to distance myself from her and so have most of our friends, there are only a couple who can still put up with her, I haven’t explained why as I know it will become the type of political discussion I am trying to avoid but I definitely feel better for it. Ultimately friends are meant to enhance your life, if you constantly come away feeling worse after spending time with friends then that says to me the friendship isn’t working and it’s okay to end it.

What on Earth are you on about. How frequently do you think your scenario happens? It’s like saying all men are r*pists because a percentage of them are?

I reacted to “The LGBTQIA++ hands knees boomsadaisy industrial complex has indeed made it 'cool' to be 'gay or lesbian' and the chances of both daughters being actual lesbians are miniscule.” which sounds like a conspiratorial speculation.

And while your at it, point out to her that Starmer's wife - and therefore his children - are Jewish, so the charge of anti-Semitism seems a bit far-fetched!

It isn't conspiratorial if it is true. It's why the 'Hetero' flag is grey and all the 'LGBTIA++' flags are nice bright colours - and also the Progress Pride flag was designed by an actual [redacted] but whatever.

It's a feature not a bug as they say.

I think that’s the thing isn’t it - we are early 60s but still work in quite a youthful industry -went to a family funeral recently and several couples of the other over 60s were talking complete Reform type stuff and had very much a ‘presumption’ that everyone present ‘ of a certain age’ would think as they do - my H made it very clear that for us no Farage was not the messiah , just an opportunistic grifter supported by a team of Freemason type other opportunistic bigots who couldn’t get arrested in business in the real world - then heard someone whisper to another ‘clearly a lefty’ - as it happens we are pretty much centreists and it’s why I will never go along with the ‘listen to your elders’ viewpoint -

To be honest I have lots of good friends (and family members) of various ethnicities & religions including Muslim; also friends who are gay or trans - so when certain colleagues and acquaintances who I’ve known for a while have started showing that they hate or disrespect or are intolerant of people in those communities it has just put me off them.
Because I’ve tried tolerating people with ultra right views but I just can’t feel the same way about them once I know they are so hate filled, it doesn’t sit right with me as I don’t understand how you can hate on someone for their race / religion/ sexuality etc.

I left the UK twenty years ago for my husband's country, and although I visit often and have spent months back in the UK caring for my late parents, I only have a small group of friends and family left there after all this time. So I haven't been "part of society" there, as it were, for a long time. Frankly it sounds like many people have gone nuts.

I think COVID and the associated social impact precipitated a lot of mental illness, most of which we haven’t really begun to deal with.

But whatever you think about the “LGBTQ+ industrial complex” (and I share your opinion that it pushed some people who were confused or distressed to inappropriately identify as transgender), you can’t seriously mean that most gay people are in fact heterosexuals who have been persuaded out of their heterosexuality?

Yes, it sounds like it.

When I first moved to the US, in 2007, I was astounded by the amount of political engagement here compared to the UK. Then Brexit happened, then Covid, and now there's Reform and other issues dividing the population, and it seems to be a total bunfight in the UK now the way it's been for years here in America, starting when Trump ran for his first term.

It's worth noting that the lockdowns were much more draconian in the UK than in the US, which has probably contributed to the downturn in mental health in the UK.

I miss living in a settled society where there aren't battle lines drawn and people at each other's throats.

without external repression

around 10% of the population are left handed
around 3% of the population are homosexual
around 3% of the population are lesbian
around 1% of the population are bisexual

sexuality and handedness appear without any encouragement
they just are

gender identity requires constant affirmation and adulation
it also seems to need access to 1950's western fashion

Don't the friend say that she thought gay people had been brainwashed by worry, rather than they weren't real?

Not by worry 🙄, by woke.

@Talkinpeacegood points

Every time she diverts a conversation to her favourite rants, stop her and point out that it really makes conversation with her difficult and dull when every single topic gets derailed like this. If she comments that you're avoiding talking to her, explain that this is why. If she continues, you continue to wind the friendship down and, if she questions this, point out again that she just doesn't seem interested in a normal conversation and is making no effort to accommodate you. The whole thing will wither away sooner rather than later.

This. It puts the choice firmly in her hands.

I don't think you can be brainwashed into being gay/lesbian/whatever and I don't care what others do in their private lives. However, there is a lobby and I personally object to local councils squandering scarce resources on Gay Pride events and 'Diversity' officials. It is stuff like that which puts people's backs up, especially when they are scratting to make ends meet. That is a form of brainwashing to try and make people accept that it's normal to fund projects that have no relevance to the majority

The original ethos of pride (or Gay Pride as it was)
allowed gay men and lesbian women to
feel able to walk down the street hand in hand with their partner
or to not need to bring an opposit sex friend to corporate events
or to be allowed to marry
or to be allowed to inherit property

Once those were achieved in most western countries, the lobby groups lost their compass
and started adding letters after the LGB
to keep up the income streams

rather than fighing for the basic gay and lesbian rights to spread to more countries

T was never anything to do with LGB - the Beaumont Society has always been homophobic.

No, I mean that many many people who have never had and never will have a gay or lesbian experience now define themselves as 'queer' or 'non-binary' and dismiss anything they hate as 'cis-het'.

Agreed @Shedmistress