I had a friend who said there’s good in the natural order of people getting old and dying so that their bad ideologies can die with them. I’ve always appreciated that viewpoint. Unfortunately, I have a brother who still lives at home…and he gets that shit ideology from our parents and shit ideology from Stephen Crowder (and even Alex Jones!) and the like online.

And now, he just models my parents where, even when I try to approach him with understanding and empathy, he refuses to even discuss why we should give a shit about immigrants or anyone else. To mash together two of your points, it’s like religion in the 50s…there’s entire swaths of the US where it can be dangerous to even believe otherwise because everyone around you has their beliefs so intertwined with beating their enemy (communists/the left/atheism, etc.) that at best, you will lose your family, your friends, all your support networks, and at worst, you’ll have the devil beaten out of you if you even entertain leaving.

I’m… lucky?..

Yeah, definitely what they call a “mixed blessing” I have a buddy who decided he didn’t need mountains of shit from his dad, and blocked him…and he’s better for it. But it was easier because his dad is the world champion shit flinger…I have the mixed blessing that my dad cares about me and I care about him…but damn near everything else about his personality really hurts. You’ve got my empathy, and I’m proud of you for looking out for your kids and limiting their exposure to that poison.

I just wish someone had come up with a novel approach to mend relationships between leftists and their MAGA-brainwashed parents, but reading the 40 or so replies here and taking your advice and popping over to my favorite redlib instance to read some of that community…it looks like success at improving these relationships is incredibly rare.

I do quite like the approach laid out by Honkology in their “why facts don’t change people’s minds” video and have been taking that approach for the last 9 years, but not only has it failed to move them one inch out of the cult, they have only gone deeper and deeper. Mentally, I have accepted the fact that it’s not my responsibility to fix them, but emotionally, it’s difficult to accept.

On one hand, all the replies here from people in similar situations has made me feel less alone in the situation. On the other, it has also made me really sad about how easily tens of millions of people could be turned against anyone who doesn’t look like them, think like them, or belong to their same economic stratum.

As my friend @[email protected] would say, that sounds kind of mean spirited. 🤷‍♂️

I’m on the verge of telling my dad “I want to think of you as a good person

I guess at the root of this, I realize my parents are deeply selfish people. My dad, at least, includes his children in the things he’s selfish for…that is to say he cares about his kids, and extends the “in-group” to us (but then fuck everyone who ain’t us). My mom doesn’t even go that far. She pretty much only cares about herself. She never hit us, she doesn’t root for the Empire in Star Wars…part of me tries not to judge her too harshly for her behavior. She grew up in a time where women weren’t expected to do much, think much, say much…just be moms…and so even though she’s kind of a shitty mom, she never really wanted more than that, and I think it impacted how much she read or thought about things.

So while I tend to think of that kind of selfishness as a type of evil, she lacks the critical thinking skills to see outside of herself, and at her age, it’s too late to assume she can. I don’t know, I have this mixture of anger and pity, anger that she’s not a good person, and pity because I don’t think she’s able to learn how to become one.

America will probably not get fixed in my lifetime.

Yeah. Reagan fucked The US for the last 40 years, and Trump fucked us for the next 40. If I were in a position where I could reasonably move to Western Europe, I would…I guess I’ll just have to live vicariously through you. You’re doing the right thing by your kids, I’m rooting for you/them!

“low contact” yeah, that’s where I am. Like you, I’m pissed that they brought this Nazi in, and I know that the effects of all the things in government he is destroying will last for decades to come. They’ll be dead and gone and I’ll still be dealing with a country with worse healthcare, national parks turned into private logging and oil fields, defunded public education, on and on…I hate it. I love them, but to say that I’m mad at them, is a grave understatement…because I (and millions of others) will be feeling this shit for a long time to come.

What are your thoughts on moving out of MAGA Mecca, vs trying to survive surrounded by cultists?

Yeah, this is mostly where I am. Like you say, it’s a shame.

I kind of want to do this for my mom…it would be weird though when she called me about Thanksgiving after 🤷‍♂️

This sounds a lot like my dad…minus the mom moving out bit…everything in the world, he looks at through MAGA-colored glasses. When groceries were expensive under Biden, he said it was all Biden’s fault. Now that it’s actually Trump’s fault from all the tariffs, all of a sudden grocery prices are “complicated.”

Like you, I spent a lot of time trying to un-brainwash him, and eventually gave up…he’s probably only got 1-2 years left, so I feel like I’m just riding it out, it’s just a shame that his final years have twisted him into something I think he wouldn’t have even recognized 25 years ago (it would be easier if it were dementia, but other than this MAGA cult shit, he’s still pretty sharp).

I almost feel like it would easier if my parents would go full shitbag, then it would be easier to just not have relationships with them…my dad is a good dad otherwise, and my mom isn’t bad, she kind of just acts like an angsty teenager. I want to have relationships with them, but I’m the full-on antifa super-solidier that Trump is trying to outlaw…the Venn diagram of things that are safe to talk about between us has a very small sliver in the middle…mostly, how’s the weather?

I think that’s what I’m going to have to do. Not sure if they care if something is mean-spirited now…will have to find out.