you can't reason with unreasonable people. it's literally impossible to have a discussion with someone who dismisses everything they don't like to hear as "fake news"

as another person commented, it requires serious deprogramming to get rid of the cult brainwashing, and that is not a simple, quick, or easy process

to answer the question: you have to get to a point where you can burn those bridges and not look back, because toxic relationships destroy mental health

I cut them out. Don't remember where I heard the quote but there was one that goes something like "Our values are so different that any relationship we could have that doesn't fall to violence cannot be a genuine one." Essentially we care about things that are too different to be able to talk to each other honestly and get along.

As many others have said, you don't. That may be part of the devisive-ness experienced here currently, but when one side is stating that the military should be used on dissenters, and the other side needs slaughtered, and they're talking about deporting detractors currently in govt, it's addition by subtraction. Should my side win, I don't expect any kind of persecution of people I don't agree with. Should the other side win, they are functionally demanding it.

"You won't have to vote anymore" is an insane statement from a democratic candidate. "We'll fix it so good, you won't have to vote". And people are on the fence. It's disgusting. Choose a fucking side and vote it.

Unless we get a blow-out for either candidate that cannot be challenged, which does not seem likely based on the polls and battle lines, even if we have a Biden-esque victory for Harris, I’m fairly unsure of what will happen next. I personally doubt full on Civil War like in the Garland movie, or the actual civil war, but I would expect all kinds of shitty legal tricks, possible Supreme Court involvement and of course, stochastic and targeted violence, particularly towards immigrants and minorities. In other words, win or lose, I think the US may be in for a bad time. Hopefully I’m working in my assumptions here and it is somewhat more boring.

To better answer your question though, assuming things don’t completely fall apart: the two sides already don’t mix much, which is part of the problem in the first place. We’ll get more govt inaction due to gridlocked congress, probably more defense spending and some states, in the absence of federal legislating, will continue to take a larger role as they have been doing already in the recent era.

So basically more of the same, on a not-great trend line. Something has to give at some point, it’s hard to imagine how you could put the genie back in the bottle now, particularly with overall conditions in the world due to late-stage capitalism and climate change constricting each year.

Had to cut out both my parents and sibling due to their homophobic remarks and my coming to terms with being gay. The politics just furthered the gap, and the last time I spoke with them in early 2023, "It's all about that woke generation" came out of my dad's mouth and that was the end. I don't expect to hear about their passing, and I'm not sure I'll care, despite them seemingly raising me to be a decent person. These are two humans who canvassed for Obama in '08 & '12, so it was sad to see them devolve.

If pro Trump. Your pro fascist. Your activity involved in wanting me and everyone I love to be dead or enslaved.

I cut out all fascists from my life. Always have been. So really nothing really will change for the people I talk too.

Trump is not the problem. Trump didn’t make Duterte happen, or Orban, or Meloni, or Brexit, or Putin, or Bibi, or le Pen or any of the others. He’s a symptom of a dying world

there is only forward. no reverse.

I wrote off politics media as hyperbolic and manipulative propaganda in 2016 and I actively distance myself from it, so I've only seen the broad strokes of this current election cycle. Unless you honestly believe you are doing important activism work, give yourself permission to just chill out about politics. If your life is full of problems caused by politics such that it's impossible for you to chill out about politics, you have my sympathy.

Trump could die tomorrow and fascism would still be a rising problem in the US from citizens hunting FEMA responders, to elected officials like Paxton and DeSantis. Unless you consider actual fascism normal there will be no normalcy for decades in the US. Maybe longer if we don't stamp out the fash.

We don't. The hate continues to rise and election season never ends. Well, the never-ending election season might be ending real soon if someone gets their way.

It won't be over when it's over. If Trump loses we'll never hear the end of how he was cheated and maga people will get extra weird, maybe violent.

If Trump wins, we'll have trump for president, which from experience is also not normal.