To have been as close as you two were and then to have it ripped away--it's very painful and hard to get away from.

My deep condolences.

I’ve experienced it, too. The other friends in our group are treating it as a death, all but having a mock funeral. Talking about her as if she’s gone from the earth, not just our lives. I hope you find better friends and better times.

She didn’t just drink it, she has drunk it all of her life, she just put the cup down for awhile until it was time to drink it again.

But not to the extreme until he retired ( it was always his way or the highway). His consumption of non stop fox news brought out the worst in him. My parents were FDR union democrats growing up. That all changed a few years into retirement. He drank the Kool-aid when trump ran in 2015 and my mother followed. After my mom's passed in 2017, I could no longer tolerate my dad's ranting on how the the Democratic Party had gone woke. I cut all ties with him. He passed in 2022.

To see someone you love turn into someone else that you no longer recognize is especially heartbreaking.

I don't know what happened to change him, but he did an abrupt 180-degree turn in his politics.

Went from happy-go-lucky flower-child hippie to hardcore asshole, seemingly overnight.

He died from COVID after refusing vaccine and treatment. Said COVID was a hoax and the vaccine was deadly.

That type of ignorance is exhausting to be around.

brainwashing / propaganda operation. The only cure is a mental health professional well versed in deprogramming .

However many Americans were lucky enough to receive a good education and we know how to turn off the TV set.

"click" ... bye-bye...

For adult children with parents who are showing signs of frontal temporal dementia (personality changes) or dementia (memory impairment).

I suggest you send her a copy.....with your final Goodbye.

Having said that, my father was 'MAGA' most of my life. His turn to conservatism was when he became a part of the NYS Department of Corrections. (It reinforced his racism and bigotry) He was one of the first to get on the Limbaugh bandwagon.

I maintained my relationship for years after he called me a feminazi-- even though he never condemned Hitler. (He's dead now. I have his English printed version of Mein Kampf)

At a very specific point in my life, I walked away. When he died, I knew I had done my best. He rejected me, my sisters, and eventually all of his friends.

Maybe your friend would appreciate this. I am so sorry for your hurt.

Pod People!!!

and recommended the movie to my children. it really is.

It is so creepy.

It's shocking reading it.

A friend of my mother's was such a die hard Trumper that she was posting Trump as Jesus images five years ago. She extolled the virtues of Trump so much on social media, that even her fellow MAGA friends were asking her to tone it down.

There was no way I thought she'd ever change, and I made no effort to bring her to her senses. I had given up on her completely.

I was wrong. She is now officially anti-Trump. What pushed her over the edge was the war in Iran. Likewise the tariffs, Epstein files, price of gas and other things may have played a part. She used to and maybe still does listen to Alex Jones and that could have also swayed her.

Her conversion suggests that some hard core Trumpers can and do change.

I think as long as she's with The Asshole, it will continue.

She may be lost, but research shows even just a couple weeks of staying off Fox News and right-wing social media, and watching CNN instead transforms people back... until they start watching Fox News again.

https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/what_happened_when_fox_news_viewers_watched_cnn_for_a_month

...some sort of national "recovery program."

Something like Exit Deutschland on a big scale.

Showcase recovering MAGA folk.

More attention on the heartbreak of losing loved ones to the brainwashing.

We need to move from the current us vs. them-ism where we write "them" off as evil people that deserve nothing but our condemnation, to a serious examination of the snowballing social problems the multibillion dollar far right noise machine kicked off, which is being accelerated at an unbelievable pace by social media algorithms fomenting anger and hatred that are sending an unbelievable number of Americans into rabbit holes that just keep getting more and more and more bizarre.

We need to take on Christianism Nationalism, while being very, very, clear that we are not condemning Christian faith.

We need more documentaries like the 2015 Brainwashing of My Dad

But after rewatching the film of the musical "1776" on Saturday, I clocked the "Cool, considerate men" goose-stepping to the refrain "To the right, ever to the right, never to the left, forever to the right", you realize that they are the ones moving radically away from the center. It's no wonder they call Democrats radical leftists, because they can't even see the center from their perch in Fascist territory.

Hammer the Fascists. They moved away from the rest of us, just like they did in the 19th century.

Sometimes it is self induced, but mostly it is due to external factors.

'Personality reconstruction' - just a polite way of saying brainwashing.

And no one is immune, so be on your guard.
(HINT: don't watch Fox Spews.)

Here’s to a happy ending, if possible.

But I suspect you started losing her when asshole came onto her life.
Now I wonder when either asshole and/or Trump are no more, will you welcome her back onto your life?

And it IS a great loss to lose a dear friend with whom you share so much history.

Something similar happened to me with a decades-old friendship. It still hurts.

Consider the current version as an Alien Shapeshifter.

It's the only logical explanation.

It fucking sucks. One of my best friends from high school and I used to hang out all the time. We even went to rallies like an anti-Prop 8 (the California gay marriage bill) together. But then one day he fell for the Fox Kool-Aid. I went over to his house because we were going to go out and have a couple of beers and he's like "Hey I really like this Glenn Beck guy!". Instant puke. It only got progressively worse from there. A couple of years later, he was into full blown Alex Jones conspiracy theories.

We and a couple of other friends got together after COVID restrictions were lifted and found out that a mutual acquaintance of ours was in January 6th and was actually part of the mob that was entering the Capitol. He also took a vacation in 2020 when everything was shut down and went to the Sturgis biker rally. He didn't own a motorcycle. It was pretty much over by then.

I wish I was kidding.

I’m not so very social or outgoing, but when i do have conversations I’d prefer to have the skills to make the most of them.
I feel that it is a dire emergency to learn how to knit the fabric of the country together, and to be equipped to share some counter-programming or to be more precise and engaging.

The best way to connect on a human level is to connect on life stories. Instead of trading conflicting conclusions and arguing positions, ask what led the person to come to their conclusion. Listen. Don't interrupt. Refrain from "gotcha" questions. Ask questions that feel genuinely "curious."

Then ask if they'd be willing to hear what experiences led you to the opposite conclusion. Being able to do that -- to tell a bit of your own journey -- actually helps solidify your own reasons for holding the beliefs you hold.

And when speaking to someone who seemingly "changed" on you, you can express your feelings about that.

It is about telling your truth and being open to hearing their truth.

And sometimes that ends in "I'm getting too angry/upset/sad" and need to take a break -- and perhaps "I just need to let go of trying to understand. I am too emotional."

It's called braver angels for a reason because it does take a measure of bravery.

Don't expect to change any minds. That is not what bridging is about. But you may gain an appreciation that helps you see those on the "other side" with greater understanding.

And paradoxically, when you don't try to change someone's mind, and just genuinely share where you are coming from, sometimes minds change.

And for an example of one woman's amazing bravery, I offer Deeyah Khan:

My documentary about White Supremacy. White Right: Meeting the Enemy.-
Deeyah Khan

she have Stockholm Syndrome? Maybe accepting Asshole's opinions and behavior is emotionally necessary for her marriage to survive, or for her to survive.

Oftentimes they do it just to keep the peace because they know they'll have to endure a temper tantrum or worse if they don't agree with him. So they acquiesce just so they don't have to deal with the fallout of not agreeing with them.

And sorry she hooked up with an asshole.
I'll hope she'll turn around some day.

because I am afraid they will be magats and I will have to cut them off. Otherwise, if I don't find out I can still pretend they are all ok.

In my case it was my older sister. I still love her, but we have very little contact anymore.

She married a guy who was in St. Ronny Raygun's administration for both terms, and she drank the Rethuglican Kool-Aid by the gallon. She became a rabid MAGAt and dumped me when I said I didn't want to have dinner at T💩p Tower when we met in Chicago five years ago. It's all good, because I prefer my friends who aren't brain-dead, soulless fascists.

My wife has lost several friends to MAGA. Some have gone MAGA but they remain friends because they don't talk about it. In most of the cases it's because their man has told them to be a Trumper. It's hard to know that nastiness has been in there the whole time. Again, I'm sorry

in all the same total absurd bullshit. I watched it happen to both my parents.

They became magaloons in 2016 and we no longer talk. Both of them had lousy childhoods with horrible fathers and married guys who were pricks and they ended up divorced.

I count at least 10 who I used to engage with. No more.

It is the politics of enflaming people’s base feelings or emotions; primarily fear, resentment, hate, and greed. Fox does that very well. On Fox, there is never any appeal to reason, or any intelligent discussion based on facts. There is only a play on the viewers’ base emotions, by providing them with a constant stream of enemies (libs, immigrants, minorities, etc.) to further excite whatever stirrings of fear, resentment, hate and greed that were already in the minds of those viewers. Reason cannot work against that.

We had always been very close, always agreed politically. Then Covid raised it's ugly head. She started listening to fringe podcasts and she went down that rabbit hole. Insisted that I shouldn't listen to Fauci. I should listen to RFK. She jumped on the trump train. It was so crazy. I just don't know who she is anymore...sad really.

People who change to blend into their background. Many married couples do it, but usually only one party in the relationship.
It's actually a ruse and eventually they morph back into their former state. That's what keeps divorce lawyers busy..

and how that is particularly dangerous in a public figure where so many are exposed.
It seems strange, but also explains so many people acting like Trump when, by comparison, Republicans held Nixon in check.
It sounds like your friend has succumbed to the exposure.
In Dr. Lee's experience, when the orginial malignant narcissist is removed, the people in his orbit go back to normal.
She has you tubes you can look up if interested.

Thanks for the detailed description. For those of us who haven't seen the transformation first hand and are pretty mystified.

Imagine your friend and Husband2 get their mail-in ballots. Husband2 would lay both ballots on the kitchen table, fill in the ovals as he wishes, folds them up, and says "sign here". As if this was the most normal thing in the world.

I'm guessing she lost the right to vote years ago.

I lost my lifelong friend after 70 years. My brother, who is older than I am.

I don't mourn anymore, though I think about both of them often. What they support is so bad - racism, misogyny, corruption, torture, murder, war, kleptocracy, hypocrisy, cruelty...as far as I'm concerned this is so far removed from being about politics that letting them go was literally easy. Their values and lack of morals and insistent, passionate belief in lies are toxic to me, and it's been made clear that nothing I say, no evidence I present, will sway them.

I believe they chose this.

My sister is dying from Alzheimers disease. My brother and I will almost certainly be at her funeral. I don't expect to interact with him except as minimally required to prevent my niece from having to suffer further due to our estrangement. With my ex-friend, I made it official by blocking her on fb and on my phone. The last thing I communicated to her, which was on fb after, for the umpteenth time, she shit on a post I made, was, "That's enough."

No doubt, the daily influence of her current spouse made the difference. I hope you can connect with other more rational people.

My best friend since college went crazy
during Covid -- anti-vax, touting
hydroxychloroquine, etc.

And that was that. I had to cut off a
bridge player like that tool.

I hated that happening.

She made herself into a irreconcilable enemy. Principalities is absolute paramount. Proud of you.