With some relatives, it’s easy enough to just play the “each of us obviously thinks the other is a complete fucking moron when it comes to politics, so let’s just never ever ever bring up the subject” game. However based on your recounting of your mom’s insistence to be allowed to spout nonsense, that’s not gonna work. Some people not only wanna be right in their beliefs, but they want every single person to know how right they are at all times. There’s not much you can do with people like that.
It seems they are most upset that I won’t engage which is a major problem.
they have a right to free speech, you know
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Yeah and the way you handled it last time sounds like the way to go. If I were in your spot I would almost consider resorting to ad hominem attacks (calling them stupid or something) just to see if that’s the bridge I have to cross to get them to STFU about it.
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My dad passed away in 2012. He was a good man, and I do miss him terribly,
But I’m SOOO glad he passed before Trump came on the scene. My dad was mainlining Hannity and especially Bill O’Reilly when he was still on Fox… he would have gone full on infectious brain worms by now, well beyond redemption or saving.
I cant begin to imagine the strain it would have put on our relationship during the Trump presidency
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Being from pretty close to the center of the Trump universe as well as living in it gives me access to a lot of these kinds of stories and experiences.
One of my wife and I’s better couple friends went through the following over the last 10 years or so. She was pretty left leaning, especially for the area. I would have labelled him a moderate although he has gone career in the military. No real signs he was a poltical nutjob. He went full MAGA and then later Covid denier. The wife obviously pushed back against it and was diagnosed with MS a couple years ago. He subsequently left her and their 4 kids for a much older shriveled up 60+ MAGA woman like the types you see on the daily show videos answer questions from Jordan what’s his face.
The amount of damage the right wing, right wing media and Trump have done to people’s brains, morality, empathy, etc. over the last 30 years and especially the last 10 years cannot be overstated. And the Covid stuff in a way was like the finishing move on a lot shreds of decency any of these people had left.
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COVID and Trump affected everyone’s empathy. People bragging about cutting off their parents over politics is pretty new. Liking people you have no significant differences with isn’t empathy.
Gonna be that guy, but nobody ever gets this awkward phrasing right so I feel like I’m doing a public service. Should be “my and my wife’s”. (“My wife’s and my” is fine too but sounds weirder).
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If that’s what you got out of this conversation try and actually read what people write next time.
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Lack of empathy and intellectual curiosity are really strong in my stepmom. She told me about another patient at my dad’s memory care place grabbing an aide’s breast with venom in her voice, called him a pos. It was vile. I was a little shocked and gave her my pov—that the patients on his floor were all suffering from severe brain damage and maybe Dan doesn’t have the capacity for impulse control anymore. This happened to one of my relatives after he had a massive stroke and I told her about my first hand experience with him. Closed with “Maybe ratchet the hatred back a bit”. I don’t sugarcoat my responses and try to avoid demeaning her, but it’s hard.
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Empathy is overrated. Anyone who consciously likes Trump/Republicans can drive off a cliff as far as I’m concerned. I feel far more sympathy for Darwin Award winners.
Somehow every anti-vaxxer knows 10 people personally who wound up in the hospital, or worse, immediately after getting the jab.
Okay, so I’m not fucked up for thinking the same about my dad (though mine died in 2009). Great father but he was more right wing than my mom and more outspoken about it. Definitely would end up thinking less of him if he made it to Trump. Possible that he’d end up going to the insurrection.
I’m not an expert but found this pretty interesting and compelling that the lab leak argument has good evidence.
Anything in particular about it? I doubt any of us is going to listen to that… and I recognize Alina Chan. She’s been at this awhile. Going to her twitter page suggests following luminaries like Kory and Berenson. Can’t remember what she did off the top of my head though.
The genetic code of covid super strongly suggests natural origin. It’s going to be very tough to overwhelm that.
edit: Looking through her twitter page it seems like her case is “isn’t it spooky they were researching bat viruses and one broke out?” That makes perfect sense to me, they were researching something relevant to their area. The genetic sequence of the virus strongly suggests a natural origin. I’d have to go back through the ol’ origins of covid thread to remember exactly what that was
Is this anything to get alarmed about? Would there be any reason to think this might be a mutated strain?
What is this?
The answer is yes… but not acutely. H5N1 crossing over into the human population and spreading efficiently is one of the scariest things imaginable. This isn’t a sign of that yet.
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