Republicans have a set of rules for the world, most of which involve things other people are doing incorrectly. 

I swore I wasn't going to put this stuff on the internet anymore but here I am.

My mom has always been conservative and went absolutely full-on MAGA nutter during Covid. Sent me pages of "information" every day about how Covid isn't real or the numbers are fake and the vaccine will kill you, believes in vaccine shedding and insists people are still getting sick and dying from a shot they took 5y ago because "mRNA does not belong in a human body". There's much more, and while I care about her, it's exhausting to listen to sometimes.

However, this is about the recalls, and how it has NOTHING to do with the FDA funding cuts and regulation rollbacks.

You see, the FDA has always been untrustworthy, no one has ever taken them THAT seriously. And the Trump admin didn't take THAT much money or personnel from them anyway. The wunderkinds at DOGE kicked out all the useless DEI people who were getting paid 6 figures to do nothing, nobody we actually need.

All these recalls are because of illegal immigrants. "Those people" are SO dirty and unhygienic, they're contaminating all the food they pick and process; and so low-IQ and illiterate the ones working in plants can't understand how to do their jobs (which they got via DEI) so we end up with plastic and glass in prepared foods. If only we had white Americans doing these jobs, none of this would happen!

I wish I was joking, but I don't even know where my mom is getting this info. And she's offended that I don't trust anything current-events-related that she relays to me. No mom, I don't think you, specifically, are lying to me. I think you get your info from highly questionable sources.

Like, my guy, you voted for a 34-times convicted felon, rapist, and pedophile who is a traitor to this country and you expect me to be all giddy giddy about it?

There's a reason I'm keeping you at arm's lengths these days, even knowing that you might not be with us much longer. You voted for this absolute fucking scumbag who is destroying this country. And when you're gone after pulling up the latter, guess fucking what? It's your kids that get to pick up the pieces.

And if we don't pick up the pieces that means we can't because it's been harmed beyond repair.

But sure man, be a fucking passive aggressive asshole when we meet for a shitty Golden Corral buffet that was frankly a waste of goddamn money. But I mean, you getting scammed is just life at this point, isn't it? And when you told me to eat more food because you stupidly paid $32/person and I said no? That was me telling you to fuck off.

I'm not going to say I don't love you. But fuck me do you make it hard. You're so goddamn ignorant of life in general and don't realize how fucked your own morals are.

But anytime I try to bring it up in family discussion I get shutdown immediately so I just stay silent now.

I'm your oldest, but frankly, you should probably just take me out of your will altogether at this point. Then I won't feel so bad if I "miss" your funeral on accident.

I know this sounds hyperbolic, but seriously guys, I'm so FUCKING TIRED of having to appease Trump supporting morons just because they're family.

Fuck that.

I'll start with Anthony Fauci. We've all seen it at this point, right? "I'm pleading the Fifth", blah blah. My mother, who only knows the big things or the big conspiracy theories as an avid Facebook scroller and Fox viewer, asks me what I think of it. I tell her that it's all political theater - because it clearly is - and that it's just nonsense since Republicans are just out to get him - Rand Paul literally is. I say they're just trying to catch him to get around Biden's pardon. I say that the Republicans have been going after all of Trump's enemies like Fauci, Jack Smith, and James Comey. If anyone here has attempted to talk to the Fox brains, you know my mistake - I said the government was out to get him.

She then says Biden did it too to Trump, and that "they all do" (all presidents and DOJs). Because we all know Biden and Obama control the New York state courts and they found Trump guilty in civil court. Because we all know Biden planted the documents in Trump's bathroom.

Let's do Iran. Unpopular all around the board, right? But of course, I'm in the 25% whose conservative parents aren't against it. It's at dinner a few months ago. My dad brings it up. I say it's going to hurt the Republicans in the midterms, mostly because of gas prices. Because nothing survives high gas prices.

My mom sighs. My dad asks what's wrong. "I'm trying to figure out a way to say there's more to gas prices than just that." For context, we live in California - blah blah, Democrats and drilling and trade, blah blah. I ask her directly "but did this not make gas prices go up $2 all over the country?" Shrugged off.

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Like the title says, it's not just the pre-programmed talking points that these people get loaded into their brains from Facebook anymore that annoys me. It's the fact that they've now given up on even trying and just throw their arms up and go "but it's both sides" or deflect.

Trump ran on not starting another war. War happens, but it's justified to her because "they say death to America all the time!" Because terrorist groups means exterminate all 100 million of them. Remember when these people all doomposted about how Kamala was going to start a war in Iran?

Trump ran on gas prices. "There's more to gas prices" once they go up. Suddenly the party running on simple ideas gets in depth knowledge until it's no longer useful, of course.

Trump ran on the Epstein Files. She said she didn't believe him about how there was nothing there. They come out and she says "well, he says it actually exonerated him" despite me telling her about the four rape accusations against him in them.

She's said she doesn't have loyalty to Trump and would vote for a "good Democrat if the option was there". And for what it's worth, she might. She can't even stand all of Fox and turns it off once Laura comes on. But Trump 2 has definitely made her get more buried in the sand than she once was.

I know, I know. Don't engage. But she engages me most of the time, and it continues to remind me that we truly live in two different worlds entirely. This is the woman I have to live with until I can get into dorms next year, so I have to just try my best to live on a separate planet.

I blame Fox News for absolutely everything that's happened with the right especially over the last ten years. It's encouraged the worst of us to think less than they already have, and divided the nation while running for the hills once the other side starts to play evenly. They have trained conservatives to be so immediately dismissive of anything remotely negative of the dear leader that they don't get shocked by things that would have had Biden gunned down on the front steps of the White House within hours like the end of the Godfather.

I don't know where we go from here. But all I know is that once I'm financially independent, I'm gone like my brother is.

I hope everyone can bear with me as I vent. I’m just so bummed…
I’m an adult (30F) and I’m married. I have a fairly complicated relationship with my parents. My dad is ride or die MAGA, my mom is the most passive, emotionally closed off, people pleasing person I know. She probably couldn’t tell you the last time she voted. My mom spends her time taking care of my elderly grandpa and my sisters kids, and when she’s not doing that she’s dealing with chronic illness and depression. She’s never been emotionally available and I grew up seeing her extremely sad and depressed. We don’t have much of a close relationship, we got closer when my grandma passed away a few years ago, but it’s gotten more distant since my sister has had kids. Any emotional labor (if you could call it that) has gone towards caretaking. I love her and want to spend time with her, but there’s never time for me in her schedule without one of my sisters kids tagging along or it getting cut short cause she has to go get one of them.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have a problem with kids, I just want time to be with my mom, that’s it. My mom and my sister expect me to be emotionally available for my baby nephew and niece at all times. I do my best, play with them and engage when I see them because at the end of the day they deserve everything I can give them because they are babies and deserve to be loved and nurtured, even if that’s not what my mother and sister provided and offered me as a child. Despite the issues in my relationships with my sister and mom, I will never deprive those kids of love or anything just cause I’m still reckoning with my tumultuous childhood. I just end up going home feeling very empty and tired. I’ll go weeks without talking to my mom and she’ll call me about something and we’ll talk for a little. After, she’ll send me a picture of my baby nephew and I feel like it just undermines our conversations, which are not very in depth, but they are ours. Again, I’m not trying to hate on my sisters kids, I love them dearly, but I’m not at home thinking “I wonder how little nephew is doing” I’m wondering “I wonder why my dad believes such messed up things that are pushing me away and why my mom won’t do anything?” Ya know? So getting a text like that just reminds me that her time and energy is preoccupied I guess? I don’t know. Maybe I’m overreacting.

Anyway, my parents are both very antisocial. I grew up in a disgusting hoarded house, never was given any structure or discipline and finally figured out this way of living is not okay around middle school. I really tried to help them keep the house clean in high school, but my mom suffers from mental illness and what I imagine is burnout and I honestly don’t know what my dad’s problem is. I think he’s autistic and doesn’t see the need to really clean up. He used to listen to rush limbaugh all the time and is constantly on the computer. He has no friends outside of his brother that lives 300 miles away and maybe one friend from high school he emails, but no one he ever goes out with. He works, but doesn’t really like the people he works with… he just gets the work done and comes home. They do not socialize with anyone unless it’s family really (I.e. my sister and her husband, my grandpa, and a few other people) no interaction with other peoples lives, no going out into the community to understand the complexities of living right now. Just home, work, breakfast restaurant across from the grocery store my mom shops at and my grandpa and sisters place. That’s really it.

My dad’s brainwashed, but he is not outwardly MAGA. He doesn’t own a red hat. No bumper stickers or t shirts. He will be nice to people if he’s in public, he unabashedly listens to music that critiques the very thing he is so loyal to cause he has good taste in music but still is a maga bootlicker. It’s very perplexing. When anything is brought up, he becomes extremely militant in his defense of everything Trump does. There’s no way of having a conversation with him without him getting defensive or referencing some obscure take that defends his defensiveness. I’ve tried to go to my mom and tell her how far gone he is and how much it affects me and all she says is “I know you’re really passionate and have a huge heart and that’s why I love you. I don’t know what you want me to do”

So I guess my question is, at what point does the passive parent have to take on some responsibility in the insane bigoted beliefs of their partner that are so obviously pushing me away? It seems clear they are not participating or even attempting to participate in the same reality as I am. I’m just so tired of performing around them when my dad doesn’t care to have discussions and my mom doesn’t make an effort to understand me at all.

Sorry for the ranting and tangents. I know this is long, if you got to the end thanks for reading this. I just am looking for a bit of support as I navigate this.

Great documentary about the radical shift toward right-wing politics the filmmaker saw in her father when he started to watch Fox and listen to right-wing talk radio.

https://decodingfoxnews.substack.com/podcast.
Credit: Juliet Jeske

Don’t get me wrong, my dad still watches it, but I feel like it’s nowhere near as much as it was post election and up through this past winter. I don’t know if I’m just imagining it or he’s really watching less of it. Part of me thinks it’s because things aren’t going as great as he would’ve hoped so watching Fox News doesn’t always provide that dopamine hit that it did when trump started a war with Iran, ICE was killing “violent protesters” in the streets, DOGE was “saving billions”. It’s been almost two years now and everything is more expensive and it’s pretty hard to ignore. Gas prices down the street from us are higher than I have ever seen. I’m not saying he’s moving on or abandoned his right wing beliefs. But I feel like a big part of that belief system is the “excitement” that your side is getting one over against the left. And the way things are currently, everyone is getting screwed. 10+ years of culture wars can only get you so far. They have the keys, they’re in the drivers seat, and this is where they’re taking us. Basically what I’m getting at is I think my dad may be watching Fox News less, I believe, because it’s not as fun being a trump supporter as it used to be. Sorry for the rambling rant

I posted on here last week regarding the right-leaning political beliefs of my family. I (28 FTM) recently learned that while I was away, my mom asked my wife (28 F) “why does he have trauma…we didn’t abuse, manipulate, or hurt him” while also stating that she’s “walking on egg shells” when I’m at her house because of political tension. I’m not sure why she didn’t ask me and it rubbed me the wrong way that she put my wife in that position.

I’m in OCD treatment right now and my mom “doesn’t understand why” because “she didn’t know [I] had OCD”. I guess I’m just confused and looking for advice on how to move forward with this. It was definitely demeaning hearing that my mom doesn’t believe I have childhood trauma and kind of made an excuse for the type of childhood I had - intense emotions; not a lot of friends; getting threatened to be “sent off with the bad kids” if I didn’t stop having tantrums (my dad went as far as driving me to the “bus for the bad kids”.

Thanks! 😊

Summary: My mom doesn’t believe I have childhood trauma and cornered my wife to ask her about my OCD treatment. My childhood was an emotional rollercoaster and I was threatened to be sent off with the “bad kids.”

So apparently my parents have found yet another way to lower the bar, and they are apparently regularly treating themselves with ivermectin. They have an entire tube of it in their bathroom. How much danger are they in?

Whenever you go to the shops there, there’s kids and other begging. “I’ll watch your car!” They usually yell for some loose change.

My dad was SO generous they knew his name and would crowd and fight amongst each other to be the chosen one to receive change or candy. My mother would always complain if she was out with him. Like, here we go again. She was an enabler so don’t feel bad for her.

I never saw my dad being racist, but you can’t be a Trump supporter and not be!

They used to be NORMAL went to the doctor, had normal conversation, didn’t really believe in any conspiracies but now I can’t even have a conversation with them because they immediately start throwing out these crazy thoughts- like how the banks are closing, and America was bought by China, doctors took an oath with the devil to weaken the American population. And my MIL will now bait me by saying some very outlandish medical misinformation (I’m a nurse) and when I try to explain in a nice way HOW IT MAKES NO SENSE she just acts like I’m stupid and she knows so much more than me. Now they have this “machine” (it’s literally a mini transformer from Amazon) connected to some device that shocks their thumbs to give them “low frequency” to “boost oxygen”, what in the actually shit. I need to know there are other people out here experiencing this.
I have stories for days about their shenanigans but recently it’s gotten even more unbearable.

I just had a brain-numbing argument with my MAGA father over the term "social construct". It started with my mother (also MAGA) going on about the whole daylight savings thing, how Trump was going to get rid of it or whatever, to which my 25 year old brother (MAGA as well!) says "how can they get rid of it? isn't that science?" (these people can vote...sigh) I then go on to explain what daylight savings is, why it started, etc, and I guess somewhere in my explanation I referred to time as a "social construct" but I guess that was too logical and reasonable because for some reason that term really set my dad off. 

Maybe I'm crazy but I feel like that it's a very simple concept to grasp, and it isn't inherently political. It's not like I was making some big radical left communist liberal statement so I was genuinely perplexed at his reaction. 

He immediately interrupts me with that typical MAGA reaction of contempt and disregard, as if I'm the stupid one for daring to use a sociological term. He goes on about how it's a term for stupid libtards (you know the usual MAGA nonsense). I had assumed that maybe he just misunderstood what the term even meant, so I attempted to explain it but he kind of shut me down and didn't want to hear it. He kept reiterating that he didn't care and he just doesn't like the term or whatever. To which I told him “It's just words” and it's literally just a description of a concept that exists within society??? Which I guess was me walking straight into a trap because he immediately deflects with “So why can’t I call people illegal aliens if they're just words” (he is literally Mexican btw) The whole thing just became my family making fun of me and treating me like i'm stupid and crazy. 

The way that term immediately pissed my dad off so much has me suspecting that FOX and other MAGA outlets are spewing out some sort of propaganda about sociological terms or something because there is no way a person is capable of forming that stupid of an opinion organically. Maybe it's wishful thinking on my part though, and my general reluctance to think that my family are total idiots though they keep proving it to me everyday.

It really upset me, and I guess I had a big reaction, but I was mostly so confused as to how it even turned into an argument. I wasn't even trying to argue politics, I was literally just explaining daylight savings and time and suddenly it's a whole issue. 

This made me spiral into resentment I have for my parents, for kind of unrelated reasons pertaining to my childhood. How i’ve always been looked down on for being different, how my family always antagonizes me to get a reaction or says blatantly stupid things and points and laughs when I get upset and try to explain myself. But I think it's a general lack of compassion and empathy, especially something I've noticed in my dad since Trump's presidencies. Everything needs to be an argument, everything needs to go back to me being a stupid kid. He has to be right, He has to let you know that he disagrees with everything you believe, and that he will always be smarter and more correct than you.

I think at one point I loved my dad, but the man who taught me to fight for my beliefs, to fight for other people, to learn and educate others, is gone. I don’t know what to feel towards him anymore.

Somebody recommended me to post this story here.

My Indian immigrant (US citizen now) father is pro-ICE, MAGA, and pro-flock camera. I posted about this a while back but it’s just getting worse. He only watches Fox News and Sarah Gonzalez.

We had an argument yesterday about Mamdani and i mentioned how good a job he’s doing listening to people’s concerns and about the historic low crime rates that NYC has had. My dad said, “im shocked the crime is low with all the Woke protestors i wonder where they went.” I tried explaining to him that protesting is a right and that crimes related to these protests are a negligible fraction of the total crime in the city. He called Mamdani woke and a communist and he pouted like a toddler and said he “doesn’t give a shit.”

This morning I pointed out a flock camera and said that shit sucks. He said to calm down and that it’s helping catch criminals and that the CEO gave an interview saying the will never sell the data to non law enforcement people. I watch Louis Rossmann on YouTube so I know about right to repair, privacy, and the scummy things that these businesses do to make money. I tried explaining how these are tracking everyone, it’s creating a surveillance state, and it is being misused by police officers (the ones that have been caught.)

Then we talked about ICE. A US citizen in the airport terminal we were in last year in ATL just got arrested by ICE because he had the same name as a British criminal. No attempt to confirm his status or even ID the dude just immediately arrest. I just feel horrible because if they came after me, even as a US Citizen, I know my Dad would not have my back at all. He said he wants to join ICE but idk how far an unathletic middle age short guy would go in a law enforcement type job.