so I recently got into it with a friend that I’ve known since I was nine years old. And spoiler alert, it doesn’t end well.
Basically, I reposted a story that was talking about how Billie Eilish called Out Elon Musk for his greed and also mentioned my view that there should be no billionaires. This Friend proceeds to reply to my story, and states that she doesn’t believe we should be telling billionaires or anyone what to do with their money. while I understood where she was coming from, I stressed my point of why there should be no billionaires ever and we begin to have a slightly heated discussion on it. This whole point wasn’t really a dealbreaker for me, as not wanting to have a billionaire or one thing to have a billionaire really doesn’t make a break someone’s character in my opinion.
But what does make a break my opinion on someone is their beliefs and I made the mistake of asking her why she supports Tr*mp (mind you she is not even American, has never lived in America and is just a outside viewer of American politics). To caveat, I unfollowed her during the first term presidency as she shared a lot of problematic heavy right wing propaganda and at that point in my life being mear 24, I truly believe that I did not have to take a drastic action with people that I knew who had very problematic views so instead I just kept my distance socially. 
alright, back to the present, so I asked her about why she supports him and the reason that she gave were baffling. First reason was that she agrees with his views on DEI, she believes DEI unfair and doesn’t present equal opportunity to all and therefore should be eliminated. Secondly, she believes in his immigration stance and his building of the wall. No need to explain why that’s problematic. Thirdly, she talks about how she aligns herself with his two gender policy which again I don’t need to tell you how problematic that is. And lastly, she believes that being a billionaire himself, he will therefore not be motivated to make political moves or policies that benefit him monetarily and therefore will be doing it for the betterment of the country.
I decide to counter with a lot of facts and data, basically this disproving a lot of the ideologies that she was sharing. The unfortunate part comes here as she basically tells me that she is thankful for the information I provided but due to her personal beliefs and ideologies she does not believe the evidence I have so kindly provided. When she said that it really made me realise that it is not fair for me to hold onto a friendship that has someone who is so unwilling to see how wrong their beliefs are because it’s easier to continue believing what they’ve always believed in vs changing and trying to be a better person. Instead, I should take care of myself and my environment which lead me to end the friendship.
I think the biggest takeaway from all this was learning to say it is okay to not be friends with someone despite all the mileage. That it is okay to tell someone when they are severely misinformed but always do it with a butt load of evidence. And also, it is totally okay if you don’t want to do all that work to educate someone because we’re all grown and we all have access the Internet, we don’t need to be preaching what can be easily found.
And mostly importantly, yes politics is that deep and thinking otherwise is just your privilege showing.
