Dealing with Deplorable Family and Friends

My parents are right wing nuts. Not full bore MAGA but Trump accomplishes their goals so of course they are voting for him.

It took years of me asking for no political conversations before about 2 years ago I completely lost it at their house when they started in on it and so I didn’t go back over there or talk to them much for a year and a half and now they know I’m serious and shut up about it(so far). They are still big mad that i openly have told them that I dont respect their beliefs but I respect their right to have beliefs. They keep bringing up how in their day people could have civil political discussions LOL

Yep, civil political discussions about hordes of invaders eating pets and teachers indoctrinating kids and cutting off their dicks and scientists trying to kill people for $. Cool.

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I find it very easy to have a civil conversation where I smile while saying I would be happy if Trump died.

My closest older folks (they were my parents best friends, they’re a cross between an aunt and uncle and surrogate parents) are insanely pro-Trump, but we manage to spend a lot of time with them as I treat changing the subject like a mini-game. It’s satisfying when I can turn the conversation on a dime to something that isn’t terrible. As a result we never, ever talk politics other than their first line.

I absolutely understand folks who need to cut people out of their lives. I’ve done plenty of that. But these two really are generous, loving people that care about their community. They’ve just completely divorced those regions of their brain from their political opinions.

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The problem is the divide is over who should be treated as a human being. There is no disagreeable angle there. You are either right or wrong. It’s not like debating whether tariffs are useful.

I do not understand how anyone can vote with the current gop. This goes double for women, minorities and lgbtq, they should be fighting for their very existence. Meanwhile cis white males should be right there in full support. It’s often hard to believe we are in a real place and time.

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right, it’s that tweet,

https://x.com/ndrew_lawrence/status/1050391663552671744

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I don’t run in to “love Trump” hardly ever. I do run into plenty “Trump is an extremely shitty human being, but he is better for the economy (i.e. lower taxes for me), so I don’t really have a choice…” or some version of that. They normally are a combination of garbage and/or highly uninformed.

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Yep, we used to have “debate” over Obamacare, but now its all dehumanizing through endless grievance. And it’s literally all they want to talk about. No, I will not engage in your rousing debate over exactly how many dicks Kamala had to suck to become Vice President. They can do weird things with their alien squishparts by themselves without making my life actively worse.

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Oh boy, my family might meltdown today.

One of my brother-in-laws just texted in a family group chat: “19 year old haitians in the 6th grade. Beating the crap out of all their classmates daily. I’d want bomb the place too.”

I never respond to the bullshit, it’s just not worth engaging it to me. But my wife will absolutely be going apeshit momentarily.

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I have a trans kid, how in the world could I ever have a relationship with anyone supporting the current GOP?

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Gd these people are dumb.

After the debate, I had a family member send me a link of that Ohio lady eating a cat. I asked him what that American born woman has to do with Donold’s claims and he sent me a quarter century old article about someone eating a cat in Canada. I laughed and pointed out how old the article was and he said, “of course a liberal like you denies history”.

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I only once truly engaged my now dead father on him being a deplorable. It was before Trump and back in the days of Obama. He sent me some racist shit in an email, I told him cite or ban, he sent me an article, I read the article and pointed out that it actually said the opposite of what he claimed. I insisted he provide proof or admit he was wrong. After going quiet for a couple of days, he wrote back that it was better if we didn’t discuss politics.

He was a nice guy in that he’d give you the shirt off his back, but he was also a dumb man who mindlessly repeated whatever Fox News or Rush Limbaugh told him.

Yup. My BIL once asked me what Trump had ever done to hurt me, and it was like wtf besides him opposing my very right to exist, where else do I start?

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The last paragraph pretty much describes my brother in law.

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All the Trump voters I know personally are pretty ashamed of it and hate talking about it.

These are like top 1% informed/rational Trump voters you hang out with.

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Similar but not similar… my father and i argued until he said, “i love you so maybe it’s best we dont discuss important topics” … felt loved AND unseen!

He’s actually turned away from Trump in recent years. We aren’t particularly close anymore but that’s more situational and geographic.

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