Dealing with Deplorable Family and Friends

https://v.redd.it/uypud1z1tgz51

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I picked „dreadlocks“. The 20th question was is it a beard. After 10 more questions including guesses of nose hair, eye lashes and arm pit hair it gave up but showed a list of about a dozen possible answers that included dreadlocks.

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Mother: People are starting to buy up toilet paper now.
Me: Geez, again?
Mother: Well yeah people are stocking on paper, canned goods, bleach…
Me: Might need to inject that bleach to treat covid, right? laughs
Mother: Anybody who thinks that is an idiot.
Me: Like the president, right? rimshot
Mother: Don’t get me started because I can tell you things that would make your head spin.

I’m half-convinced that she’s into QAnon after a comment like that. Wouldn’t be surprised if she opened a Parler account given the lack of political posts on Facebook since Election Day.

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Oof. I think you’re right about QAnon. People are going to keep turning down darker corners to avoid dealing with reality, there must be tons of people that were Facebook level Trumpers that are going to embrace Q to cope with Biden’s win.

I mean FOX News is basically laundered QAnon conspiracies. No surprise that somebody would find the real thing in order to get the proper dopamine hit especially since a bunch of deplorables have recently sworn off FOX News.

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Yeah I can’t imagine cutting family out because they support family separation, kids in cages, letting cops kill black people with impunity, white nationalism, or think women are inferior creatures incapable of leading.

Why that would be a bridge too far!

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I wish you had gotten her started. But I understand why you don’t.

Wife and I talked to her Trumper dad last night. Last month, he went bowling (sometimes taking his mask off) and went to a 6-person Thanksgiving dinner.

You’re not going to believe what two things happened last week:

  • Someone on his bowling team got pozzed.
  • Someone at that dinner got pozzed.

Imagine our surprise.

Apparently he’s been okay and tested negative, but we still called him a fucking idiot.

He isn’t on Parler because they want too much information, but he is on newtube.app, because one of his favorite people on YouTube moved there.

I told him that “Yeah, YouTube is run by blue state liberals, you should go to RedTube instead for the conservative viewpoints.”

My wife took the phone away from me after that.

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elite, also you didn’t say whether he accepts the results of the election.

He probably does, but won’t say it out loud.

Biden winning just means he gets to whine more, so he’s not too sad about it.

My mother came down to help us with our daughter last week. She has sort of a natural right-wing tendency and is in a right-wing sphere - with my Fox News-addicted Dad the center of gravity - but she’s also expressed some left-wing views, including support for universal healthcare, gay marriage, allowing abortions, etc. We had some political discussions that got mildly heated but she did say that Trump deserved to lose and pointed out several of the ways in which she thought he screwed up, mostly in regards to corona. She also said that she got in an argument with my dad over Trump refusing to condemn white supremacists in the 60 Minutes interview - he told her that Trump has said it before and she was like “Well why couldn’t he do it when millions of people are watching?” Anyway she’s never ever voting for a Democrat but it was at least slightly reassuring to see this side of her i.e. the people who aren’t all the way gone can at least see some light.

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My brother who is a full on deplorable (stop the steal, masks mandates are criminal) is of course planning to visit my 76 year old mother for Christmas. He’s flying from CA to TX. I’m sure he is taking zero precautions and has no plans to wear a mask.

I have not really spoken to him in about a year, and he just texted to ask me if I’m coming home as well for Christmas. Not sure what my play is here - started to write him a reply that even if he didn’t care about his own safety, it would be nice if he cares about our mother’s, but not sure that gets me anywhere. I could talk to my mother (who is fairly liberal) and I think has been taking things pretty seriously, but have tried to avoid creating drama (hence why I’ve just stopped talking to my brother rather than arguing with him).

edit:

Here is what I was going to send:

Given the current pandemic and moms’ age, I think it’s pretty irresponsible to visit her. I hope at the least you are quarantining and getting tested before your visit.

Seems measured.

But since you know he’s going no matter what, you might try to leave off the first sentence and just focus on the stuff you say in the second sentence. Frame it as you being worried about your Mom rather than him being irresponsible. Just an idea.

Maybe you can ask your mother first if she has talked to your brother about taking appropriate precautions.

Forget the bro, talk to your mom and convince her not to allow him to visit. Your bro will not do the right thing and you know it.

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I’d plug in something about the vaccine being on the horizon, and waiting until mom is vaccinated seems to be the best play. Just straight up tell him that you’ve dodged the bullet this long and now is not the time to be tempting fate when the solution is not that far away.

Yeah, he’s a lost cause - the text would mostly just be my way of politely telling him he’s being a dick.

I also just remembered by mom got a pacemaker in the last year - no clue how high risk that makes her, but fuck him for not giving a shit.

I think you’re right about talking to my mom first - doubt I can convince her make him cancel the trip, but maybe she’ll agree to require some precautions.

Is he staying in her house?

He doesn’t believe in the vaccine, so that line is not going to help.