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?
I had a funeral for the one that went MAGA in my mind. I gave a great eulogy. All my favorite food was served at the meal following the wake. Easily in my top 10 funerals.
Don’t let them have any peace with those opinions. My mother became a cop when I was a kid and she went from tree hugging hippie to loud and proud racist so fast. It took YEARS of arguing and fighting every time she said something racist before I could finally get through to her. Don’t let up. My sister got sucked into transphobic bs too and she finally stopped talking about it after getting a lot of pushback over a couple of years. My husband got sucked into the alt right pipeline in the late 2010s after a lifetime of being hard left. That also took a couple years of never letting anything slide and fighting about every stupid video he watched. Don’t give up on your family and cut them out, either, though, please. I know it’s tempting but I feel we all have the responsibility to pull our loved ones out of the cult. It’s the only way for society to move forward. It’s hard. I know. I’ve done it three times.
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Don’t argue with them. Don’t give them facts or anything else.
Ask them questions, Let them explain themselves, they’ll see it as trying to convert you or explain MAGA to you.
In the process of that, by asking the right question at the right time, they will slowly over the course of multiple years change their mind.
Eventually they’ll ask you about your viewpoint and you’ll know youve made it the half way point
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.
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.
My dad was in the military, but I never heard the sorts of things from him that I do now. He has started saying the N word to try to get a rise out of me, thinks Trump is going to “fix” everything, and every time I talk to him on the phone, I can hear fascist talk radio in the background.
We have learned not to bring up politics with each other. The last time I challenged him on it, he said I was being disrespectful, but I don’t accept that. He just thought I was supposed to sit quietly and listen to crazy ranting.
I have learned that in general it’s best to change the subject if someone wants to talk politics who I know I don’t agree with. Most people have gotten the point. We still get along great! We just have polar opposite politics.
Now I know that some people would question why I remain friendly with those people. The answer is that we have more in common than not. Someday, when everyone finally comes to the conclusion that the powerful and foreign are manipulating our political discourse to sow discord, we will finally be at peace again.
