What if your friend became a supporter of Nigel Farage’s fascist Reform UK Ltd private company or, and maybe and, a conspiracy theorist? Would you still be friends with her/him? I wondered how I would react, until it happened. I wanted nothing more to do with them.
My oldest friend, someone I have known since the early 1960s, tragically slipped down the rabbit hole of conspiracies a few years ago, embracing all the evidence-free theories from Chem Trails, Covid-19 was a hoax, that 9/11 was an inside job and all the rest of it. Because once you go down the road of believing one conspiracy theory, you believe the lot. Not only that, you become convinced that people who do not believe in the conspiracy theories are the mugs, the “sheeple” as I was called. I loved her to bits, still do, but what was the point in meeting up?
Another old friend, who I was very close to, became a strong supporter of Ukip, Brexit and Reform UK Ltd in general and Nigel Farage in particular. Back in the day, I fell out with a friend who in the 1970s had become a supporter of the fascist National Front and our relationship faded and died in an instant, never to be resurrected. As soon as he was posting hateful messages on social media, that was enough for me. He’s blocked on my social media, his number deleted from my phone.
More recently, an old friend developed cancer which was to kill him. A woman he had known as a close friend for many years declared that the diagnosis was his own fault for taking the Covid-19 vaccine. It was a fact that vaccines give you cancer, even though the fact is that they don’t. Not only that, she told him he would no longer be seeing her socially. That’s not just nasty: it’s mad.
We can’t agree on everything and everyone. That’s just not possible and it’s not desirable either. One does tend to lean towards those who have a similar outlook on life, but I do still have friends who are, for example, Brexit supporters, Greens and, until he died last year, a Tory. Where I draw the line is when someone’s views are fuelled by hatred and sheer ignorance, not to mention indoctrination.
I was told I had been indoctrinated for not accepting that conspiracy theories had any basis in fact. I might not understand exactly how a vaccine works, or what’s in it, but I am prepared to accept the words of experts and not someone who has seen something bonkers on YouTube. That was the difference for me.
Theories have always been there. When I was a young kid, people bleated on about how the assassination of JFK was because of some deep conspiracy. There was no evidence that there was, but it felt like, at one time, the conspiracy was more likely than the rather dull explanation that it was Lee Harvey Oswald wot dun it.
I am not denying others their right to believe in what they want, whether it’s far right politics or whacko conspiracy theories, but by the same token they are not going to have a place in my life. I can only imagine how devastated they would be to discover that.
Always believe the truth is what I always say. Fancy wasting your entire live fervently believing things that are plainly not true? By all means believe in what you want, Chem Trails the lot, but don’t expect me to humour or even engage with you. It’s a waste of my time and frankly I have better things to waste it on than fascism and crackpot conspiracies.
