Losing so called friends over Donnie Rotten

[augyboston]

I had a friend who was my friend for sixty years. He was more a brother than a friend. We were particularly close in the late 60's standing up for social justice and against the Vietnam War.

To get out of the draft he joined the Coast Guard, while I went to state college. I think the seeds for where we are now began with the divergent paths we chose then. Still, he was moderately conservative while I continued down my progressive world view.

In the past few years he has become more and more radical embracing crazy conspiracy theories and Donnie. When I asked him what happened to his democratic ideals he said one word, "Taxes". I asked him to expound and he said when he went in business for himself as a plumber he started to make really good money and then his quarterly taxes came due and it set him off. He stated I was paying all this money and getting nothing for it! It was then that I reminded him that he became a plumber because the trade school he attended was paid for under the GI bill, I also reminded him that his first home was a Farmers Home mortgage where he did not have to put any money down and it was partially guaranteed by the USDA and I finished by telling him that the roads and bridges he used to get to his customers were financed with taxes.

He voted for Trump three times and now, my wife and I are planning an escape to Canada and feel we very well might be forced to leave our country and our home. I am angry about this possibility and I blame people like my former friend for this.

The last conversation we had I told him that unless they're stopped there will come a time when I and millions of other Americans will be forced out, put in prison or worse because of people like him. He had a blank empty look on his face and that was the last time I saw him.