She is a very foolish and hateful person, and to me, very hateful people are usually deeply insecure and fearful individuals. This is why (imo) they are so receptive to cult-like thinking and conspiracy theories. She has done real damage to herself and others by letting her fearful emotions dictate her behavior. Now she’s seeing the results of that foolishness, and I think she’s realized, at least somewhat, that she fucked up.

Sure, too little too late is real easy to say here (and that was my knee-jerk reaction too) but we’ve got to keep the door open for the folks who are actually willing, for however briefly, to break away from the cult of hate mindset and ask for help. Like think about watching a cult documentary where you see folks being preyed on and recruited in because of their financial precarity or lack of sustainable support networks. You want those people to escape. If they do heinous shit while in the cult, you want them to experience consequences, but you also want them to escape.

This alt-right shit is just like that, in a way. And we need to support people like this who are trying to escape, even if they fucked up royally during their time with the cult. We don’t have to forgive them for their fuck ups, but we do need to leave the door open and show them it doesn’t need to be like this. I hate to say it but we need to educate. And yes I’m over having to educate every fucking day of my life but we’ve got to do it, especially considering states are ripping away any semblance of a balanced, empathetic education right now. A whole generation is being set up to fail and cause harm. We’ve got to fight back.

I embrace her - not her actions, but her worth as a human being with the capacity and even, it seems, willingness to change. What she did was despicable but she’s apologized; she may be lying but I can’t know that, so I have to accept her remorse at face value and hope that she follows through.

But the cult is very insidious. If she doesn’t receive support now, she’ll fall back into that mindset, I guarantee it. Now is the time to be gracious and extend her a hand that, based on her actions, maybe she doesn’t deserve. But we need to do it anyway.