Venting about shit. Angry about the willfully ignorant motherfuckers around me.

RememberTheApollo_ , 4 hours ago

He doesn’t have the wisdom I thought he did.

One of the starkest shocks I had during the initial trump candidacy and pandemic was the veil being lifted on so many people I worked with or knew.

People I thought of as intelligent, level-headed, and reasonable suddenly appeared hateful, mulish, and willfully ignorant.

They didn’t care about the environment. They didn’t care if they got people sick or killed them with covid. They didn’t care about the open overtures to authoritarianism or fascism - if anything they directly welcomed this. The wild and rampant stupidity behind the conspiracies and Q-anon. The concerted attacks on women’s or lgbtq rights, the denial of equality or justice for people killed by police. The complete willingness to throw their fellow humans under the bus for any reason at all to spare themselves the inconvenience of not being able to eat at Applebees without a mask.

And they manufactured whatever slights they could think of to justify their actions regarding the above. It was retaliation for loss of perceived status as White People In Charge.

It completely killed discourse because you can’t have a discussion with someone who isn’t willing to argue in good faith. Who Gish Gallops and buthwhatabouts. Who exhausts their opponent with conspiracies that are so full of shit that you don’t even know where to start rebutting because they have no place in reality.

The trump election sharply split America in two. The country and the world are a far less stable place than a decade ago.

ashok36 , 55 minutes ago

When you realize all the people you admired for their love of freedom actually just meant the freedom to be an asshole… That’s a hard lesson to learn.

RememberTheApollo_ , 2 minutes ago

Yeah, that’s the truth. Their freedom to not be inconvenienced regarding how their fellow humans are treated.

Machinist OP , 36 minutes ago

Yes. it was an incredible shock. 9-11 was less of a shock.

It’s like a transmissible soul sickness that they willfully acquired because it seemed easy and it made them feel right and justified.

I’m moving on and trying to make peace with it. I’m trying to view it as a different kind of pandemic or an asteroid that came out the sky and smacked us.

ATDA , 8 minutes ago

I’ve been having the same conversations. Told my family I love them as people but I’m moving because their politics quite literally are devolving into third world territory.

Can’t keep power on, roads and bridges falling apart, rights being taken away.

If that’s where you want to live that’s cool but peace.

MystikIncarnate , 9 minutes ago

When I see stuff like this, I’m happy my father died when he did. He was also suffering at the time so seeing him no longer in pain was a good thing. I won’t get into that whole story, but he started going that way when he became a bit too forgetful. As in, he couldn’t even follow along with a normal conversation anymore. Happened sometime in the mid to late 2010’s.

He watched stuff like Fox, and listened to guys like Rush Limbaugh, and he was religious. I don’t really follow any media/news organizations, I don’t listen to pretty much any broadcasts specifically, nor follow any specific celebrities, and I’m atheist/agnostic/non-religious (I have some beliefs, but they’re not relevant to the story. I will say that I generally abhor any organized religion with a few exceptions).

I never saw him get consumed with hate over these things. He wasn’t aware enough that he could have even realized that Trump was president at all.

I should also disclose, were not Americans. We’re Canadians, but ask pretty much any Canadian about American politics and most of us will have a good understanding, meanwhile we generally know less about our own politics.

In any case, at the time that this decline into hate mongering started, his mental faculties were all but non-existent.

I’m truly sorry that you’ve had to deal with this op. I wish you the very best of luck moving forward.

Linkerbaan , 28 minutes ago

What’s the difference between your grandfather and a lib supporting Genocide?

skeezix , 17 minutes ago

We could be talking about the gestation period of marsupials and you linkerbaan, as is your wont, would try to turn the conversation to Gaza.

militaryintelligence , 40 minutes ago

Do what I do, play dumb. “What does woke mean, grandad? I’m out of the loop here.” It’s fun. I think I’ve made a few realize how dumb they sound by their facial expressions, but they’ll never admit it.

Luckily I don’t have any red hats in my family.

A_Very_Big_Fan , 1 hour ago

He doesn’t have the wisdom I thought he did.

I know it’s armchair/backseat advice, but if it comes up I suggest telling him this word for word. It’s the kind of thing that would (or at least should) pierce the soul of a man his age.

Madison420 , 2 hours ago

Goddamnit southerns, you are Yankees. The only southerners that weren’t Yankees were confederates who can also be called treasonous traitors.

Essentially, if you’re not a Yankee you’re a goddamn traitor.

Machinist OP , 1 hour ago

Yes and no.

I’m country as a pinto bean sandwich. Yankees were people that lived in the north and talked different.

I used to have a lot of pride in my people. We are tough and proud. Able to endure heat that most people don’t understand. Stretch a penny and squeeze a dime, fix a truck with bailing wire, JB weld and a coke can. Kind to others, stop on the road and help someone broke down.

Collard greens, corn bread, catfish, and a mess of green beans. There’s bacon fat in the beans and they’ve been boiled down.

Black folks around, you say Ma’am and Sir to make sure they know you respect them. We’re all people.

I started reading, left home, and lived near a big city for 20 years.

I come from profound ignorance. There’s a good naturedness that seems to have left my people.

Melvin_Ferd , 2 hours ago

Hang out with grandpa and just ignore the trump shit. If it’s just them liking trump and that then learn to let go and just be with people if you liked them before trump. Not your job to change people. But don’t burn bridges. Internet taught a generation there are these clear lines that we can’t ever cross. My dad is a die hard trump supporter. Love him to death. We have many heated arguments and he fully knows he won’t listen to facts. I also refuse to listen to sources like fox or New York Post or other bullshit. We have many impasses. But I love him and would never dream of thinking less of him or going no contact over something that use to be a thing we all kept to ourselves. Not worth it. Don’t let trump make you burn the people in your life that are family.

But I get if they’re violent or deep deep deep into it. But also we should all get better at looking past this stuff. Trump will be gone one day and the bridges we burnt over it will never be worth it.

Dearth , 1 hour ago

Easy to say if you and yours fit into the demographics that trumpers support. Not everyone has the same privilege as you do.

magnetosphere , 14 hours ago

My sympathies. Ignorance, especially willful ignorance, can be absolutely exhausting to deal with.

Don’t focus on that. Just remember that Friday is probably the last time you’ll see him alive. Try to steer the conversation towards pleasant memories. Make the conversation about his life, not current events. Ask him about his childhood, his first car, how he met your grandmother; stuff like that. People like to talk about themselves. Plus, it’ll keep the conversation away from politics.You might even learn some interesting family history!

TheFriar , 4 hours ago

Not to mention possibly have one last happy memory with a relative you thought was gone forever. If he steers it back into hatred, well, at least you tried.

SoupBrick , 15 hours ago

I am drunk AF, but yeah. If people don’t have the decency to understand ecology, fuck em. They are living in their own world which does not reflect reality. If they choose to deny every logical point you present, that is on them.

Machinist OP , 15 hours ago

I’m drunk as well. Fuck em. They chose not see things as they are and accept others for who they are. They chose to drink the poison.

jpreston2005 , 4 hours ago (edited 4 hours ago)

Just going to point out that alcohol is literally a poison people drink to make them feel good. In much the same way that listening to someone who is projected as an authority figure, telling you that everything that’s wrong in your life is someone else’s fault makes your grandpa feel good.

He doesn’t have to feel bad for supporting bad politicians/policies, because they would have worked if not for those damn immigrants.

He doesn’t have to feel bad about voting to deny people abortions because they’re all just drugged up sluts who should be punished with children.

He doesn’t have to feel bad about destroying the environment because science is wrong sometimes(I can’t really condense the rhetoric on denying climate change because it literally makes no sense?).

The reason they watch this stuff is to feel better about themselves. And just like an alcoholic, indulging in performative blame-shifting politics can make you feel good in the short-term, while negatively impacting your life in a million different ways, ultimately resulting in you losing your friends, loved ones, career, and community.

-Adding this after posting

Actually, I was nearly a victim of the same thing, myself. I was in college, and I was lonely. I started listening to Dennis Miller on the radio as I drove to work and school. I liked him, because he was funny, and although he was right-wing and would talk to right-wing guests, he always seemed very tongue-in cheek about it. But As I listened to him, and the programs that sandwiched his, I noticed that I was getting angry. Like, every time I would drive and listen to these programs, I would just sit there, fuming.

Angrily staring out the window, trying to identify the drugged out loser homeless, the rape-crazed migrants, and the godless whore women using abortion as birth control. I’d drive and just… hate… like it was an activity to take part in. Luckily though, I realized it. I was sitting in particularly bad traffic, listening to the radio, and I was just so damned angry.

I was literally glaring at everyone and everything. and it kind of hit me, the question, “why am I so angry? what am I getting out of this?” and I turned it off. It was at this point, that I realized what I listened to had a profound impact on my emotions, and that if I was going to let something I listened to have control over me like that, then I’d at least like it to bring out an emotion I desired. So I started listening to the classical music station. It brought calm, it brought relaxation, it brought pleasure. And I never went back.

tiredofsametab , 13 hours ago

For your gandfather, could it be dementia? Personality change, including dropping of inhibitions, can be signs of that.

Machinist OP , 4 hours ago

No, he’s still sharp. This shit ate my parents, cousins, aunts and uncles. I’ve got one aunt that is still sane and she moved away when I was a kid.

1984 , 14 hours ago (edited 14 hours ago)

If you are going to be upset about other people like this, you will be in a state of constant anger.

It’s not your responsibility to control what people do or think. My advice is to let those people be who they are, while you focus on being the best you can be.

Keep the people you vibe with in your life, and let the others go. Meet your grandfather and just observe him. This is life showing you someone who is hateful, from the sound of it. It’s just an example of who not to be, that’s all it is. Learn from that and remain calm.

You can do it. :)

If you are in the right state of mind, you can even smile at horrible things he says, because it’s just about him, not anyone else. You will start to view him as someone funny, like a child that messes up because they don’t know better.

Don’t fight people you don’t agree with. Just say what you think, and leave. No need to argue at all.

Machinist OP , 13 hours ago

There is wisdom in what you say.

I tried to help them. I wanted them to see a way without the hate.

It hurts a lot that they can’t come with me. I love them so much. It’s not okay that I can’t help them. My grandfather. My family. We make our choices.

lars , 11 hours ago

It is so so so painful to lose a loved one.

It is excruciating to lose them before they die.

Even worse is when you see parts of what you liked about them suffocating beneath the propaganda that poisoned them. This is like a threefold death.

Machinist OP , 5 hours ago

“This is like a threefold death.”

It really is. Grieving is a process and it comes in waves.

random_character_a , 11 hours ago

You will start to view him as someone funny, like a child

Well his grandfather is so old he’s probably well on his way becoming a child again.

shalafi , 14 hours ago

Not sure what you’re saying about the local ecology. In any case, it’s changed radically since I was a kid in the 70s, plain to see.

FFS, you don’t have to clean the bugs off the windshield at every gas stop. That should be a major wake-up call to us old folks. The bottom of the food chain dropped out!

Nothing you can do OP.

DancingBear , 14 hours ago

Yes you do lol, bugs messing up my windshield dam it lol

lars , 11 hours ago

We’d drive across the state as a kid and at the end of the day it was a sticky mess that was beginning to impact a driver’s ability to see well. I drove across the country a couple years ago and there were days at a time where we didn’t need to clean the windshield.

jpreston2005 , 5 hours ago

I had the same experience. Driving three hours in an Ohio summer in the 90’s meant consistently using the wipers and fluid to get bugs off the windshield. Then in 2013, driving across country, I had to clean my windshield of bugs, a single time. Now? haven’t needed to clean the windshield in years.

I ask my conservative father about these things, he just ignores it. Literally, if it doesn’t fit within his small, hate-filled world-view, then it might as well not exist. If I insist upon a response, he just starts hating me.

It feels as though I’m losing my parents in much the same way dementia would take them. Except it’s not some medical condition, it’s smug assholes in suits profiteering off peddling hate.

xanu , 5 hours ago

youtu.be/FS52QdHNTh8?si=Cr5PW-7FQJimgHbI your post reminded me of this amazing documentary called “The Brainwashing of my Dad” in which the documentarian talks about how Rush Limbaugh and the greater right wing fox news propaganda machine turned a man he once respected and looked up to for his strong character and morals into a barely functioning hatemonger.

Machinist OP , 5 hours ago

So many people I love fell down this hole. I used to listen to Limbaugh, everyone did. As I was coming out of bad religion, I stopped.

I’d like to piss on that motherfucker’s grave. He killed my family.

Berttheduck , 11 hours ago

I know where your coming from. My parents feel right down the racist conspiracy theory rabbit hole during Brexit and COVID. I was working in the hospital watching people and colleagues die regularly and my dad was telling me it’s just flu and all a hoax to scare people, they convinced my 90 year old grandma to not get the vaccine. We had a lot of fights. Eventually after a lot of reflecting I decided that having a relationship with my family was more important than winning an argument so now we just have a selection of topics I refuse to engage with, just say let’s move on and change the topic. I found it really hard to see the people who raised me fall into racist rhetoric and conspiracy theory thinking, these people taught me to be a good person and now have some glaring holes in their compassion for others. I struggled with that for a long time.

rekorse , 8 hours ago

If it was drug use wed call this enabling. Family shouldn’t get a pass to be dick bags.

NellyAdagio , 7 hours ago

It is also caring for oneself/ their own wellbeing and sanity.

jpreston2005 , 5 hours ago

but just like being addicted to a drug, we can’t force them to stop. They have to want to change themselves. And if they don’t stop, what, we’re supposed to cut off our whole family? That won’t stop them from continuing to be hateful, but it will stop us from having a meaningful relationship with our loved ones. All we can do is make our values clear when they attempt to bring up any of their hateful BS, and then move onto something else.

ivanafterall , 6 hours ago

I had a similar experience. I was working in D.C. and had focused on Ukraine, of all things, well before it became an international talking point. As Russia got increasingly involved in U.S. politics via Trump, I found I couldn’t really share what I was seeing/experiencing first-hand, because back home, my family was actively falling for the same bullshit I was trying to scream about in D.C. It’s all been so surreal.