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?
My parents have always been conservative, to the point where in high school I was very much the same because my dad would always play right wing radio on the drive to school.
I graduated high school and went to college, where I was no longer stuck in such an echo chamber, and I slowly stopped believing in that horseshit.
But my parents never left that bubble, and when Trump came around it got worse. We fought each other on it occasionally, but still had a relationship. Then Biden came, and things got slightly better. I was less anxious at the state of the world. I knew things were still fucked, but there was at least a glimmer of a shred of hope that the Trump era was fading, and at the very least it wasn’t something I had to immediately worry about.
Then the second Trump administration came, and our relationship fell apart. I was and am beyond pissed at them for voting at for an obvious nazi, among a number of other issues.
So we tried therapy for a bit, and it fell apart after about 2-3 months. So I was even more pissed off at them, and they were oblivious as to why I was pissed, despite explaining it to them numerous times. So now I’m low contact with them both.
“low contact” yeah, that’s where I am. Like you, I’m pissed that they brought this Nazi in, and I know that the effects of all the things in government he is destroying will last for decades to come. They’ll be dead and gone and I’ll still be dealing with a country with worse healthcare, national parks turned into private logging and oil fields, defunded public education, on and on…I hate it. I love them, but to say that I’m mad at them, is a grave understatement…because I (and millions of others) will be feeling this shit for a long time to come.