Today I did it. I tried one last time to get through to him. He’s a Jew. I showed him a verse from the bible (Leviticus 19:33) that says to relate to a foreigner like one of your own, as we were foreigners in egypt. He doesn’t care, tried to make up semantics about why It doesn’t mean that.
I showed him pictures of the Everglades Concentration Camp and how they’re selling merchandise, and how this is what the Nazis started with. He called me a hysterical lefty and told me “you must be the most pleasant person in the room and know everything”.
I blocked him after that. It crushes me to block one of the pillars of my life from my childhood, but I can’t associate with a fucking hypocrite or a fucking nazi supporter. He’s 60, when they cut medicare for him, I hope my sister is ready to go bankrupt paying for his medical care, because he voted for this, not me.
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I need a support group for this situation.
What hurts most is watching them hurt themselves while pretending to come from the moral high ground. I’m not sure if it’s a CIA pysop or what, but something just happens in someone’s brain and it seems like they stop caring about reality as long as you give them somewhere to channel their hate. You did the right thing though. If we all stopped playing their bullshit game and refused to work with the people sabotaging the rest of us we’d have everything fixed in just a few years.
What we are seeing is no mass psyop, but fundamentals of human nature at work. Well exploited and wielded. Anyone and everyone subsceptible to it.
I stopped talking to my mother since innauguration day. It’s fine. You’ll be ok. They voted for harm. We don’t need to apologize for their politics.
I feel like it goes beyond politics at this point. There are moral and ethical issues with what this administration is doing. Not to mention the self-serving goal of keeping our country functional.
And legal issues. Constitutional issues
I’m right at this point with my dad. He still listens to Alex Jones religiously. Haven’t verbalized it to him yet but I have made a decision that I no longer want any conservatives to be anything but required acquaintances in my life.
I think you did the right thing. At least his corrosive behavior will not affect you anymore. In my mind I’m hoping that my dad losing his child will jar him loose from the cult but in really nothing will feed his hunger for anger and victimhood like more cult.
If we all did this five years ago, maybe there would have been a sea change by now.
The thing is, and I know this is just semantics, but these MAGA folks are not “conservatives” in the least. They are reactionaries.
I don’t see much “conserving” going on.
The actual, real conservatives these days are (love ‘em or hate ‘em) the centrist, status quo, moderate, neoliberal institutional Democrats, and the former Republicans (such as Liz Cheney and the Lincoln Project folks) who have joined them. They’re the ones attempting (albeit fecklessly) to conserve and preserve institutions (flawed though they may be), decorum, rule of law, the Constitution, things like that.
These MAGA types are actual Fascists, even though they balk when you call them that.
Here’s what Fascism is: a populist movement constructed around a palingenetic myth, with a vision of a glorious future, with the nation (and leader) at the center of this glorious rebirth. Palingenetic is a fancy word for “rebirth.” So a palingenetic myth is a compelling (to many) story about rebirthing and renewal.
So it goes something like this: “In the Past, We were once Great! The envy of the world!!! Everything was awesome! Alas, we have fallen. We are no longer Great, because of Them (immigrants, Jews, gays, progressives, Muslims, Communists, whomever blame sticks to). But We (the real ones) can be Great again! We can recover what was stolen from Us! The Nation takes primacy over the individual, and “law” is only valid so long as it’s not an impediment to Greatness. Rally around the Dear Leader, then, join the Movement, and let’s rebuilt/rebirth our Greatness together! Let’s kick some ass and be great AGAIN!!!”
That is Fascism, and that is what MAGA is.
When I watched Triumph of the Will many years ago, what I saw is being repeated, with American modifications and flavors, by MAGA today. Same shit, different day.
It is not “conservative” at all. That term is just a cover.
People are angry, and many people find the Fascist palingenetic myth to be compelling. Neolib Democrats have failed us, so rebellion against the status quo is at some level understandable.
We on the Left of center aren’t offering a compelling story or uniting vision of the future. We’re too busy nitpicking and policing language, virtue signaling, and woke scolding people. Calling someone “unhoused” vs. “homeless” does nothing to create a house for someone. Putting pronouns on our Twitter profiles does nothing to ensure fair and equal treatment under the law. Capitalizing the word Black does nothing to reverse systemic injustice. So yeah, we don’t have anything to offer as an alternative to either Fascism or status quo corporatism other than word policing. No wonder they hate us. I hate us too.
You are absolutely right. MAGA are not conservatives but even your run-of-the-mill Republican from 20 years ago was hardly a conservative. Save for a very few folks like David Brooks, George Will, or the late Alan Greenspan (not sure any would consider themselves Republicans), efficiency has only been a guise.
I chose to use that term just because it encompasses the largest tent of people who would be just fine to continue all this just to a lesser tone and without Trump. They have been chomping at the bit to reinterpret the constitution by way of appointing “letter of the law” judges since well before Liz’s father’s time. Speaking of whom, there’s no way Dick could be considered a defender of the constitution.
I do believe we, on the left, have something to offer. Community, quality of life, working together and lifting each other up. All basically euphemisms for socialism which, unfortunately, has been vigorously stigmatized. Just like being kind and caring about other people is stigmatized as “woke”. Fear of this demagoguery and trying to appeal to center Republicans is what’s made us this unappealing mess. We really just need to embrace the word socialism and say fuck the people who will lable us communists.
Your example of MAGA brand fascism is spot on! May have to quote that. Don’t think I could write it any better.
I don’t think the sadness of losing his son will be stronger than his hatred of people who are darker skinned than he is.
Chances are you’re right. Losing his entire personality is more terrifying than losing you (or me in my case). Thank you for sharing this. It helps me getting it off my chest.
sorry you had to go through that, I know the feeling. It hurts to lose people you cared about even when they suck.
Yes it does. Apparently, when he was younger (until 9/11), he was a liberal. Then he went down the conservative talk radio pipeline (I also listened as a kid) and we see where that always goes.
My dad said the same bullshit about being a former liberal. The turning point for him, according to him, was when Clinton lied about the BJ.
I know he’s full of shit all around because he has vocalized:
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Nostalgia for slavery
“Countries used to do this all the time to the conquered! Why’d we stop?”
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Advocating, repeatedly, the nuking of middle east countries. Because anything less is token restraint.
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That Republicans freed the (US) slaves, then he’s conveniently disinterested in continuing that line of conversation after the first counter.
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Malicious deadnaming a trans suicide victim who was in the news, eyeing others in the room to see if it had the intended effect.
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During the George Floyd protests he claimed his black coworker “supports none of those insincere protests and is humbly and gratefully employed.” This one was cathartic for me because I laughed my ass off to his face for several minutes, taunting his refusal to call up or name that coworker.
Those are just the top 5 for this particular lie. We no longer have contact. He doesn’t see his kids or grandkids.
By the way, people like this deserve the experience of some rando dropping an anonymous fake detailed tip to USdotSSdotgov along the lines of “I keep seeing brown people in his backyard pool but they never come outside otherwise. Like he’s hiding illegals.” Maybe people like that would get their own gravySEAL treatment firsthand. But of course if I were on the jury prosecuting the fake tip dropper I’d have to vote to convict because of law & order ©. (wink wink jury selectors)
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The night is darkest just before the sun rises. Stay around, don’t despair. We will get through this.
You made the right call. The ball is in his court if he wants a good relationship with you, and had you not done that, there’d be nothing telling him that maybe performatively being an asshole is not an acceptable life choice.
It’s sad that families break up because of politics.
It’s sad when family embraces fascism, that’s beyond “politics”.
He also said “no more discussing politics, goodbye” as if it’s not a question of morals, just politics.
Yeah, sorry, it sucks, but you definitely did the right thing, there should be no patience or trying to understand and stay friendly with fascists.
Is it more sad or less sad when families break up for other reasons?
Asking to gage how sad it is that I’ve not talked to my mom for years for non-political reasons.
Don’t just ignore him. Extinguish him
what a fucked up response
The lack of Medicare will do that eventually. He lives in a deep red state, so.
His job is also in the health industry, so that probably will go wrong as well.
You have to make these ‘people’ feel pain to make them understand. Some people have to be subjugated, personally, before they can understand empathy and remorse for another. It’s fucked up, kind of like country fried Stockholm syndrome
Are you okay?
He’s not. (CW: advocacy of stochastic terrorism)
His solution to everything is mass murder of Republican voters. It’s very personal to him, something to do with his mother (he deleted that comment when I called him out and I can’t remember the details).
Regardless he apparently still goes around advocating mass terrorism with impunity and I can’t imagine why.
Edit: forgot content warning
Unless their dad is Ted Cruise, this feels like an overreaction
And every one of them after.
