Thread by @ddale8

Well, here is a story thread.

In a column I wrote for the Washington Post in November about fact-checking Trump, I ended with an optimistic anecdote about a Trump die-hard in Pennsylvania. washingtonpost.com/outlook/its-ea…

I'd interviewed him about Obamacare, which he benefited from and didn't want Trump to cut. Then he Googled me, found my fact-checks, and messaged me again to tell me he found them a revelation - that he didn't know Trump was lying to him so much, and that he felt very deceived.

In his last message to me in September 2017, he said, "Thanks again. I won't bother you anymore but I'll be following your fact checking of a man as of today I no longer can believe anything he says. I can't stand a liar. Take care Dale."

I found all this interesting, so I asked him about his media diet - why didn't he know Trump was a regular liar? He told me he doesn't trust the "mainstream" media, gets his info from Rush, Beck, Levin, Fox, etc., and has serious health problems and is busy just trying to live.

Anyway, he told me he was going to tell his fellow Trump-supporting friends and neighbours to check out my database. So: I used this, in the column and in my speeches, as a story about how it's perhaps possible for people like me to get facts through to people like him.

Seventeen months passed. Bruce messaged me again to say hi in early February. He said, politely, "I'm still behind Trump totally and can't believe what is happening in the resistance movement of the Left."

I meant to message him back, curious how he'd moved past those initial thoughts about Trump's lying, but never got around to it. I wanted to do it tonight. But when I went to the DM thing, Twitter said "you can no longer send messages to this person."

I thought...did Bruce block me for some reason?

No. It turned out *I'd blocked him,* not knowing it was him, for spreading false information in my replies about mass Democratic voter fraud.

In summary, I no longer have an optimistic anecdote to end columns and speeches with.

I still argue regularly with despondent Democrats who tell me that all Trump voters are a lost cause for facts - even just during the midterms, I met a bunch who'd turned on him for various informed reasons; they were paying attention.

But I thought I'd update you on Bruce!