pep

Yeah Michael Bolton, you tell 'em!

looooool ☠️ done.

All 3 are great points. Thank you!

Great quote, do you know what she wrote that in?

he has started saying the N word to try to get a rise out of me

omg, I caught my mom telling a joke with the n-word to my brother, then when I got mad and told them how unacceptable that was, my dad tried to gaslight me by telling me I shouldn't overreact and get upset at jokes.

when everyone finally comes to the conclusion that the powerful and foreign are manipulating our political discourse to sow discord, we will finally be at peace again.

I don't see that day ever coming for my parents, and I struggle to think many of the tens of millions of people who have accepted literal Nazi ideology (eugenics, great replacement, etc.) will ever be able to admit that to themselves. I hope you're right though.

the tragedy of the commoners

Did you come up with that play on words? Because it is absolutely brilliant!

Yup. 72 percent of the world's population now live under authoritarian rule -- the last time it was that bad was 1986. And the scary thing is that for the most part, people are voting away their rights, rather than the authoritarians rising to power through invasions and tanks.

Interesting food for thought. Feels like a catch 22 that they need more human interaction to help with their ideologies, but their ideologies make people not want to be around them (except for other people in the cult). It's also vexing that they can know a Muslim or an undocumented immigrant, and have that "oh no, they're one of the good ones" logic and still demonize the rest of the people from those groups. I wonder how many people they need to know from an out-group before they stop demonizing the whole group.

That book sounds interesting, I'm adding it to my list at the library. Thanks for the recommendation and also all the thoughtful advice!

Really good advice, thank you.

I had a friend who said there's good in the natural order of people getting old and dying so that their bad ideologies can die with them. I've always appreciated that viewpoint. Unfortunately, I have a brother who still lives at home...and he gets that shit ideology from our parents and shit ideology from Stephen Crowder (and even Alex Jones!) and the like online.

And now, he just models my parents where, even when I try to approach him with understanding and empathy, he refuses to even discuss why we should give a shit about immigrants or anyone else. To mash together two of your points, it's like religion in the 50s...there's entire swaths of the US where it can be dangerous to even believe otherwise because everyone around you has their beliefs so intertwined with beating their enemy (communists/the left/atheism, etc.) that at best, you will lose your family, your friends, all your support networks, and at worst, you'll have the devil beaten out of you if you even entertain leaving.

I’m… lucky?..

Yeah, definitely what they call a "mixed blessing" I have a buddy who decided he didn't need mountains of shit from his dad, and blocked him...and he's better for it. But it was easier because his dad is the world champion shit flinger...I have the mixed blessing that my dad cares about me and I care about him...but damn near everything else about his personality really hurts. You've got my empathy, and I'm proud of you for looking out for your kids and limiting their exposure to that poison.

I just wish someone had come up with a novel approach to mend relationships between leftists and their MAGA-brainwashed parents, but reading the 40 or so replies here and taking your advice and popping over to my favorite redlib instance to read some of that community...it looks like success at improving these relationships is incredibly rare.

I do quite like the approach laid out by Honkology in their "why facts don't change people's minds" video and have been taking that approach for the last 9 years, but not only has it failed to move them one inch out of the cult, they have only gone deeper and deeper. Mentally, I have accepted the fact that it's not my responsibility to fix them, but emotionally, it's difficult to accept.

On one hand, all the replies here from people in similar situations has made me feel less alone in the situation. On the other, it has also made me really sad about how easily tens of millions of people could be turned against anyone who doesn't look like them, think like them, or belong to their same economic stratum.