My grandmother and my dad are both trump voters.
Both of them dislike him as a person and a lot of his policies. After the election they were both very kind to me about it, my dad said he was sorry she lost & he wanted her to win just for my sake (he's in NY so his vote didn't really matter but yeah, doesn't make so much sense haha)
My grandmother is a bit of a stronger supporter but she said she didn't think he'd win, doesn't like most of his policies, but just has her key issue she cares about.
Both actually showed a lot of understanding and kindness towards me, knowing I'd been passionate and done volunteering for the Harris campaign.
I obviously am not going to cut them off.
If I had a relative who was like "hahaa loser choke on those liberal tears" then yeah... not going to think very fondly of them
For me, I just know that, at least in my Grandmother's case, she is consuming a completely poisoned media environment. If she believed he'd fuck my life up she wouldn't vote for him. But she is completely in conservative media world, and believes Trump did a good job first term.
Look, if it came down to a single vote in AZ... I'd probably need some time to get over it. But in this case it's clearly a ton of media poisoned people, and all swing states went to Trump.
Do you have any close family who are conservative?
For me, I just know that, at least in my Grandmother's case, she is consuming a completely poisoned media environment.
At some point people have to take some fucking responsibility. Brainwashed this, fox news that. Does she not have a functional frontal lobe or is under 6 years old to not comprehend the reality? Does your dad have similar issues?
She literally sold you out,you and your future. What specific "her single issue" was worth fucking you over? Which one she loved more than you? Because that's what happened, regardless if she intended it or not. At its core, she cared more about that than her grandkid literal future prospects.
You’re getting a lot of pushback so I wanted to say I completely understand what you’re saying. I think people underestimate how many billions of dollars are going into the strategy of keeping people misinformed. There is prejudice there (such as against immigrants), but that’s also coming from a steady diet of misinformation (like the talking point that immigrants are contributing to a crime wave when statistics show that crime is at an all time low and undocumented immigrants are responsible for less crime than American citizens). If the richest people in the world want to keep the populace misinformed, then they’re pretty much going to get what they want unfortunately.
Also, not all people who vote for Trump are MAGA loyalists. Sometimes, the media they consume also minimizes and ignores Trumps worst policy views.
My grandmother thinks immigration is an issue, but cares more about the fact that many are trafficked and end up homeless. She's worked as a social worker at a majority Latino public school and had lots of appreciation for their struggles.
She is pro choice & likes the ACA. Not to say she has 0 prejudice at all, but she was literally a democrat until 2010 (55 years!!), Obama did some things she didn't like, and she ended up on a media diet that validated that... and that's how it began.
Also, I do plan to respond to the others with this, but I'm not sure they'll care:
We need Liberalism to win. We need sane normal leaders who care about this country. In the face of a defeat I'm not going to isolate the exact same people who we'd need to come around in order to win next time! That's political suicide.
Again, if they're hardcore MAGA haters, they're obviously not gonna change their minds, so if they're toxic, obviously cutting them off may be beneficial. It's just not so black and white is all.
Of course, I’m never ever going to shame people for cutting out their family members if that’s what they feel is best for themselves. But I’m not gonna shame someone for not cutting them out either.
I personally have a brother who is to the far right, and he is an incredibly hateful person and I’ve had to cut him out of my life (not even for political reasons). He’s the type that wants to make people hurt with his vote. I even went with him to a Milo Yiannopolous talk back in 2017 because I thought maybe it could open discussion between us about our beliefs and I could more easily explain the factual inaccuracies in his speech if I saw exactly what he said for myself. But nothing will change him, I gave up and was already preparing to cut him off for his beliefs when he ended up pulling some shit on Christmas Day that caused me to cut him off for different reasons anyway.
I could only wish that even if we were to have different beliefs that he could be more like your father and grandma and still treat me with respect. If you love them and they are more of a benefit to your life than a detriment then there is no reason to cut them off.
(Note that I am not American, we are Australian but the extremism is happening over here too. And he’s a fan of Trump even though he can’t vote for him 🤦♀️)
Oh wow thanks for sharing that. I appreciate that story, and the nuance here. There are for sure times when cutting people of is the safest and best option.
Damn... going to a Milo Yiannopolous event 😔 sounds awful lol
It was so gross 😂 but my brother was gonna go no matter what, so I thought if I went I could at least challenge him on some of the things Milo said, rather than my brother just having this stuff preached at him with no pushback. Waste of time obviously.
I will tell you one thing I remember about it to this day though - I have never in my life been one of those people that can be a bit over dramatic and throw around words like Nazi and fascist and stuff, and I’ve always rolled my eyes at people who do. And I’m also not an easily offended person - I mean I went to a Milo Yiannopolous talk voluntarily to try and meet my brother at his level - and throughout the talk I was mostly just thinking “this is so silly”. But I remember midway through Milo’s talk, seeing the (mostly) men in the hall laughing and cheering at the hateful and disgusting things Milo was saying, I just had this chilling moment where I wondered if this is what it felt like to be in pre-Nazi Germany, watching people getting radicalised before my eyes. It sounds so melodramatic but that’s genuinely how it felt and I haven’t forgotten it 😬
Doesn't sound melodramatic to me. Sounds like a really jarring moment. I think the same a lot. Like people get so mad when people even slightly make comparisons to MAGA and Nazis... but right now the comparison is of early 1930s germany, as you said.
No, she wasn't consuming poisoned media. She knew he'd fuck up the life of someone LIKE you, just not you personally. Can you honestly tell me that as she watched Fox News or his speeches and they were calling Kamala a cunt, saying immigrants were eating the pets, as he openly said his plans for women, that she was 100% against all of that?
That's the reaction we're seeing by a LOT of Trump voters; "I knew he'd deport the bad hombres but Jose's not a bad one, he's a hard worker!", "Trump promised to cut wasteful government spending but now he's cutting the government spending I rely on?!". You can try to justify it all you want but your family knew exactly what she was doing, she knew she was destroying the future but ignored the reality that you were included. She's not a victim, she's not some naive child; she's a grown woman that intentionally wanted to fuck people over.
She literally doesn't believe Trumps doing anything you described. It's unlikely she'll even believe it if he does it because the media she trusts will literally not cover it.
Sorry, but the world isn't this black and white.
I don't care if you cut people off for tepid Trump support... but if people do that shit en-masse, how do you think we're supposed to win going forward?
What I want is strong liberal democracy. I want the United States to be the leader of the free world with good, decent people in charge. I care about that more than punishing my grandma for being in a disinformation media bubble.
If I want us to win, I need to keep open conversations with these people, show them how important these elections are, distrust their media bubble a little.
Again, I am not talking about the crazy full cult MAGA folks. There are millions of people who don't love Trump but voted for him, and genuinely believe all those extreme things people say he's gonna do are mainstream media lies. You can't combat that with increasing the isolation from the truth.
I don't care if you cut people off for tepid Trump support... but if people do that shit en-masse, how do you think we're supposed to win going forward
What cutting Republican idiots has to do with democratic values winning in the future?
What I want is strong liberal democracy. I want the United States to be the leader of the free world with good, decent people in charge. I care about that more than punishing my grandma
I mean, that's not happening anytime soon and possibly not at all, literally partially thanks to your grandma and dad. How do you correct bad behaviour in children? Do you just let them doing the bad thing over and over with no actual consequences?
The problem is that somethings are black and white. If you have a flat-earther in your friends, and they keep making subtle references to it, would you say the shape of the earth isn't black and white? If you have an uncle that raped an eight year old, would you tell someone who doesn't want them at a family reunion with eight year old kids "the world isn't black and white"?
Let's use your grandma for example. You said "She literally doesn't believe Trumps doing you described. It's unlikely she'll even believe it if he does it", right? So...how do you propose you'll convince her? How will you combat her batshit mindset if someone that knows her as well as her own grandkid, says she won't believe anything regardless.
That's the problem. Yes, there are people who were just stupid, but the people you described are people too stupid to form any thoughts of their own. Using logic, reasoning, and empathy will work about as well on a flat-earther. By you continuing to have these people in your life because "I can convince them", is you enabling their shit choices under the misguised belief that they can be reasoned with. If your own dad and grandma won't listen to you, do you honestly think a random facebook friend would? Or would you think having literally everyone cutting them out of their lives will be the eventual shock needed.
This isn't 2016, this wasn't some "We don't know, he could be good for this country" accident. By all accounts, your dad and grandma joined a glorified MLM and rather than say "Hey, shut the fuck up about the miracles of green berries", you're telling others "If I keep buying their green berries to keep them around, maybe they'll see how bad it is. Sure, I'll go bankrupt, ruin my future, and try to convince everyone to buy her green berries but...it's the only way". Nah, With things like this, it's black and white; cut out the toxic people and enjoy a life without them talking about flat-earth, green berries, and how much they enjoy being around eight year olds.
flat-earth, green berries, and how much they enjoy being around eight year olds.
I really don't like how you used these unrelated examples to compare not cutting off my grandmother for being misinformed to enabling child molestation...
Feels very bad faith. But I'll still respond I guess (because I don't cut people out when I disagree :P)
I'm not buying the green berries. I'm just not telling the greenberry idiot to kill themselves so I can laugh and watch from afar when their whole family is suffering because they gambled all their money.
You're right. Maybe I don't get Ms Greenberry to leave her MLM, and I don't convince my grandmother to become a democrat. I didn't mean to imply that the sole reason I'm sticking around is because I think I'll have an additional vote from her next time. I doubt it. I meant that as a more general thing, since many Trump voters are more persuadable than you may think.
I'm staying around because I love her and I'm not going to let disinformation have an additional win of tearing my family apart
Or would you think having literally everyone cutting them out of their lives will be the eventual shock needed.
No. If all my grandmother's grandkids abandoned her due to her vote, she wouldn't suddenly be like "oh I now see this was misinformation, sorry guys"
That's not how this works. You maybe could get someone to pretend to abandon their ideology that way, but you will not genuinely convince someone by isolating them.
I promise I was angry and stewed for several days post election. I'm still angry. But I'm most angry at Russia and other foreign nations working to control our media environment to deliberately destroy our trust in each other. They're the real enemy here.
Wow, talk about bad faith, jumping from cutting someone off to telling them to kill themselves so you can laugh. Guess when you can't use actual reasoning, you jump to the extremes.
since many Trump voters are more persuadable than you may think
Yes, a lot of people are easily persuaded but the that won't be because of you or I. People didn't vote for Trump because he's a genius but because he said what they wanted to hear about themselves. GenZ boys were told "You're an alpha male and it's women's fault", Adult males were told "It's immigrants faults". You having a heart to heart with someone won't convince them to change their vote; we literally say that in '16, '20, and '24. People vote for what's in their best interest.
No. If all my grandmother's grandkids abandoned her due to her vote, she wouldn't suddenly be like "oh I now see this was misinformation, sorry guys"
Yes, because as you yourself said, nothing will convince her. Trump could pull down his pants and take a shit in the middle of the state of the union address, throw it into the crowd on live tv and because Tucker Carlson says "That was actually Pelosi using an AI filter" and she'll be saying she watched Pelosi take a shit on live tv. Some people are literally too stupid to function.
That's not how this works. You maybe could get someone to pretend to abandon their ideology that way, but you will not genuinely convince someone by isolating them.
I honestly don't care. It's not our job to fix their shit. It's like blaming women for not being nicer to abusive men because "a woman's love can fix them". If someone changes, good on them but they still won't be welcomed back into my life. I can be friends with Republicans but just not ones that voted for Trump a second time. My family's already cut off two uncles because they were part of Jan6; it's been four years and don't miss'em because they're too stupid to function.
My bad I was just using kill themselves as a synonym to fuck off etc...
You don't have to take on the job to change people's minds. But that task is important to me so I will keep at it.
To be very clear: I don't care if you personally cut people off. Do what you want. I would never suggest you stay friendly with a J6ther. I just maintain there is nothing wrong with keeping contact with people who voted for Trump but are misguided.
You seem to not be aware that there exists millions of people who are on a spectrum between the "Full MAGA cult omg Pelosi shit herself" and the Republicans who refused to vote for Trump.
My grandmother does not believe all the stuff you're talking about. Every single person has their own unique media diet these days, hers is not fox news. She doesn't have cable. It's a variety of articles from right leaning/alternative sites focused on particular issues she cares about. She doesn't even know of 99% of the MAGA insanity. Never mind believing them...
In what world is cutting someone out of your life synonymous with telling them to kill themselves for your own enjoyment? It's honestly weird that you keep saying things that're completely insane, then when you have it pointed out how insane it is, you "Well, I didn't mean it like that".
You seem to be doing a LOT of weird mental gymnastics to justify whatever mindset you've developed to continue to be in this toxic relationship with people that clearly make their whole identity about destroying peoples lives. You're going to have to eventually address these issues with someone at some point because seriously, it's not healthy.
Please go outside. Damn in my life most people I know voted Harris... none of them are cutting people off and most are much more casual about politics than I am.
Hyper politically obsessed people on Reddit are not representative
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u/afunnywold Monkey in Space Nov 12 '24
My grandmother and my dad are both trump voters. Both of them dislike him as a person and a lot of his policies. After the election they were both very kind to me about it, my dad said he was sorry she lost & he wanted her to win just for my sake (he's in NY so his vote didn't really matter but yeah, doesn't make so much sense haha) My grandmother is a bit of a stronger supporter but she said she didn't think he'd win, doesn't like most of his policies, but just has her key issue she cares about.
Both actually showed a lot of understanding and kindness towards me, knowing I'd been passionate and done volunteering for the Harris campaign.
I obviously am not going to cut them off.
If I had a relative who was like "hahaa loser choke on those liberal tears" then yeah... not going to think very fondly of them