I am very much of the mind that the idea that people on the left can be friends with people on the right is laughable, because it’s not just a difference of opinion, it’s a fundamental difference of ethical worldview. Conservatism in 2020 is a straight up moral deficit.

HOWEVER. The fact that EVERY time ANYONE tweets “it’s not healthy to only be friends with people you agree with about everything” their replies are immediately filled with people reacting as if they’d said “I hang out with nazis”- THAT is a genuine problem.

If you think there aren’t huge swathes of people on this site who spend their days engaged in vicious, angry arguments over very minor, semantic points of political difference, then you’re fooling yourself.

I have less than 2000 followers, and I agonise over every word of any tweet about politics. Because I know the level of granular, pedantic scrutiny it will receive. I know the default assumption on this site is bad faith.

I know that I had to start this thread with a statement of my already very well established opinion, or there was a good chance that trying address this subject would get me accused of advocating for everything I hate. I know that there’s a good chance this will happen anyway.

And I’m not just talking about from strangers. I’m talking about people I’ve known for years, often. Over a decade in some cases. People who KNOW me, or should. People who should have no cause whatsoever to doubt my position or commitment.

Factionalism is probably the biggest problem we have on the left. It is destroying us, making it impossible to gain ground in the face of naked, proudly ignorant and barely competent fascism.

The disparity between the number of likes & RTs on the first tweet in this thread and the rest of it doesn’t give me hope.