Political alienation strikes again

This week I seem to have lost what was probably the closest online relationship I have, or rather had.  And I don't know why, or at least I don't know the specific reason, though I have a fairly good idea what the general issue probably was.

This is a blogger I've known online for several years, though we never met in person (geographical distance would have made that impractical).  She was particularly supportive when I was going through near-suicidal depression a couple of years ago, and went out of her way to contact me at some particularly bad times to see how I was doing.  She is, however, intensely politically committed, sticking closely to what might be described as the "orthodox" set of left-wing viewpoints.  As I, over the last few years, became increasingly alienated from the orthodox left over issues like trans ideology, extremist rhetoric, the failure to condemn anti-Semitism, and most recently the Democrats joining forces with the Republicans to attack voting rights via gerrymandering, the relationship grew somewhat strained.  Still I valued it enough that a couple of months ago, after I'd made what I realized was an excessively harsh response to a comment she left on my blog, I wrote to apologize and try to mend fences.  I've read about cases of people just cutting off someone they know because of political differences, but it wouldn't have occurred to me to do that myself.

Nine days ago I left a comment on one of her posts and she wrote an approving response to it.  The next day I noticed that it had disappeared, and tried to leave another comment to let her know -- I assumed it as a glitch in the comments function on her blog, as that had happened before.  The comment didn't appear, so I sent an e-mail.  On Wednesday, not having gotten any response, I sent another.  I haven't gotten any response to that one either.  It seems she has simply cut off contact.

I can only assume this was due to political disagreement, but I don't know what the specific trigger was.  The comment I left on her blog was completely innocuous, and nothing I posted here last weekend or immediately before was out of line with what I've been saying all along.  But she is, as I said, very politics-focused, and it could be that some particular turn of phrase I didn't think was significant was too much for her.  This is somewhat upsetting because she had been so supportive in earlier years.  I certainly never imagined that she would just end all contact and not even tell me what the issue was.

I have to admit that I do not, and really can not, understand the mind-set that is so focused on politics that political differences can destroy actual relationships with people.  There are people with whom I manage to maintain fairly good relations despite substantial political disagreements, such as Darrell Michaels and Rade.  It just takes a recognition of the obvious fact that there is much more to a person than their political opinions, a mutual willingness to refrain from badgering each other with efforts to "convert" them to one's own viewpoint, and enough sense to not take things personally which are written about as general matters (as opposed to explicit personal attacks or insults).  This seems obvious and normal even though, as I posted about earlier, there are elements in my personal history which make me somewhat inept at handling social relationships.  The mentality that allows politics to dominate such relationships is totally alien to me.

It's a reminder that I need to work harder on breaking out of the social isolation I've existed in for the last few years.  It's just not healthy for your only relationships to be online ones with people you've never actually even met.

[Please, no naming names in the comments even if you can tell who I'm talking about.  I don't have any ill-will toward her and don't want to make this about personalities.]