Has the Trump Era Affected How You Relate to Family?

My Republican sister in S. Carolina and I talk only through our mother now. She recently told mom they sent money to Trump.

She's always been homophobic and racist, and I think Trump gives her permission.

Big time. I speak to only a few family members now. The racists came out of the woodwork.

I got the whole Fake News Mainstream Media speech, yet they don't see the hypocrisy of Fox News which they watch all the fucking time. They hate Hillary and said that's why they voted Trump. In their eyes I honestly had less of a problem coming out as gay than I did voting for her.

I used to politely disagree with my right wing dad or just silently let him complain about Hillary, Carter, hippies, FDR, whatever. I actively didn’t talk or visit my parents much during the 2016 campaign because I just didn’t want to hear it.

Once Trump won I stopped putting up with it - I made it very clear that I disagreed with pretty much any political opinion my parents held, they weren’t going to change my mind and I going to change theirs, so I didn’t want to hear or “discuss” (argue) about any of it,; and if they did bring up politics during a visit I would leave. I had to yell at mr father a few times to shut down conversations he was trying to start, and was in the process of leaving the house in the muddle of TG 18 dinner when it finally got through to them.

My mom will still bring up Fox News Covid complaints, I firmly rebut her and tell her we need to change the subject. I’ve lost a fair amount of respect fir my mom, I’ve considered my dad a reactionary idiot since I was a teenager. I definitely call and visit less. Sad.

I have blocked 3 cousins and am about to give my aunt the boot on FB. They are dead to me.

R4, your story sounds a lot like my own. In my case, it's my mother I had to shut down. No matter his beliefs, my father has always been old-school in that you NEVER discuss religion or politics. My mother, on the other hand, wouldn't shut up about either. Came to the same end as you. It's the elephant in the room that isn't discussed, therefore I visit and call a lot less than I used to.

I am blessed with a complete Dem family including aunts, uncles and cousin on both sides. My elderly dad, a Republican military man his whole life switched parties when the idiot Bush was elected.He was devastated watching the traitors storming the capital.

At 100 yrs old, h wanted to live long enough to see trump gone

No. They hate Trump, too.

We lost my sister-in-law yesterday. YESTERDAY she told my husband she thought Trump was doing a good job.

She was the only member of his family he spoke to and now he's no longer speaking to her.

I’m from Alabama and they’re all mentally insane now, except my mother. They’ve been brainwashed by Fox, Trump and Facebook QAnon shit. They probably think I’m a baby-eating pedo lizard fag sent to earth from Satan’s asshole. Fuck ‘em, they can rot in hell with Dump.

My whole family were moderate Republicans until the first Bush presidency. One by one they became Independents, and ultimately Democrats by the time Trump was running four years ago.

They represent where the erosion of the Republican Party is taking place. White, highly educated, suburban voters. The current events will certainly speed up this phenomenon.

We have a wide variety of political views in my family, such that politics is NOT allowed when we all get together. Everybody respects that. I just scroll past their FB posts, even the ones I agree with. I haven't blocked any family members yet, but I have blocked some others who have been most extreme because I don't want crap on my feed.

My family as mentioned in R10, were 3/4 Democrats and 1/4 Republicans forever, then 9/11 happened and they started to feel the Patriotic vibes, by the time African-American Obama was running they were all moderate Republicans - because of their latent racism, by the end of Obama’s 2nd term and the beginning of the BLM movement they were all far right Bill O’Reilly Repugs, by the end of Trump’s term they were extreme right QAnon lunatics. I’m not sure where this ends.

Immediate family are liberal Democrats. But mom's side is from rural Michigan. My god are they entitled and delusional. Their whole reality is planted firmly within the alt-right ecosystem. So I blocked them all on Facebook before deleting my account altogether.

It's just trash, that whole platform.

The problem is usually with the Republicans who feel this freedom and privilege to spew whatever they want out of their mouths without consequences.

They KNOWINGLY say shit to either deliberately piss off their Dem relatives, or they are just unaware of their surroundings and others feelings.

Yes, there can be some strident liberals that are hard to take. But that's not what we usually hear as being the problem.

Worst of all - losing their family members over their batshit Republican views does not seem to matter to them. That's a cult.

Honestly my parents have lost all joy in life and I think the Fox crap gives them some animating force. I secretly dream the house blows up and gives them a quick death and I won't have to deal with cleaning out and selling the house.

Just before Christmas, my 70 year old mother hung up on me because I was not buying her crap about the election being stolen from Trump. I am not interested in calling her back now to see if she's changed her mind -- but a part of me is very curious what is going through her mind right now. I don't recognize her as the mother I used to know as a child. My theory is that she has unresolved internal shame from the many mistakes she has made in life. Many bad choices. And so now she has globbed on to an authority figure to whom she can relinquish personal responsibility. An alpha male who will take over, run the show, and relieve her of having to be a thinking, feeling, reflective human being. Plus she gets to feel victimized and persecuted, instead of taking ownership of any of her issues.

That's all I got.

It hasn't. All of my falling-out occurred years earlier with the gay marriage v. "Adam & Eve, not Adam & Steve" dreck. To me, that was more personally hurtful. So all the "Dump stuff" is redundant of what's already happened in my family relations.

R17 Straight White Boomers are egomaniacs who have the insatiability of methed-out pass-around bottoms, they’re never satisfied. Now that their lives are ending they are desperate for relevance and vindication.

Sadly I live in Kansas a few miles from the Koch compound. Wichita Kansas is a sick sick place. I have no one here now that I would consider a friend. They have all drank the Koolaid. It was Antifa that caused trouble at the capitol. They place Don the con Trump on the same pedestal-if not a little higher- than Jesus Christ. There are a handful of liberals but so in the minority. Somehow we elected a Democrat Governor but the GOP at the state house are blocking her every move. IMO, this country is in very deep trouble. It started before Trump but he has really gone whit nationalist and I believe he will lead a civil war. Stay strong.

It’s really like Invasion of the Body Snatchers. I’ve seen friends and relatives become entirely different people the past few years when they start falling for the Qanon BS. A distant cousin, who always seemed semi-normal, started posting crazy shit this past year out of the blue and now it’s all she posts.

My cousins and brother are all in on Trump. I don’t speak to them now. They are completely in the Trump fog. They actually think the Trump’s have an admirable marriage.

I have some friends and family who support Trump. But almost as bad are the ones who don't pay attention to politics at all. I have Facebook friends who just kept right on posting trivial shit about their mundane lives all through the day last Wednesday. They either didn't know or didn't care what was happening in D.C. They don't read or watch any news. They don't follow any news or political figures on social media. What little they know about what's going on in the world comes from conversations with equally clueless friends. I think this ignorance and apathy is a big part of why this country is in such sad shape.

So sad for r22 and everyone else who had to abandon their families because of the fat, orange fuqutard.

At least we have DL and each other