I was pretty active in the new atheist movement from 2011-2016 and hindsight was definitely 20/20. At this time I was in living in one of the more liberal college towns in the american mid-west. I started attending meetings and joining hangouts with the atheist group in the area and connecting quite well. But there were times where I was pretty much marking myself with a target on my back and not knowing it the whole time since nobody in the group was ever confrontational.

One of these occasions I remember being in a small sit down at a coffee shop with about 5 members and the conversation slowly drifted heavily into feminism. Which wasn't that big of a deal since there was only one other guy in the group and he was gay. But I stuck around and at one point someone said something to the effect of 'I plan on being a angry, hostile feminist until the day I die.' Stupid me interpreted it as theatrics and decided to throw in some of my own snark with, 'it's probably best to focus on love over hate otherwise we'll be no better than the zealots protesting at the abortion clinic.' Amazing to think that the conversation didn't end there with someone flipping a table and all of them grabbing me by the arms and legs to throw my out into the street but this was in the civil times. But I can now say confidently that tabs where kept and in time I accumulated more. Too bad for them my job had me travel far and for extended periods so I was out of the country when the hysterics over the 2016 elections were brewing. But I got back to the US in the Summer of 2016, quit my job and packed up and moved across the state to my hometown.

For the rest of 2016 I was mostly hanging out with old high school friends and my little brother. My little brother at this point was a big atheist like me so I suggested finding a group like the last one I was in. But since I was lazy and took my time the election came and went. I was definitely surprised but shrugged it off and moved on. By late November I finally looked up a group to meet up with in the area. At the meet up it was just 5 of us which was a bit surprising since this site membership page had hundreds I just assumed the holidays where keeping everyone busy. The club leader was there and welcomed me and my brother to the group but had to admit it was a weird time for them. Their last meeting ended up being animated due to the election fallout. He pretty much said that it seems the group is currently fragmenting into pieces as many people left to make new groups.

After checking in on the old group I was in, I saw that something similar happened there. From what I gathered any group that wasn't already a homogeneous echo chamber had this kind of reckoning. For any normal liberal this was an insurrection. This wasn't suppose to happen because we were united. Even if you could have seen this you would have been labeled as crazy as a doomsday prepper. And as you can see now, trying to reach to them now is practically impossible. The only hope I have lies in the fact that the purity tests never ended and with each day they prune their ranks. So much so that I'm willing to place my chips on Trump winning again.