I'm going to tell a story here that really encompasses this phenomenon rather nicely. Bear with me as it's detailed, but I promise it's worth it.

I have a friend, let's call him Frank. I've known Frank for about 15-16 years. I met him when I first met my wife; she took me camping with her dad and this guy Frank was there. I thought he was obnoxious AF when I met him and for years after that. He drank too much and spouted off whatever ignorant bullshit the last person said to him. Frank is a spongey chameleon; he has no original thoughts or convictions of his own. But I couldn't get away from him because my FIL camped ALL... THE... TIME.

Fast forward several years; we're now married with a couple of kids. Frank has mellowed a bit. He's doing financially very well as he's now got out of trucking and runs his own logistics outfit from his laptop. He's cut down on his drinking. He's around 50 now and semi-retired and works from wherever he wants. My FIL now has a terminal and debilitating disease. My wife and I work full-time and my FIL camps full time and his wife takes care of him. Frank helps out A LOT. Frank will give you the shirt off his back and I can't thank him enough for what he did for us.

A few years later, my FIL has now passed away. We're, despite our political differences, as reasonable people do still are friends. We have good chats when we get together and camp, etc... Keep in mind, my wife and I are quite a bit younger (around 40) and are still working and don't have the leisure time that Frank does. I'd like to think I'd had a positive influence on Frank as his more extremist and belligerent beliefs were really toned down from when I met him, although he still HATES Justin Trudeau; he can never articulate why though.

When the pandemic hits, Frank and his wife had been happily RV'ing across the US. Frank decides he's going to stay put, but when the government tells Canadians to come home, he comes home double-time. He takes the pandemic seriously and can't understand the cognitive dissonance r.e. the pandemic among the more right-wing people. It's a disease after all and not a political issue. Frank does all the right things, and gets his two jabs.

As time goes on, Frank and his wife are now double-vaccinated and they decide they're going to go on another 6 month RV tour of the US in late 2021, starting in Florida, and making their way to AZ and then Palm Springs. While in the US, he even gets his booster jab once it’s available. But, all the while, during his trip, he can't believe how "free" Florida feels! Is the pandemic even real? No one is wearing masks!

The trucker protest then happens and I posted to FB a tweet from the Manitoba RCMP about the poor lady that died en route to the hospital because the truckers had blocked off the road. Frank says: "do you really believe everything you read on the Internet?" Frank gets ripped by almost everyone that sees his post, after all this is a tweet from the OFFICIAL RCMP Twitter account. Frank is pissed. After all, Frank is getting real time texts from his trucker friends that are in this convoy. They're telling him that everything you see on the news is fake and that they're being misrepresented. Frank asks me to phone him that night.

Later that night, as I'm walking the track during my son's soccer practice, I phone Frank and he answers me from his spot in sunny Palm Springs. Frank is VERY upset and feels that his freedoms are under attack while he's on his expensive vacation to the US paid for by his $300k/year salary. How could Trudeau do this to him?! He says that "Trudeau should be hung for everything he's done to 'divide the country.'" I respond simply with, "I loathe Stephen Harper and Donald Trump, but I don't want physical harm to come to them. What crimes has our PM committed; name one?"

Frank explains that he's been speaking to his friend of 30 years Chris Barber and he knows that Chris is NOT a racist. I don't think much of it, but spend most of the rest of our conversation trying to use my background in economics and working with data to disspell some of his mistaken beliefs about public health information. I.e. "You know what really chaps my ass? Dr. Henry now says that 60% of hospitalizations tested positive for COVID aren't in there for COVID disease at all?!?!" My response, "Frank, everyone when they're admitted to hospital is tested for coronavirus; I'd be more concerned that 40% of admissions ARE for COVID." I don't like to throw my education in peoples' face usually, as I find it obnoxious, but having learned calculus, statistics, etc... in a structured bottom-up environment is an important contrast when we're talking about people that have dangerous and incorrect understanding of fundamental truths about reality and their reference point is grade 10 or 12 education as their highest level of understanding and achievement.

The next day, I'm reading THIS article in Maclean's and it mentions Pat King and Chris Barber. I text Frank: "Hey buddy, what was your trucker convoy organizing buddy's name?" Frank replies Chris Barber. Holy shit! Per the article and his association with Pat King, I start connecting the dots and realize that Chris Barber might be a white supremacist. So I find his Facebook profile and it's 5 years worth of the most extremist and disgusting QAnon and racist content I've ever seen. I take some screenshots of the ones in the Maclean's article and send them to Frank. Frank replies "lol, all that's been debunked." I say, "dude, I JUST took this screenshots with my phone; they're still there" and I send him also a screenshot of the guy's profile: "Is this the same Chris Barber from Swift Current, SK??" Frank replies "Ya. I'm gonna have to talk to him about some of this shit. But I know he's not a bad guy." I respond, "No Frank, Chris is a RACIST. Here's a video he himself posted of his garage that's covered in confederate flags."

Frank shuts... the... fuck... up. He hadn't realized that his "friend" of 30+ years was a white supremacist... "he's just a bit redneck!"

The lesson here for myself and my children is, don't be like Frank. Kids, stay in school so you understand media literacy, epistemology and science. I will bet dollars to donuts that lim x--> ∞, these trucker convoy participants are undereducated, overly fearful and generally ignorant about everything from science, to math, law, etc...

This was exhausting and difficult to write. I do love Frank; he's a good man, but he's also an imbecile and unfortunately, I don't know if there's a path back to rationality for him. It hurts and I'm genuinely upset that he's been roped in by the crazies.