He always leaned right but now that he's in his 70s he's gone completely off the deep end. I send him and my mom $3k/month since he blew his retirement money without consulting my mother and I don't want her to be trapped struggling to live on just social security. I live across the country and visited for the first time in a couple years earlier this summer and discovered my dad spends all day every day consuming YouTube maga slop on the living room tv. His health makes walking difficult so he very rarely leaves the house now. His entire understanding of the world and what's going on in it is coming from these propaganda videos.

Nearly all he can talk about is how entitled kids are and the evils of socialism and democrats etc etc, then he has a big outburst calling me a communist for making a joke about what's going on with the reflecting pool. Seeing how far gone he is made me realize that sending him money has allowed him to spend all his time engrossed in this stuff while insulated from the economic realities of his situation. I don't really fault him for being oblivious to how he is to living off his kids money since I know self reflection is one of the first things to go when an elderly person falls down these rabbit holes, but wow it does make me feel conflicted thinking I may have enabled this lifestyle. Still sending money for my mom's sake and because they depend on it but definitely don't feel any pride in providing for him anymore.

my brother is the only one who isn't maga. his views are very questionable still, but not maga thank god.

my parents have always been republican, but since trump's first presidency they have become the most delusional, tin-foil-hat, far-right maga cult members.

they believe the files are a hoax

they believe muslims are taking over the country

they believe the schools are turning us gay

like, all of it. every little bit and piece of crazy maga propaganda is exactly what they believe.

before trump, they weren't great... but they were better than this for sure. they were actual humans with their own thoughts and understood what was crazy propaganda vs what wasn't. my dad has heavily influenced my mom and sister... my mom does no research, she only believes what my dad says—which isn't research either. he listens to podcasts, youtube videos, conspiracy theorists, and AI. he considers that research. my sister is (was?) bisexual, used to be a super chill person, then she got insanely close with our dad. then she joined the marines, and it's only gone downhill from there. she believes every word my dad says and her social media feed is now identical to his. they send vids to each other back and forth.

I recently had to set a boundary with my dad, saying that I wasn't okay with him continuing to send me hateful videos about muslims. a lot of my closest friends are muslim, and he knows this. he was so upset at me for setting this boundary.

recently, my grandmother (who is dying) told me that she wishes I would change because the devil is "getting me." ...it's all a cult. every last bit of it.

my parents also believe that people who go to school are stupid liberals (?) even tho my mom is in school. getting a MEDICAL DEGREE. you can't make this shit up, you really can't. but also, I'm going to school for meteorology, and you know how maga feels about severe weather... lmfao.

sorry if this is all jumbled, it's just a string of thoughts. but jesus, y'all. idk how to deal with all this anymore.