Asklemmy

For me, what has sort of worked it pointing out that both sides of the news are getting basic facts wrong - things where there shouldn't even be a debate. If the news was true, you could watch any channel - it would all be the same. Instead, we get things like one side claiming murders are up and the other claiming murders are down. Our current journalism is a failure of a system designed to drive engagement/viewership/clicks rather than convey knowledge.

I also find it helps to remind them that we're Americans first, party second. The other side isn't stupid, they're just getting a completely different set of 'news'.

I try to take a page out of the playbook of a cult deprogrammer or a Darrel Davis type personality. My trips home are short (no more than a week) and I try to deescalate any hotbutton conversations. People do change, but unfortunately some people harden and shut off to new ideas as well. Hearing a different personality speak often helps open people up to hearing new ideas; a lot of the fascist ideology is born out of fear, miseducation, and selfishness.

I feel for you. My parents also drank the Koolaid, but my mother is dead now, and my father has slipped even further down the rabbit hole. He's also a horrible person in general, and while I used to engage with him if he were behaving himself, I've effectively gone no contact now. I've only spoke with him once in the last few years, and when he launched into a racist anti-immigrant tirade I told him not to be a coward his entire life and hung up on him. It was on my birthday.

well it sucks. It looks like he's going to die a Nazi. What the fuck dad?

We don't talk about politics or religion or health.

My parents have never been very well reasoned.

However, I've found that the best way to challenge people's beliefs is to just ask what it would take to change their mind.

You're still not going to win, but their answer will force you to acknowledge that they're nuts and can't be reasoned with.

I'm... lucky?... that my dad was a shitbag for other reasons. He was already on thin ice prior to 2016. My mom "isn't interested in politics" but even that's feeling unforgivable for me nowadays.

My parents have gone from seeing their 2 grandchildren biweekly, to me limiting visits with their 3 grandchildren to 3-4 times a year. Even those times are intentionally with my dad absent, and are only at extended family gatherings.

Fuck. Them. Both.

Anytime they bring up politics, I just tell them we can't discuss it.

If they press the matter, I say the same thing, except the second time I add: "...because it's going to make me hate you."

They've been borrowing my car to drive for DoorDash since April 2024 and still haven't figured out that this government they voted for is really fucking shitty.

They think I hate them but I promise you it's shame. If we do talk, it's Dishonest Harmony.

Went no contact in 2016. Was the right choice, my life blossomed without them. One of the last things my dad said to me was " guess I'm a fascist then" Still miss em tho, still not worth it to reach out. My aunt tells me however he turned on trump when his j6 crowd was yelling to hang mike pence. He would have always preferred a theocracy to a full blown white nationalist state tho.

My mother is a hard R republican and a self proclaimed Christian Nationalist and has been making excuses for the GOP since at least Nixon.

I spent about 20 some years of my life being subjected to Fox News, Limbaugh, Mike Savage, Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity every single day. It was exhausting listening to all of the unhinged screaming. While I lived with her I did not seek to find who was telling the truth because I didn't want to know how bad it really was, and I had a pretty good idea of what she would do to me if she found out I was so much as questioning the Republican ethos. So I kept my head down and my "official" stance then was that I wasn't into politics.

I went no contact with her because she became physically abusive 16 years post-TBI. I have not spoken to her in 7 years. From what I gather from her Facebook posts, she's still an awful person who is also falling for all AI pictures, videos and scams that support her narrative.

I have no interest in speaking to her ever again.

My dad is awesome but my mom is scum. I told her to fuck off and stop talking to me but it wasn’t that hard cos she used to abuse me and didn’t raise me

I live in a place that could pass for MAGA Mecca and am literally surrounded on all fronts pretty much anywhere I go. It is extremely isolating. Thankfully my parents are sane; still Christian, but at least they look on with a similar confused horror - though they still "like a lot of what he's doing, just not how he's doing it."

My parents are normal but I don't speak to any other relatives anymore.

Complete cut off.

Same, and I fucking hate it

My dad always leaned center-left, and he's only gotten slightly lefter as I reach middle age and get very left. I'm very fortunate. My mom is long dead but I would like to think she would be on board too.

The real bugbear is my extended family, typified by dad's sister and her family. Always leaned into the Rush Limbaugh right, but really she isn't so much visibly MAGA as she is aggressively Zionist. It happens with a lot of Jewish boomers; Does 'Never again' mean for everyone, or just for the Jews?

Anyways, I was a protest at our local holocaust center in 2018, protesting the detention camps on the border. The proudboys and others were counter protesting. I told her about it, and she just said,

"They cant use that word, thats our word!" "You know who would agree with you? The nazis?" "What do you mean?" "They were there! I have pictures!"

Anyways, shes been surface level cordial ever since.

You're better off asking them questions. "what makes a person eat someone else's pet?" or do simple definitions of what they say, as if you're trying to understand. "so white people deserve to travel and others don't?" (that's a stupid example, but all of the talking points boil down to these types of statements). Apparently getting them to debate facts doesn't work, getting them to question what they're blindly believing, does, but I haven't put it to practice. I want to go and get a refresher on critical thinking, so I can more easily break down, the way to properly ascertain if, what is being sold to you is truth or propaganda, and then make it into a question / statement and rather than addressing any topic, add a where did that come from, who sold you that, who profits from that, kinda thing, but I want a better statement / question than that. My parents are really similar, I have to avoid a lot of topics, I'm the black sheep of the family, I've always been much more earth conscious than them, it's gotten so much worse lately. It's the news they're being fed. They believe it, wholeheartedly. It's how they've always known what's happening. And it's why they're panic buying out tiktok, currently, they (those creating the propaganda and distributing it) can't have a narrative out there that doesn't align with their agenda.

got their numbers blocked and stopped checking FB because they are there. they kept trying to make me maga-like, i avoided saying anything mean, i have come to terms with just cocooning, just want to be left alone

Parent #1 is christian, and has all the mental faculties that come with that. #1 gets dragged into the current republican bullshit by proximity to the fusion of christofascism. I can still talk to that one about most things, as long as neither of us brings up anything about current government. Seeing as I live with #1 to make sure medicine is taken and quality of life doesn't deteriorate, the days are... strained at best. We talk for a moment, I check up on the health, and then it's either off to work and back to my portion of the house, or I avoid the other portion of the house and try to carry on my hobbies.

Parent #2 was once, so I thought, the logical, reserved one who didn't care for politics. Then it turned out #2 just thought because #2 worked for the government, it was best to never really hold beliefs. As soon as #2 retired, fox news was turned on 24/7, and suddenly the mild distaste for people 'not like me' turned into full fledged rants. I try to keep all contact to a minimum, because I still love my parent and I'm sure #2 loves me, but I think that's just deep roots from childhood. All of the good characteristics are still there, just buried beneath that vile layer of filth that manifests as hate. Every now and then you see the good qualities shine through, and it kills me knowing they're likely going to never be the main character traits again. I can't break contact because there's a part of me that just can't give up hope, but it hurts that I can't come and actually talk through the much deeper thoughts on the world I have now like we did when I was still considering what musical tastes I had.

No contact. I tried. I tried so hard to point out the wrongs committed by the regime that I thought that they would disagree with, but MAGAs just bend reality around it all.

It's painful, given that most of us don't do this out of a sense of right or wrong, but because we care. You get used to it eventually though.

You can love someone and things dont work out. Family or otherwise.

My parents are consuming more red media. This seems to happen in immigrant non-english circles.

Before Trump, we’re get republican still? My parents were always super republican, but won’t vote for Trump. Also won’t vote for a democrat….