Life as an average American right now
This is a real conversation I had with a close but distant friend recently. I unfortunately can't remember the specifics of some of her more peculiar accusations.
Friend: Hey, what are you doing?
Me: Oh, nothing. I'm just at the gym. How are you? Sorry I missed your call yesterday.
Friend: It's fine. I haven't heard from you in a while and just wanted to see how you were doing.
Me: Meh. I'm good; I'm the same. How are things with you?
[Blah blah blah (innocuous, personal stuff). She lives in NYC, so we started talking about the mayoral election since this was a few weeks ago.]
Me: Who are you voting for? Me and my husband were just watching the debate.
Friend: I'm not sure who I'm voting for yet. Have you heard of Newsmax?
Me: Uh...
Friend: I highly recommend it! Do you have Roku or a Roku TV? There's an app where you can watch it for free. It's great because it gives you unbiased information. Like, they don't take sides. They give you the facts and they're like, "OK, now research it for yourselves." It's run by the people, not billionaires.
Me: ...okay.1
Friend: Have you noticed that all the news stations are owned by billionaires? I've finally figured it out! They've been lying to us. They're lying to us so that they can take our money and leave us broke and poor. Trump is finally fixing all the corruption. Everything is coming to light. Do you know who to blame for the shut down?
Me: Well, it's complex cause...
Friend: The Democrats.
Me: Oh.
Friend: They want to flood the country with immigrants so that the immigrants vote for Democrats and then they maintain their power over the country. That's their main agenda! They're shutting down the government because they want our tax dollars to pay for healthcare for illegal immigrants.
Me: That's...not true? Illegal immigrants can't receive federal funds. They can't vote either.
Friend: I know, I know, but—
Me: Did Newsmax tell you this? That doesn't sound accurate.
Friend: No, no, it is accurate. It's locally funded and run by the people, for the people. They also go into the history of the country. Did you know it was the Republicans who freed the slaves?
Me: Yeah? But they were a different party back then—
Friend: Yeah, yeah, I know but [word salad; she was talking so fast]...and it was the Democrats who kept black people down! They're always taking money out of our pockets! At first I was mad about Trump taking DEI away, but then I realized something. Did you know welfare supports single, white women more than black people?
Me: Yeah? Black people only make up 12% of the population. What does that have to do with—
Friend: My tax dollars are going toward these racist white women who are having all these kids and leeching off the government! So I'm glad Trump is cutting programs. Democrats want to give all my money away to these people.
Me: I mean, the Democrats suck for a lot of reasons, but you can't blame everything on one party. I don't think Newsmax is giving you both sides. I'm pretty sure that's a conservative news station. And listen, if you wanna be conservative, that's fine 2, we can agree to disagree, but like...have you heard of the Wall Street Journal? Maybe read that instead? You need to diversify your news sources. I don't think it's a good idea to get it entirely from one place.
Friend: No, you don't understand, Newsmax is funded by the people, for the people! It's independent; they don't take sides. They're fighting for the people. Don't tread on me!
Me: If Newsmax is "fair," then have they reported on Trump giving billions of dollars to Argentina? Doesn't that go against everything conservatives agree with?
Friend: No, you don't understand. He has a plan. It's in the making; people just don't know about it yet. It's like with the tariffs. Other countries have been taking advantage of us. Trump is bringing these jobs back to America.
Me: You're definitely voting for Cuomo, aren't you?
Friend: No, I don't know who I'm voting for yet. But Mamdani's a Muslim.
Me: Wow, okay.
Friend: They have an agenda!
Me: ....
Friend: [More word salad; she was speaking so fast, I really wish I caught it all cause it was getting crazy]....Nancy Pelosi! Remember when Charlie Kirk got shot? Remember who shot him?
Me: Yeah, that Mormon kid.
Friend: No, it wasn't him. The gun jammed. They showed the video on Newsmax. The gun jammed and someone else shot him because Nancy Pelosi [something something, couldn't catch it all].
Me: Wait, what does Nancy Pelosi have to do with this?!
Friend: She's the evilest woman alive. They have video of her admitting to not calling the National Guard on January 6th. It wasn't Trump's fault!
Me: Okay, I'm at home now and about to eat dinner. I gotta go.
Friend: And they're teaching kids to be transgender at school. All this gender stuff! They're brainwashing the kids at school and trying to do operations on them to make them transgender.
Me: That's definitely not true.
Friend: It is! [word salad]
Me: [talking over her] Listen, I gotta go. Uh, I'll call you later?
Friend: [finally shuts up] Fine.
Me: Uh...bye. [hangs up]
Unfortunately, this is a real friend and not some acquaintance I can ghost. I gotta call her back and listen to more of this. Help! 😩
It's definitely owned by a billionaire.↩
She's always been a right-of-center Democrat, and she used to hate Trump.↩