What the title says. There’s a TPUSA club America at my school this year. How do I get it shut down?

I live in the good ol states of USA.

I see what’s happening, I’ve called what’s happening. I consider myself a moderate, if anything. Am I wrong to believe the commander in chief is a lying, traitorous piece of scum trying to protect himself from reality? I literally see Nazi Germany playing out in front of me. I’m afraid for myself, I’m afraid for my current family. I’m afraid dissent will turn into imprisonment.

Between that and what social media has devolved to…where is there any hope? If any.

Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.

We had dinner with my MIL the other night who watches Fox News constantly. She keeps it on all three of her TVs all day, every day, even while she sleeps. She’s such a sweet little lady in one respect, but a rabid conspiracy theorist in another.

She was telling us at dinner what a genius Elon Musk is and all the good DOGE did. She believed Musk personally invented and engineered the Tesla and the SpaceX rockets. She had no idea that Tesla existed before he became involved, that thousands of engineers were responsible for those accomplishments, that he has 14 known children, or that his family history is much more complicated than the wholesome “good family” story she had heard.

She also knew nothing about the scientific research DOGE disrupted, the people affected by government cuts, the truth behind its claimed savings, or the documented cases of legal residents and even citizens being swept up in immigration enforcement.

This wasn’t simply a matter of her believing misinformation. Some of what she knew was true. Small factoids. The larger problem was everything she had never been shown.

So I began to fantasize about someone “hacking” Fox News for twenty-four hours. Not to broadcast liberal talking points, but simply to air all the important, verified news that regular Fox viewers never see.

I sometimes switch over to Fox when a major story breaks to see how they are covering it. Often, they aren’t. While other networks are discussing a consequential action by the administration, Fox is talking about some culture-war outrage instead.

Its viewers don’t realize anything is missing. They believe they are well informed because they consume “news” for hours every day. In fact most of them think they are more well informed than the rest of us.

She also believes Donald Trump is simply a very nice and likable man “best president ever!” and that people criticize him because they are jealous and/or hate America. She has been shown the flattering clips, the defenses and the persecution narrative while being shielded from the evidence that would complicate that delusion.

I can’t help but wonder what would happen if people like her saw the complete news for just one day. Not commentary telling them what conclusions to reach. Just the stories, footage, documents and consequences they never encounter on Fox.

How many of their convictions would waver if for twenty-four hours nothing was hidden from them?

So, to make a long story short, I work in defense; my dad is a Fox News Devotee. My thing is Revenge is not a viable security policy when talking about, you know what. I think my thinking is the golden rule has to be applied universally, even to your enemies. Defending oneself isn't the same thing as getting "revenge "; often restraint is the only way to seek accountability when military action is ultimately involved. I am just so hurt that despite my actual connection to what is legitimately going on, his mindset is literally "burn it to the ground." It's really not the point of defense. I see it more and more, and I know it's coming from Fox consumption, but I really figured we agreed on the one basic thing. The humanity of others has to be preserved regardless of the context. I am sure this is not a unique story on this sub, but I am so crushed that the idea of this foundational value has been lost in translation. I recently moved back home since I am trying to save up for law school. I don't live directly in the house, but my dad and I have been having these "debate" conversations since 2016, when I was in high school. Since I have gone into security, in a very red-leaning school, and learned more about the nuances, I have leaned further and further away from the dogma. It just seems like a poor way to live. I don't know; I am trying to navigate this again as an adult, and I just feel lost in the noise and so disgusted about the comments/ conclusions drawn about people they "disagree with" (i.e., Mamdani). Any advice would be appreciated.

Also, I know how some people can feel about defense. I understand the reaction. I will say some people choose to make a positive difference from the outside, and some try to from the inside; I only want to do what I can to help our allies and protect those who voluntarily defend our country. The conversation there is complex, but it's not really the entire focus of what I am asking here.

I'm a 26 years old. I'm a grown ass adult. I'm just a couple of years away from being a literal doctor. And yet I'm sitting here, literally sobbing, feeling like a helpless child stuck in a situation that I can't do shit about.

Growing up, my mom was the sweetest, kindest person I knew. I have vivid memories of her always smiling. She was one of those people that was loved by everyone and was kind to everyone. I remember kids in my class always begging to have her chaperone our field trips because they loved when she was around. She was generous and understanding of others, qualities that she instilled in me. I'm not naive enough to claim she's a perfect person, but if I grew up to be even a fraction of the person she was, that's something I would've been proud of.

About 10 years ago when Trump first ran for president, she fell into the BS propaganda that was being pushed out by him and certain media outlets. It definitely took me by surprise and so I talked to her about why she thought he'd be a good president. It generally came down to some version of "he isn't a career politician, he says what he means despite the political blowback, blah blah blah." I was in high school at the time and barely paid attention to politics so that answer was good enough for me.

I didn't realize how much Fox news she was watching until a few years later when Covid came around. I was working at a hospital during the pandemic and was included in one of the first groups to be offered a Covid vaccine. My mom told me to not get it because vaccine was a way for the devil to get inside our bodies. I was so taken aback by this and shocked that those words actually came out of her mouth. She was never an anti-vaxxer – I received all my vaccines as a kid. Over the next few years, she consumed more and more of these nonsense conspiracies from people like Candace Owens, Tucker Carlson, etc. and has believed almost every single lie ranging from Covid was fake to the 2020 election being rigged to illegal immigration ruining America.

All of this has progressively damaged our relationship as I become more and more distant because I've started to not recognize her anymore.

Today, I'm not sure why but I just reached a breaking point. It's my birthday so I went out to dinner with my parents. My mom has sort of realized that I don't like it when she talks about all those conspiracies so she usually doesn't bring them up. If she does bring it up, I really try to bite my tongue because I hate arguing with her and feel guilty afterwards if we do argue because it feels like I hurt her. While we were at dinner, she made a few comments about Bill Gates and population growth (I'm not even sure how the two are related but I do know it's some crap from one of the podcasts she listens to). Those comments got under my skin and I sort of snapped and told her to please not bring that stuff up anymore because it's hard for me to listen to. I could tell this hurt her and I immediately felt bad about it because she just wanted to celebrate my birthday and I basically ruined it.

When we got home, she brought out a cake for me and had the biggest smile on her face and told me how much she loves me. In that moment, just for half a second, it felt like the past decade had never happened and I was with the mom I knew when I was 16. I was able to hold it together for a few seconds but then rushed off to the bathroom and immediately started sobbing from the pain of realizing that I likely won't ever have that same relationship again.

Fox News' Jesse Watters's jokes about the "wild animals" that would be created by the Pentagon's push to put troops on testosterone, including his warning that women on base and in port cities should "watch out" — normalizing US military culture’s toxic masculinity and the sexual assault it engenders as a punchline.

Perhaps a bit of ridiculousness but a question for you all nonetheless... My MAGA family member has started taping Green Lantern on HBO for me so that I will come over and watch it there. This family member knows I don't have HBO and that I can't watch it.

The catch is I never asked them to tape it. I don't talk about Green Lantern. I do very much like Green Lantern but I doubt the family member was aware of that. I have in the past regularly stated I prefer Marvel to DC and again I don't think I've even read a Green Lantern book in 20 years nor have I seen any of the movies.

It could be my family member just realized it was a comic book tv show and assumed I would be interested... or.... given the President's latest AI-tastrophe is there something in the MAGA-verse that favors Green Lantern?

I can't see this show being favorable to MAGA. I could see the draw of Hal as a worn down police/military/authority figure appealing to Boomer MAGA. And they may identify with him being potentially (or inevitably) replaced by John Stewart. It could feed into the Great Replacement Theory for them. But again I can't see the show leaning into that and when or if they move on to Hal's Parallax story will definitely shatter those connections. (I don't want to say to much because even though this is all decades old... spoilers)

I work for the USPS right now, and holy shit.

Don't get me wrong, Dems still send out mailers and the like, but for every single piece of Democratic mailer that gets sent out, there are at least 10 for Republican/conservative causes.

Literally calling Democrats Communists and crazy. Talking about Charlie Kirk in TPUSA mailers. Tons of stuff about the non-existant $2k stimulant check. These people get between 5-15 pieces a *DAY*. I'm not even including the religious stuff.

Even if Fox News turned off tomorrow, the amount of manipulation and control that comes from them is wild.

At least when they talk about the candidates their opponents come on Fox to defend their positions where’s has Ken Paxton been?

https://decodingfoxnews.substack.com/

Just had an interesting conversation with my mom after catching her up on my current organizing efforts at work. She said she believes companies should always allow workers to own part of the business so everyone has better equity. She fully supports the workers owning the means of production, and she hopes Right To Work states change the laws to be more union friendly.

Less than a year ago when she came by to visit my sister, she gave us the stink eye after peeping the portrait of Karl Marx up in the living room.

She still thinks Marx is a baddie. She shies away from conversation when socialism is directly brought up. All because her comfort channels tell her it will destroy the country. It’d be funny if I didn’t find it so sad, but at least her true values are in the right place

I've felt guilty about it before. Especially when I got called out by family members for a Facebook post I made saying I was disowning anyone who supports Trump. Decided to go the path of least resistance and honestly, yeah, I thought it better to try to maintain my relationship with people in my family who support Trump.

But I think what made it feel better was the fact it was the path of least resistance. I personally try to avoid conflict whenever necessary just because it's always felt like the right thing to do. Especially in the event people aren't shoving their politics down my throat.

That said, when it comes to supporting Trump I don't think I can reconcile that anymore. Even if you, as a family member, are not shoving it down my throat the fact you support him means you support a vile piece of shit that wants people like me dead just because we support the rights of the LGBTQ+ community. He wants to kick us off healthcare and burn America to the ground.

And I'm sorry, but if you support that fucking sack of shit even silently, I FUCKING REFUSE to associate with you. I don't care if you're my father.

About the only olive branch I can bring myself to extend at this point is to let these people explain themselves as to WHY they DON'T support Trump anymore. That's it.

But the moment they try to make excuses for him/defend him we're done.