I start the week by going through my iPhone to delete the numbers of former friends. It sounds depressing, but it’s actually quite cathartic. I suppose it all started with Brexit. I’m not a confrontational person, so it was surprising to find so many friends turning against me over their newfound devotion to a neoliberal trading bloc. Since then, I’ve watched the ongoing curdling of rational minds with a growing sense of incomprehension. So many on the left appear to have surrendered to a collective fantasy in which the slightest point of political disagreement is interpreted as evidence of fascism. Someone I’ve known for more than a decade went all Mr Hyde on me in a pub one night, barking that I was a ‘Nazi’, which is about as antithetical to my worldview as you can get. Still, there’s something to be said for bigots outing themselves like this, and it does free up your social calendar.
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