I was watching a video today and the narrator said 'I think life is precious precisely because you can't watch it again. Once you realize you're not going to be around forever, I think that's what makes life so magical'. John Ekdahl understood the magic of life.
I 'met' John in 2012 during Romney's campaign for President. John was working really hard on 'Get Out the Vote' efforts. We both lived in Florida and he was kind enough to follow me when I had very few followers. I remembered being so tickled someone well-respected was following me. Then, Romney lost and Twitter became depressing as we faced another four years of Obama. I remember he took a brief respite and it felt like losing a hilarious friend.
Thankfully, he regrouped and we all got to experience laughs over 'Blind Dirty Dancing', his expert opinion on the 'Logan Act', his ribbing of national journalists about pickup trucks, his take downs of Never Trump nerds like Tom Nichols and the list goes on and on. I loved sharing his thoughts on the latest news from the Jacksonville Jaguars with my son as they were both mega fans. All of those 'very online' things were experiences I'll remember with John, but the best part about him was his offline life. He was pretty private, but he was very outwardly devoted to his wife, his children (I remember when his oldest, his daughter was born. He was over the moon and then he got his son. He could not have been happier). Even though he made quite a name for himself on Twitter, he LIVED life, as well. He never forgot the place he was most irreplaceable was in his home and among his friends. That's often a hard balance to strike.
One of those 'real-life' friends (though, to be fair, they met because of conservative Twitter) wrote this very touching post remembering the great John Ekdahl (he would totally hate me calling him that).
John Ekdahl was my best friend. He died today of cancer, at 47. I know that some of you knew and loved John, so I thought I’d let you all know. I have set up a GoFundMe for his family, which is linked in this tweet.
— Charles C. W. Cooke (@charlescwcooke) February 11, 2026
John and I “met” on Twitter about 13 years ago, and then, a… pic.twitter.com/UO0wO1hwZO
Just the other day, I checked his timeline and noticed it had been a bit since he tweeted. That wasn't unusual. He often took breaks. Like I said, he understood balance. Little did I know what was really going on. I wish I would have. I would have sent him a message thanking him for being one of those rare souls who truly wasn't a respecter of persons. If he liked you, he liked you. He didn't care about how many followers you had, who you worked for or any of the usual things people with 'social media status' worry about. He was steady. His opinions didn't change according to the whims of the political scene and he said what he meant.
John Ekdahl was rare and I will miss his voice on my timeline. Please pray for his friends and family in the days ahead (his Mom, Lolly, is also on Twitter) and if you can, please give to family gofundme. Here's hoping John can watch White Christmas and Dirty Dancing, the Vision Impaired Edition in the sky.
