There is the Jason Miller type:
Counterpoint - fruit smoothies contain many valuable nutrients.
Was just on the phone with my father-in-law.
Did a literal reenactment of the American Chopper “No. That’s socialism” meme.
i think i’m going to have to own up to my dad being halfway or full-on deplorable. can’t even bring myself to talk about the election with him anymore. he’s in a rural district of a blue state. so his voting power is virtually zero, house race isn’t super competitive. he might have been purged off the rolls too. he missed voting in 2016/18, and don’t know how far back he stopped voting. one time nra member though, they may still be targeting him for low turnout elections.
My parents are younger (70 and 61) but equally as far gone and it’s hard to deal with. I think my mom will be better when she retires, but my dad mainlines FNC and The Patriot on XM for like 6+ hours every single day. I can’t get a word in edgewise with them.
Most conversations are them saying some demonstrably false Trumper claims, me trying to refute the claim with these things called facts and then they just start getting heated and tell me we have to agree to disagree because my sources are bad.
I think the most frustrating thing is that Fox is so good at creating the evil liberal/socialist/communist boogeyman. We never even get to the point of the conversation where I can state my views- they always tell them to me. “Oh well your buddy Obama did…” “Well Hillary was awful because…” yet of course in reality I don’t agree with Hillary or Obama on many things.
At this point I’ve basically accepted they’re gone. I think within the last 4 - 5 years I’ve got them to admit they were wrong one time - and it was recent.
They tried to tell me Biden is a racist and he eulogized a KKK Grand Wizard. I finally snapped and told them to use the few functioning brain cells they had left to think long and hard about it. “Yes mom - the Democrats nominated non-citizen Obama and then paired him, a black man, up with a bigot who supports the KKK. Do you know how crazy and ridiculous you sound?”
And a light bulb went off. They even went so far as to fact check it themselves and admit they were wrong. I’m 100% sure this was a one off event but I’ll take the W.
Like others said I think it’s bordering on elder abuse. Their senses are assailed 24/7 by fake news and outright lies to the point they can’t tell the difference and simply assume the person on TV or in charge would not lie to them.
lol at anyone still talking to their dad.
Use parental controls to block Fox News.
Yea was gonna say I just don’t bring it up with my parents and I think they know not to bring it up with me, they still have Fox News on most of the time when I go over there.
lol at even letting them have cable. i’d be fine to restrict the tv to just netflix. unfortunately there’s also youtube.
No worries here, my dad died in 1976!
My dad is voting for the first time in his life this year at age 77. I think my sister told him to vote or not see his grandkids. He’s somehow vehemently anti trump too but uh he’s a college graduate and former engineer who doesn’t own a TV so not that surprising.
The last time I had beer with him I hit him with “do you think access to health care is a human right” and he thought for a while and said “no” so he has a ways to go 
- True
- False
- Bastard
0 voters
My Dad watches it but he knows it’s bullshit and I’ve got him to like 80-20 CNN-Fox. He still won’t watch MSNBC, but on the other hand last night he told me he thought the Philly police moved the cameras back so they couldn’t film them beating protesters.
So he’s definitely doing better than most Boomers. I went to war with him on Fox News a few years back, I’m convinced I got to him just in time and logic was able to seep in.
All that said he’s definitely got some law and order/authority tendencies, so I am always pushing back on those in small ways, which is why his comment last night made me really happy.
I showed him a ton of Twitter videos of cops wilding out earlier this year and it seemed to make an impact.
My parents are former hippies who never drank the conservative koolaid. They aren’t flower children now or anything like that, as evidenced by the fact that my name isn’t Moonbeam and they never smoked weed in front of me, but they’re lefties. My mom likes to tell the story about how she was tear gassed in college while protesting Vietnam. They were full on Warren stans during the primary, and they call me every day asking if I saw whatever outrageous thing Trump did or to complain about the Trump signs they see driving through rural Ohio.
I’m a born and raised liberal. Shit, I was the one kid in the 3rd grade mock election who voted for Mondale. They’d probably rather eat their TVs than watch Fox News.
Thank god.
Last I checked, my mother is a nightly consumer of FOX News.
She’s posting way less political shit on Facebook. Like nothing in 3 weeks. I’d say that she’s hiding it from me but she barely knows how to program the coffee maker let alone change privacy settings on Facebook
Yeah this is the Dunning-Kruger awareness that leads to the effect. Everything I am “good” at (programming, chess, bridge, poker) I am acutely aware of the vast gulf between me and a real expert. Chess is a good example. If I were writing a resume and had to describe my skill at chess I would say “expert”, because I’m in the 95th percentile at blitz on chess.com and being in the 95th percentile at something justifies calling yourself an expert. But the gulf between me and a real expert is so vast that I probably lose 99 games out of 100 to them.
I’ve never liked the argument that it’s a human right. Not that I don’t believe it but I don’t think thats the way to appeal to a 77 yo engineer.
Do you think in an advanced and rich society that health care should be a benefit for it’s citizens is a better way to ask imo.
The obvious follow up here is “do you ever think the government should provide something to people if it is not a right?”
If people don’t think the government should provide health care solely because its not a right, then they should be forced to go down the entire list of government spending and confirm that each and everything is a right. Other than die hard obstinate libertarians you will get to something that the person supports but agrees is not a right.