I have 2 GOP parents, one that voted Trump originally and one that did not. Over the last 9 years, I have watched them both travel down the MAGA pipeline to become visibly fascist. The parents who taught me racism was wrong and to have empathy for others, have become openly hostile about immigrants, Muslims, and even parrot the Nazi “great replacement” theory.
Part and parcel with this, they refuse to have any discussions about the facts – like immigrants not stealing and eating people’s pets. They won’t hear it, they won’t even engage in the conversation…they just get angry and loud the second they hear anything that doesn’t fit into the Fox News narrative. Can you relate? How are you dealing with it in your relationships with your parents?
Ignore them and tell them trump is an idiot if you do talk to them and they bring it up. Watch them freak out.
Sorry, the brainwashing was too successful. You wont save them. They domt care that he raped children. They wont change their minds.
Well, one of them died of COVID-19 without telling me that they even had it, and I don’t speak to the other one.
My dad did not tell me because he knew I would tell him I told you so when I was like, wear a mask, keep your distance, maintain safety protocols at all times, follow what the CDC is saying, treat this seriously.
It was literally weeks before the vaccine became available. Like if he had just, like, two more months, I would still have my dad.
My parents were both… medium-core republicans. Didn’t go to rallies or buy swag, but they weren’t interested in non-R candidates or ideas. Dad died of covid before the vaccine was available. Pre-existing immune deficiencies. He was one of the ones they couldn’t fit in the morgues because they were all full. My mom watched all this happen, still refused to get vaccinated, got covid twice (that she told me of) and died of “complications from asthma” two years after the vaccines were generally available. IDK what role covid played in her death but I doubt it helped much. I really don’t know what I could have said to her if watching dad pass in isolation wasn’t enough. I think about it a lot though.
God fucking shit it breaks me heart to hear that. I’m so sorry for your loss.
My mom is quite pro science and my dad became a bit spiritual, conspiratorial and anti-science, but none of them were hit that hard. I feel like I’m in the opposite situation where I technically can try to convince him to change his mind every time I see him but he is extremely stubborn and there’s no way. In fact it will make him dig in deeper and the only way for him to change is by himself.
Fuck this timeline I want a reroll.
Thanks ❤️ I really wish I knew what to do, because I still have relatives on both sides that are deep in the cult. Not to mention my inlaws 🤦 They occupy a spectrum of dangerous / crazy and some of them I don’t talk to at all, some I still talk to occasionally but it’s hard to figure out where the cutoff line is. I think I’ve had some productive conversations around how dangerous Trump / MAGA are, but it’s hard to tell because I think the effects only manifest in the long term really and it’s hard to tell whether I’m helping or just pushing them away. I don’t think anyone suddenly has a lightbulb and thinks “Oh god, I’m in a cult”, at least not in my experience. It’s more gradual and requires sustained conversations, which incidentally is why cults generally encourage victims to cut off family members who aren’t also in the groupthink. So, I just try to meet the ones I don’t think would likely try to kill me for being trans where they are and do my best to be a good influence in the sphere of influence I have.
As for the reroll, lol I hear ya, but as a wise wizard once said, “so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”
So you’re saying this planet’s DND party just has bad dm?
I don’t think we have one. I think we’re all just players, and we make up the game as we go along.
You think he would have taken the vaccine?
Yeah, he was pro-vaccine.
He believed in medicine, he just hated any politician that wasn’t Donald Trump, and believed the news when they said that it’s just a cold.
Ah I’m sorry to hear that. My parent swung hard into the same propaganda and obviously ended up catching a severe case, multiple times in fact. Survived, but they’re like a totally different person now. Extremely hair triggered and aggressive, easily confused about things that always used to come naturally.
I think it’s literally a case of brain damage from catching the virus so many times. Been pretty awful to watch. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to forgive the conspiracists. Sorry again for your loss, hope things are moving in a good direction for you and yours
I’m fortunate enough to not have anyone that close to me become part of the cult. Those who have, I’ve just stopped reaching out. Though that may not be an option for you in this case.
The best advice I can offer is to try to understand what a cult is, and how to work with that situation. A cult like MAGA is inherently irrational, so trying to win people over with rational arguments doesn’t work. Here’s one resource for how to talk with people like this.
I stopped arguing which made them dig in and our relationship worse, and asked a thoughtful question or two. Then dropped the matter and moved on to something different or removed myself from immediate proximity. I mean they’re not red/black flag-waving revolutionaries, but people grow at their own pace or not. To use the old idiom, pulling on carrot tops doesn’t make them grow.
I have not spoken with my fascist father in 11 months. Before that I spent years trying to reverse the brain washing. My mother moved out in 2021 because of his trump isolation. He told me that was the worst day of his life, I said if only there was a way to change that. He thought I meant make my mom become a fascist too.
This sounds a lot like my dad…minus the mom moving out bit…everything in the world, he looks at through MAGA-colored glasses. When groceries were expensive under Biden, he said it was all Biden’s fault. Now that it’s actually Trump’s fault from all the tariffs, all of a sudden grocery prices are “complicated.”
Like you, I spent a lot of time trying to un-brainwash him, and eventually gave up…he’s probably only got 1-2 years left, so I feel like I’m just riding it out, it’s just a shame that his final years have twisted him into something I think he wouldn’t have even recognized 25 years ago (it would be easier if it were dementia, but other than this MAGA cult shit, he’s still pretty sharp).
My parents actually went the other way. They were very conservative while I was growing up until my mid twenties, and nowadays they are the complete opposite.
When they were conservative, I generally didn’t bring up politics, but if it came up I didn’t argue. I would just say I thought something was mean spirited and just shrug if they tried to argue. I think I accidentally psychologically fucked with them. I think being mean was against a core value of theirs and me repeating that idea slightly tweaked their thought process.
Eventually I started hearing the “mean spirited” comment from them as a reason they disliked a policy or conservative person. And they now vote for liberal or labour parties.
This sounds like my (more reasonable) extended family.
Unfortunately, my parents are still deep in the cult.
Credit where it is due. My parents are willing to question things. And that is half the battle.
I think that’s what I’m going to have to do. Not sure if they care if something is mean-spirited now…will have to find out.
That’s pretty much the extent of how it worked with my family. I don’t throw out mean-spirited too often, because that tends to bring out defensive combativeness.
Are they twits? A twit is someone who cant process more than 512 characters at once.
My dad was always conservative listening to Limbaugh and other talking heads as long as I can remember. He was always casually racist but then everything was ramped up in 2016. It grew to a point that he joined Facebook and every post was truly horrific. Gleefully enjoying violence. He was convinced Michelle Obama had to be a man. Every crude meme he could find he reposted.
It came to a head when I realized that I’m passively letting him say all of this, while at the same time I have mentors and people I care about that he actively wants harm to come to. It became a true moral thing, by letting him just say all of this, I felt like I was saying it was okay.
So I told him that he could either have these posts on facebook and his hate or he could have a relationship with me, but that I couldn’t have a relationship with him while he had this much hatred towards people I care about.
That was the last time I spoke to him, he never reached out after that. It’s been 7 years now since I’ve heard from him. He knows how to get hold of me if he should ever choose, but I’ve never heard anything from him.
From the rumors, 1 by 1 he alienated everyone else in the family, even coming to a screaming match with his elderly mother as she asked him to please be calm. Last I heard he picked up a new MAGA girlfriend and moved somewhere in the rust belt away from all the libs in the Midwest. I have no idea where beyond that.
I pity your dad. May he either turn back and no longer be a slave to fascism, or die as swiftly as possible.
There is no place in the world for fascism.
It became a true moral thing, by letting him just say all of this, I felt like I was saying it was okay.
A thousand times, yes.
I almost feel like it would easier if my parents would go full shitbag, then it would be easier to just not have relationships with them…my dad is a good dad otherwise, and my mom isn’t bad, she kind of just acts like an angsty teenager. I want to have relationships with them, but I’m the full-on antifa super-solidier that Trump is trying to outlaw…the Venn diagram of things that are safe to talk about between us has a very small sliver in the middle…mostly, how’s the weather?
Man, I feel you buddy. I really feel for you. My parents are middle of the road Democrats. They think they’re leftists but in reality they’re just Mitt Romney Bill Clinton types. and although they are not fascists, they are certain that positive change is just around the corner, none of this is too bad, the pendulum will swing back fully in the other direction in just a couple of years, just you wait.
They don’t seem to recognize that the pendulum has been dismantled and that the people in charge don’t give a shit on both sides. they get viscerally, angry, and upset when I try to point out to them that best case scenario America will take a generation to fix. And it’ll only get fixed if it’s filled with decent people, governed by decent people. And we all know that is not the case. So in reality, America will probably not get fixed in my lifetime. Maybe in my kids lifetime. My parents cannot understand that concept they think the good times are just around the corner.
I keep them at arms length I let them engage with my children and beyond that, it’s how’s the weather.
But I’ve also decided that because I don’t feel America can be fixed In a timeline, I find a reasonable as a relates to the raising of my children. I am leaving America.
i’ve already begun the process and my family and I will be moving near other family in a different country. Maybe my children will come back to these shores but aside from a few funerals I don’t think I’ll be back here.
good luck, buddy. We all need it.
Your parents are the prime example of what’s wrong with Democrats and why America is probably fucked. MAGA/Fascists are the minority in our politics but the adage “The only thing necessary for evil to triumph in the world is that good men do nothing” rings true.
America will probably not get fixed in my lifetime.
Yeah. Reagan fucked The US for the last 40 years, and Trump fucked us for the next 40. If I were in a position where I could reasonably move to Western Europe, I would…I guess I’ll just have to live vicariously through you. You’re doing the right thing by your kids, I’m rooting for you/them!
thank you, that means a lot. But don’t give up hope. There’s lots of nations in Western Europe that have programs that allow for immigration and permanent residency. There’s also programs to immigrate to Canada, depending on what type of work you’re in. And if all else fails, There’s good lives to be lived in South America and Central America. You’re not trapped. It may take you five or 10 years, but you can do it. Don’t let the empire crush you in its gears.
That’s fair weather friend stuff. I won’t be the good man who does nothing, the good man who runs away. If Evil triumphs, it will be despite me, not because of me.
My dad is awesome but my mom is scum. I told her to fuck off and stop talking to me but it wasn’t that hard cos she used to abuse me and didn’t raise me
got their numbers blocked and stopped checking FB because they are there. they kept trying to make me maga-like, i avoided saying anything mean, i have come to terms with just cocooning, just want to be left alone
They think I hate them but I promise you it’s shame. If we do talk, it’s Dishonest Harmony.
Yeah, this is mostly where I am. Like you say, it’s a shame.
“Dishonest Harmony” is a term I’ve never heard but wow it is perfect.
My parents are normal but I don’t speak to any other relatives anymore.
Yeah, my parents are still basically the same liberal Democrats they were when I was a kid. Meanwhile I’ve gone farther left and the rest of the family mutated into a virulent strain of fascist.
I’m from rural alberta and a lot of my family have embraced the separatist rhetoric. I can’t speak to people that I’ll be at war against if this actually comes to fruition
Most of you people need to come to terms with the fact that your parents are pieces of shit and hopefully the next pandemic claims them as they are wasting oxygen by existing.
As my friend @West_of_West@piefed.social would say, that sounds kind of mean spirited. 🤷♂️
I try not to waste empathy on the worthless (conservatives).
I agree with you. Once a fascist and unwilling to change (even in the face of deradicalisation programs), always a fascist.
I pity them, but at the same time, reserve no compassion for those who would kill everyone.
Before Trump, we’re get republican still? My parents were always super republican, but won’t vote for Trump. Also won’t vote for a democrat….
