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After reading through the thread I feel like I'm quite lucky in all this because, although my parents and the rest of my family have their problematic views on a few things, they've never gone completely over to the dark side. When I was growing up my parents were both lifelong Democrats, mostly due to their involvement in organized labor, my dad worked on the Southern Pacific/Union Pacific Railroad until an on the job injury forced him into an early retirement and he was always very active in the union which naturally him to the left despite the fact that his whole family were white folks from rural Arkansas who had moved to the relatively conservative San Joaquin Valley area of California. My mom's mother was an immigrant from Spain and her father came from a family of what he always called "fruit tramps" (think the Joads from the Grapes of Wrath). Neither of them went to college, my mom finished high school and my dad dropped out, joined the army, then later got his GED. My dad was pretty racist, especially toward "Arabs" (which in his mind was anyone from Morocco to Bangladesh) and "Vietnamese" (anyone from Southeast Asia, but oddly enough he often expressed admiration toward Chinese, Koreans, and Japanese people), and anti-lgbtqia but when he found out that in high school I was embarrassed to bring gay and non-white friends over because I was afraid he'd say something offensive it really seemed to hit him hard and, though I don't think he ever truly changed his mind and he'd occasionally make offensive jokes "just to get a rise out of me," he seemed to genuinely make an effort to be better. He proudly voted for Obama twice and passed away just before Trump announced he was running but despite his faults I honestly don't believe he would have gotten sucked into the Trump cult. As for my mom, she's always been anti-abortion but other than that she's probably even further to the left than I am. Just as an example, she's the only person I know who, when faced with right-wing strawman arguments about how the Democrats want fully open borders with no checks whatsoever, responds with "sounds good" instead of pointing out that no Democratic politician has ever proposed that. The real problem is her brothers and their families who live in the middle of nowhere in eastern Oregon, were big supporters of the whole Cliven Bundy occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, are staunchly anti-vaxx and anti-mask and dedicated Trump supporters. They actually deleted me and my brother on facebook after we expressed our disgust at the riot at the Capitol Building on January 6th. My brother and I both view it as not much of a loss because we're not particularly close with them but it seriously hurt my mom because to her family is the most important thing in the world and, although she's pretty opinionated she can't imagine family falling out over political disagreements. She supports me and my brother but she's still in contact with my uncle, aunt, and cousins and I can tell it hurts her to see the family damaged like this.
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Jan 19, 2021 12:25
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All it takes for a liberal to become a conservative is to not change their opinions for 20 (10?) years. So I guess there IS some truth to the stupid claim, on top of all the other things already pointed out.
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Jan 19, 2021 12:31
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My mom has fallen down that the rabbit hole hard. This is not the US so the issues aren't exactly the same, but yeah, kill all black, muslim amd jewish people, why is everyone a welfare queen, super specious arguments, the $nationalminorities of $ourcountry should shut up, sit down and just forget $regionallanguage, the works. Oh and Trump is "her president", which lol. My "favorite" moment was when she said that the movie "Judgement at Nurenberg" was biased against the nazis. Man what can one even do? She's found my boundaries to be electrified enough times that she mostly keeps the politics out. But now I'm having a child and I am afraid it will come to a head, all the more so because we plan on adopting later down the road, and, without going into details, she's going to get an aneurysm from that. I am thinking of having a capital T talk with her and my dad when Corona allows. I am going to enforce my boundaries and all that and impose a "no politics no bigotry" rule. Also tell her that her specious "my freedom of spiiiiich!" and "grandparents' rights" is sinply not going to fly. I don't know, maybe a letter is better? How would you, friends, go about this conversation? How best to focus it? My kid is going to live in a diverse place and 4 countries away from granny, I don't want to even risk my kid's mind being poisoned. So yeah I'll cut her off if it comes to that, but I'm trying not to. What tips do you have to have that talk?
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Jan 19, 2021 15:48
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I admire how some of you guys manage to keep the political political and the personal personal. I've been struggling with that myself. I've gotten into back and forth with people on Facebook about things like birthright citizenship that made me wonder if these people who I thought were my friends (or at least good acquaintances) didn't think I should be a citizen or have equal rights. I can't imagine what it must be like for gay or trans people since I see even worse comments targeting those groups. Like, how do you deal with people you know and have a history with who seem to think you shouldn't get married or be able to go to the bathroom? I don't know how I'd deal. I've done some newsfeed pruning, but I wonder if that's kind of like cowardice. My own mother hasn't gone down any cable news rabbitholes, but she ingests stories from Google News incessantly and frequently brings up these weird stories she comes across. It's mostly murder scandals and injury tragedies, but one story was apparently so strangely worded that she called my sister absolutely terrified that Biden had gotten shot. It does scare me a bit about what media she is exposed to. She has too many decades of resentment against the GOP and racist white people to ever go chud, but still...
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Jan 19, 2021 16:47
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Eric Cantonese posted:I admire how some of you guys manage to keep the political political and the personal personal. I'm the exact opposite. I despise it. I'm privileged enough that I could do it if I wanted to, but I understand that to the less privileged ones politics is very personal. After COVID politics literally became a matter of life or death for me (risk group) and I could identify with them in this comparably short period. But I understood it a long ago. I have plenty of stories of cutting off friends and family but honestly I think my cut-off point is strict enough that it would seem like overreacting after the stories of what people have endured before doing the same in this thread. All I can say that I don't pity decent Americans who find themselves in the position of having to do it. But I am firmly of the viewpoint that you have to do it and that not doing it is normalizing absolutely horrible morals and behaviour. And that it is the main reason why that behaviour is so prevalent in the United States in particular. DarkCrawler fucked around with this message at 19:03 on Jan 19, 2021 |
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Jan 19, 2021 19:01
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Dawncloack posted:
Don't do it where your kids can see it go down. I don't know the age of your kids, but it will be a conversation you'll need to have with them when they're older. Depending on the situation and their age, they could be confused about what's going on and could blame themselves. Source: My mom cut contact with my dad's side of the family when I was in middle school over family drama and it messed me up a little bit! She also cut contact with HER parents before I was born. Now, I have cut contact with her. I've mentioned it before in this thread. My youngest was 1 when I cut contact with her so he has no idea what's going on. My eldest was 6 when it went down and we just told him grandma is sick so she won't be visiting us. We've started to elaborate a little bit more now that he's older. For instance, he knows Grandpa has a nice new girlfriend. Alterian fucked around with this message at 20:17 on Jan 19, 2021 |
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Jan 19, 2021 20:14
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"I have to be a boy because boys don't get touched that way" seems to be a pretty big clue. She's also corrected me anytime I referred to her with male pronouns, and hasn't brought the issue up in the two or three years after sexual assault therapy started. Admittedly, after the immediate backlash she got from her grandmother and being profoundly stunted in her ability to express emotions due to autism (clinically diagnosed as having the emotional vocabulary of a toddler) wtf knows. Hopefully the therapist knows about her family's visceral rejection towards her identity exploring and is touching on that as well. She has serious sexual assault trauma to work through, if she still comes out trans on the other side more power to her.
killer_robot fucked around with this message at 20:39 on Jan 19, 2021 |
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Jan 19, 2021 20:19
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I don't have trouble separating political and personal partly because I have the luxury of not being directly affected, and partly because I'm not an empathetic person. I don't know if the ability to look at things coldly and "logically" is an advantage or not. Of course, all the fundies I know wrote me off long ago as a godless heathen degenerate (and I categorized them as brain-damaged identitarians), so there was already that distance. I wish I was more confident in my identity to be closer, but that's more the desire for self-improvement than the desire to actually hang out with them.
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Jan 19, 2021 21:01
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Cobalt-60 posted:I don't have trouble separating political and personal partly because I have the luxury of not being directly affected, and partly because I'm not an empathetic person. I don't know if the ability to look at things coldly and "logically" is an advantage or not. I'm interested in why do you think being closer to these people is self-improving in nature? Both morally and by personal mental health it sounds like the exact opposite to me.
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Jan 19, 2021 21:16
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Alterian posted:Don't do it where your kids can see it go down. I was more asking about having a talk with my mom, try to salvage the relationship by, for instance, not talking politics. Or whether anybody has had any success making them less crazy (lol boomers). But I appreciate the good advice nonetheless!
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Jan 19, 2021 21:24
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Dawncloack posted:I was more asking about having a talk with my mom, try to salvage the relationship by, for instance, not talking politics. Or whether anybody has had any success making them less crazy (lol boomers). Maybe try a period of cutting the relationship off to make it clear that there are consequences for their views. That's how I got my mom around gay marriage anyway (that and leaving the church and saying in very clear terms that she and people with similar opinions are the primary reason why I abandoned religion). That her child was willing to do that and believed in equal rights strongly enough to make that sacrifice actually got her to explore why it was so important for the other side and where I was coming from.
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Jan 19, 2021 21:32
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DarkCrawler posted:I'm interested in why do you think being closer to these people is self-improving in nature? Both morally and by personal mental health it sounds like the exact opposite to me. I was saying that I hope to get my life and self in shape to the point where I can be around fundies if need be. Cause skipping my grandmother's funeral cause I couldn't handle all the god-bothering sucked, even though it was the better choice.
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Jan 19, 2021 22:40
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Some of y'all should check out the estranged parents thread if you are thinking about cutting off family. Often it's the right move. I'm lucky in many ways that my mom died before Fox News could rot her brain.
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Jan 19, 2021 23:07
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Cobalt-60 posted:I was saying that I hope to get my life and self in shape to the point where I can be around fundies if need be. Cause skipping my grandmother's funeral cause I couldn't handle all the god-bothering sucked, even though it was the better choice. Sorry, misunderstood your point then.
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Jan 19, 2021 23:47
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vortmax posted:Some of y'all should check out the estranged parents thread if you are thinking about cutting off family. Often it's the right move. The hard part is that some of us have parents who are otherwise fine but are brain poisoned by Fox et al. I'll never sacrifice my relationship with my mom over politics, but holy hell the trump years were insane. We're in Cali so neither her nor my vote are going to change this blue giant to any degree, but its just sad that her generosity and kindness to me doesn't really extend out in the political sphere.
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Jan 20, 2021 00:12
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Dawncloack posted:My mom has fallen down that the rabbit hole hard. that sucks. normally i don't recomend this poo poo but  the relationship with your mom. do you know how she ended up this way? social media?
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Jan 20, 2021 00:19
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buglord posted:The hard part is that some of us have parents who are otherwise fine but are brain poisoned by Fox et al. I'll never sacrifice my relationship with my mom over politics, but holy hell the trump years were insane. We're in Cali so neither her nor my vote are going to change this blue giant to any degree, but its just sad that her generosity and kindness to me doesn't really extend out in the political sphere. I mean, does your mom vote in local elections? Does she vote on ballot initiatives? Does she give money to political candidates or causes? Never think that because you live in a "blue" area or state that chuds, including ones that you're personally close to, aren't capable of doing real harm to vulnerable people. Those views don't just conveniently vanish when lensed into the local level.
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Jan 20, 2021 00:42
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In my experience chuds often vote decently on nonpartisan state props, although maybe that's different in a major media market.
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Jan 20, 2021 01:19
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Dapper_Swindler posted:that sucks. normally i don't recomend this poo poo but She had always been conservative, but being in whatsapp groups with a superspreader of fash stuff did it. They moved and the contacts with the old place include many of the kind of peepz that resend stupid poo poo about minorities, blue lives matter and welfare queens, local edition. Even worse now with the pandemic as you can imagine. FB might be a part of that but I quit that, so I dunno. I mean, that and most media following fox news and half the political parties following the trump model. Thing is, I really would prefer for it not to get to that. I really am going to try and talk some sense into her. Not disabuse her (uphill battle and all that) but at least make it clear that I do not appreciate her calling murder on friends of mine because of who they are, or anybody else. Some poster said some tenporary estrangement could do good. I'll keep it in mind (and I do follow the estrsnged parents thread). But yeah if anyone has tried a Talk with them I'd appreciate any insights.
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Jan 20, 2021 01:39
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buglord posted:The hard part is that some of us have parents who are otherwise fine but are brain poisoned by Fox et al. I'll never sacrifice my relationship with my mom over politics, but holy hell the trump years were insane. We're in Cali so neither her nor my vote are going to change this blue giant to any degree, but its just sad that her generosity and kindness to me doesn't really extend out in the political sphere. But the thing is, she is not "otherwise fine" because her "generosity and kindness" is utterly and completely undone by the very concrete horrific action of knowingly supporting and presumably voting for the Republican Party, an white supremacist organization that utterly and completely tries and has hosed over millions and millions of people in the name of nothing but bigotry and hate. There is no "political sphere" separate from the actual world we live in.That your mom is generous and kind to you does not make her generous and kind. It requires active personality disorders or mental illness to NOT be good to your friends and family. It is an absolutely useless metric for any morality. Some of the absolute worst people in the world were loving parents and pleasant company to their friends. Your mom's moral failures may make you sad because you love her. They make me and presumably anyone else who stand in opposition to her terrible, actively harmful ideals angry. Feel free to maintain a relationship with her, but ultimately it is endorsing the practice of those harmful ideals. DarkCrawler fucked around with this message at 01:49 on Jan 20, 2021 |
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Jan 20, 2021 01:45
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Politics is how people would treat you if they didn't know you.
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Jan 20, 2021 02:33
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Yeah it’s a shame. Hopefully she changes on her own over time.
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Jan 20, 2021 04:38
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OwlFancier posted:Politics is how people would treat you if they didn't know you. That's actually quite profound, I really appreciate it.
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Jan 20, 2021 06:46
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It's also quite unoriginal as I can't remember who I plagiarized it off of but yes, it is the best rebuttal to the idea that politics is separate from the rest of life that I know of.
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Jan 20, 2021 06:54
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buglord posted:The hard part is that some of us have parents who are otherwise fine but are brain poisoned by Fox et al. I'll never sacrifice my relationship with my mom over politics, but holy hell the trump years were insane. We're in Cali so neither her nor my vote are going to change this blue giant to any degree, but its just sad that her generosity and kindness to me doesn't really extend out in the political sphere. I’m not suggesting you cut your mom out of your life but supporting fascism and insurrection isn’t politics, it’s being an evil traitor.
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Jan 20, 2021 14:17
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buglord posted:Yeah it’s a shame. Hopefully she changes on her own over time. Evidence suggests she won't. And it is more then a "shame" that somebody is a fascist.
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Jan 20, 2021 15:57
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Someone will need to do more than parrot fox news and vote Republican for me to cut them out. But then, I think msnbc liberals are nearly as bad so I'd be cutting out basically every American if I thought that way.
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Jan 20, 2021 16:28
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PerniciousKnid posted:Someone will need to do more than parrot fox news and vote Republican for me to cut them out. But then, I think msnbc liberals are nearly as bad so I'd be cutting out basically every American if I thought that way. "Nearly as bad" is not "as bad" though, even if you think that. At least the people who msnbc liberals vote for aren't openly proclaiming the horror that Republicans high and low openly are. Their political ignorance can actually be excused as something else but willful. I don't exactly know what you mean by "msnbc liberals" though, does this mean every Biden or Democrat voter? Republican evil is open and naked to anyone with eyes, ears, and the basic semblance of morals. If not before Trump, certainly after him. DarkCrawler fucked around with this message at 18:24 on Jan 20, 2021 |
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Jan 20, 2021 18:20
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Trivia posted:All it takes for a liberal to become a conservative is to not change their opinions for 20 (10?) years. Everyone has a line; the boundary between what they perceive as normal and what is strange/wrong/Not Done. One of the primary differences in liberal vs. conservative mindsets is openness to new experiences. And the ability to make sense of a world that seems to lack objective measurements. Especially when "expanding the boundaries" seems like "moving the goalposts." The difference between conservativism and fundamentalism comes at the point where resistance to change becomes opposition to change. Anything outside the lines is Sinful and Bad. I don't know how long I'll be considered liberal; I try to expand my worldview. I hope never to wind up clinging to anything hard enough to reject everything that appears to oppose it.
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Jan 20, 2021 18:46
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DarkCrawler posted:"Nearly as bad" is not "as bad" though, even if you think that. At least the people who msnbc liberals vote for aren't openly proclaiming the horror that Republicans high and low openly are. Their political ignorance can actually be excused as something else but willful. I don't exactly know what you mean by "msnbc liberals" though, does this mean every Biden or Democrat voter? Since I don't think you live here you probably aren't exposed to this (not saying this in a condescending way - this genuinely wouldn't be as visible if you just saw internet discourse and US media), but most older liberals (which is most of the MSNBC audience) are also extremely openly bigoted. Like if you take your average white boomer liberal and have a black service worker make a mistake (like getting a food order wrong or something), the consequences are very revealing. In general all it takes for the vast majority of liberals over the age of 50 or so* to start being openly bigoted is for a member of a minority group to be rude to them or express political opinions they disagree with (or for people to bring up the mere concept of "a minority behaving badly"). People say things like "Republicans are openly racist, while Democrats hide it," but that isn't actually true. The vast majority of Republicans also have their own pretenses where they don't believe themselves to be racist, have friendly relationships with many minorities in their personal lives, and reserve the racism for "the bad ones." Stuff like "ranting about welfare queens" is hardly a Republican-specific issue. Liberals are often self-contradictory with this stuff, where they'll be like "look at this racist!" when a Republican talks about welfare queens, and then rage out the next day over seeing a black person buy good food at the Kroger. I think that it's easy for many younger people to forget about this, since it's relatively true that younger liberals (and especially ones who discuss these things on the internet) have more of a filter. For an example, look at the graph here about Democrats vs Republicans on the question of "are black people less intelligent than white people" - https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...hit-a-new-high/ While there's a difference, both parties have a sizable minority who agree (and I'd be willing to bet there's a larger portion from both parties who totally believe this and just realize that it's gauche to say). And the Republican statistic often corresponds to the Democratic statistic sometime in the last 20 years (most of the stuff Democrats pride themselves on being "woke" about they were still explicitly bigoted about as recently as 10-15 years ago). * not saying younger ones don't do this, but it's the most prevalent with older people
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Jan 20, 2021 18:51
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Keep in mind as well that there are degrees between quietly accepting someone's terrible views, and 100% cutting off contact. You can make it clear on a regular basis that they are wrong, in no uncertain terms. You can reduce, but not eliminate, how often you see them. You can get up and leave when they start talking about topic X.
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Jan 20, 2021 19:09
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Ytlaya posted:Since I don't think you live here you probably aren't exposed to this (not saying this in a condescending way - this genuinely wouldn't be as visible if you just saw internet discourse and US media), but most older liberals (which is most of the MSNBC audience) are also extremely openly bigoted. Like if you take your average white boomer liberal and have a black service worker make a mistake (like getting a food order wrong or something), the consequences are very revealing. In general all it takes for the vast majority of liberals over the age of 50 or so* to start being openly bigoted is for a member of a minority group to be rude to them or express political opinions they disagree with (or for people to bring up the mere concept of "a minority behaving badly"). Any bigot can gently caress off. But since the poster I was responding to said they would have to cut off most people, I assumed that extended beyond "old liberals who are also bigots". You were an apartheid state in my parents' life time, I assume the bigotry isn't solely limited to Republicans. Still though: quote:Republicans’ views of blacks’ intelligence, work ethic lag behind Democrats at a record clip DarkCrawler fucked around with this message at 20:45 on Jan 20, 2021 |
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Jan 20, 2021 20:43
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DarkCrawler posted:"Nearly as bad" is not "as bad" though, even if you think that. At least the people who msnbc liberals vote for aren't openly proclaiming the horror that Republicans high and low openly are. Their political ignorance can actually be excused as something else but willful. I don't exactly know what you mean by "msnbc liberals" though, does this mean every Biden or Democrat voter? MSNBC (or CNN, etc.) and Democrats just proclaim a different type of horror than the Fox News brand of open bigotry. Whether that's materially less evil or not is in the eye of the beholder. I'm not trying to, like, debate the absolute value of evil or anything in this thread. I'm just saying that a vast majority of people have horrific opinions about things they're ignorant of except through media osmosis. I'm sure I have some myself. So I do believe that someone can potentially be good, or at least worth having around, even if they have absorbed some terrible opinions. It's more complicated than "Republican = sever".
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Jan 20, 2021 20:56
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PerniciousKnid posted:MSNBC (or CNN, etc.) and Democrats just proclaim a different type of horror than the Fox News brand of open bigotry. Whether that's materially less evil or not is in the eye of the beholder. Vast majority of people do not in fact hold horrible opinions even approaching the mountain of evil that every Republican automatically underwrites. It is not about "some" opinions, and it is not only about "opinions" but the actions you commit in trying to have those opinions become reality. The lack of detailing about these comparable opinions on the part of these msnbc liberals or how they are so prevalent that you would have to cut off "basically every American" doesn't make your point stronger. It is trying to normalize the open white supremacy and fascism of the GOP by pretending that everyone is as bad. They're not, sorry. And it is not just Republican = sever. It is terrible people = sever. That every Republican is a terrible person does not mean there are not other terrible people.
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Jan 20, 2021 21:23
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The idea that other outlets media are merely the opposite side for the same coin is one extremely hot take. While there are issues with the media Fox News shouldn't even be considered news. It's essentially a Republican propaganda outlet guised as actual reporting. In court, Fox's own lawyers have claimed their own shows are so ridiculous that they shouldn't be taken seriously. CNN and MSNBC aren't blatantly lying to their viewers in comparison. There's a distinct difference from purposely peddling misinformation vs. mediocre corporate-sensational-infotainment-news.
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Jan 20, 2021 21:49
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All news programs have the same audience of Scared White Middle-Class People. They target a different cross-section of the demographic. Fox just raced to the bottom first. Most white Americans have an iron-clad faith in the power of Law and Order. One part just world fallacy, one part copaganda, one part fear that Those People will show up and take their electronics. Anything happens to disturb that, well. MLK called that out better than I ever could, sitting in a jail cell.
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Jan 21, 2021 17:12
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Cobalt-60 posted:All news programs have the same audience of Scared White Middle-Class People. They target a different cross-section of the demographic. Fox just raced to the bottom first. There's actual studies and data on the audience of said networks that don't seem to bear this out though.
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Jan 21, 2021 19:14
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OwlFancier posted:Politics is how people would treat you if they didn't know you. One of the quickest ways to change people's toxic way of thinking is for them to personally know people their hatred is affecting. It doesn't work with everyone, but if someone has the ability to become a decent person, they'll begin to question their beliefs. My dad once told me he'd thought Africans were lazy (like, the whole continent I guess??). But after he took a job in Mozambique and got to know his coworkers and the community, he realized he'd been an rear end. My jaw pretty much hit the ground when he admitted that, since I'd never pegged him for a racist shithead. It's so different from his beliefs and actions now. (Although I should have guessed, seeing the poo poo his extended family says.)
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Jan 21, 2021 19:17
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Hello goons!!! I’ll be crossposting this a bit so apologies if it’s like “ugh this bitch again” Feels Good Man, a documentary on Matt Furie and him trying to take back his work, posted this which I feel perfectly fits within this thread. It doesn’t necessarily have to be someone pilled, but those who are affected by it as well.  https://www.instagram.com/p/CKUSEakFJ1Y/?igshid=nmuk6f440agc
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Jan 21, 2021 19:30
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OwlFancier posted:Politics is how people would treat you if they didn't know you. I've been looking for a better way to explain to people for years why they should care about politics. I never thought of it from this angle and it's fantastic argument.
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Jan 21, 2021 19:36
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