You're not going to find a rational, well reasoned, explanation. It's just emotions. Fear, pride, shame. Most people are too cowardly to do any difficult introspection, and an older person who's probably never practiced it is a unlikely to start now.
this post was submitted on 10 Mar 2026
41 points (91.8% liked)
No Stupid Questions
47021 readers
647 users here now
No such thing. Ask away!
!nostupidquestions is a community dedicated to being helpful and answering each others' questions on various topics.
The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:
Rules (interactive)
Rule 1- All posts must be legitimate questions. All post titles must include a question.
All posts must be legitimate questions, and all post titles must include a question. Questions that are joke or trolling questions, memes, song lyrics as title, etc. are not allowed here. See Rule 6 for all exceptions.
Rule 2- Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material.
Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material. You will be warned first, banned second.
Rule 3- Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here.
Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here. Breaking this rule will not get you or your post removed, but it will put you at risk, and possibly in danger.
Rule 4- No self promotion or upvote-farming of any kind.
That's it.
Rule 5- No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda.
Questions which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.
Rule 6- Regarding META posts and joke questions.
Provided it is about the community itself, you may post non-question posts using the [META] tag on your post title.
On fridays, you are allowed to post meme and troll questions, on the condition that it's in text format only, and conforms with our other rules. These posts MUST include the [NSQ Friday] tag in their title.
If you post a serious question on friday and are looking only for legitimate answers, then please include the [Serious] tag on your post. Irrelevant replies will then be removed by moderators.
Rule 7- You can't intentionally annoy, mock, or harass other members.
If you intentionally annoy, mock, harass, or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.
Likewise, if you are a member, sympathiser or a resemblant of a movement that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of a group of people, and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you will be banned on sight.
Rule 8- All comments should try to stay relevant to their parent content.
Rule 9- Reposts from other platforms are not allowed.
Let everyone have their own content.
Rule 10- Majority of bots aren't allowed to participate here. This includes using AI responses and summaries.
Credits
Our breathtaking icon was bestowed upon us by @Cevilia!
The greatest banner of all time: by @TheOneWithTheHair!
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
Reasonably well traveled American here. 10 countries over 5 continents as of this comment.
You should go and see the world. It's an amazing experience! I think wanting to learn more languages is commendable and I hope you do. But even if you don't, don't let that stop you from traveling. English is widely spoken, especially in the service industry. And translation apps, while clunky, work well enough.
Your Grandpa doesn't sound like he wants his mind changed. I say that partly from what you said, and partly because I know the type. And it's hard to convince anyone who isn't interested in changing their preconceived notions. Which is sad, being stuck in a box of his own making. I can understand you wanting him to see it the way you do. But if you can't, that's not your fault. And he can't hold you back unless you let him.
Surely it's a misunderstanding and it has nothing to do with his politics? He's MAGA in case anyone was wondering, a huge Trump defender
You've answered your own question, and don't call me Shirley.
Assuming the Grandpa watches Fox News / OAN / Newsmax, they've sold him the lie that immigrants are taking their jobs and going to ruin the middle class, meanwhile it's they who are having the middle class vote against their interests, gutting healthcare, breaking up families, dissuading workers to unionize, etc. Basically this politically cartoon:
More accurate version:
He's scared of everything he doesn't know.
Modern conservatism is based on fear and hatred of the 'other.' "Immigrants" (brown people with accents), gays, 'wrong' religions (mostly those practiced by brown people with accents), etc.
Your grandfather is scared of them, and hates them for making him scared. It's rooted in racism and phobias. No justification from him will change it.
As you get older, you will have the option to agree with him, ignore his behaviour for the sake of family harmony, or aggressively reject his beliefs - which will potentially mean rejecting him. Choose wisely, and keep your compassion alive.
Maybe he doesn't want to BECOME the immigrant
Is he Native American, by chance?
If not, I've got some news for him.
You're right, this should be in quotes
They don't understand this point unfortunately.
I think OP edited the post after this comment. The commenter suggested he is not "native" as in native American. So the irony is, the granddad is technically an immigrant himself. That is why OP added the quotes and the extra info in parantheses
He’s been groomed to be terrified of American cities, let alone other countries.
The speak English to those that speak with an accent can come about because some people have a very hard time with accents. Especially as they get older. My mom has a very hard time understanding a someone from the Middle East who is speaking English. It’s not that she is racist it’s that’s she older and her ears are wearing out. My dad is the same way. My mom is more patient when dealing with people who have a strong accent. My dad… less so.
I worked with my dad and got him to understand that it’s not that they aren’t speaking English… it’s that they have a strong accent. I at least got him to stop saying “speak English “ . It’s a small step.
My point is: talk to your grandpa and see if he has a hard time understanding the accent.
The rest of it, ask why he doesn’t like travel. Is he afraid of crime or what is it. Maybe you can show him the truth
As a monolingual English speaking American with Norwegian heritage... You MUST go and visit.
I've been 4 times in 10 years. I've connected with my distant cousins.
Tell Gramps to "get bent".
That's amazing! And Norwegians speak excellent English, I've heard!
he says "Why can't you just stay here?" or "Why can't you visit this country first?"
Just straight up ask him why. He may not have an answer he wants to vocalize, but it puts him in a position where he may have to try internally.
A lot of fear of immigrants comes from the fear of the unknown, which likely corresponds with his fear of you traveling to foreign countries.
Scrolled way too far to find this. Depending on how well traveled OP is their grandpa might be saying, "there's tons of cool stuff much closer to home, why not check that out first?"
Conservatives often have two key defining characteristics that they build their entire belief system around:
A lack of empathy, and a fear of "other" individuals and cultures.
These lead to a whole host of outcomes, and vary by individual. When it comes to travel I often see it expressed in how vacation is viewed.
Many conservatives I know view vacation as being 100% about them - relaxing, eating their favorite food, seeing their favorite sights, doing their favorite things. They do not care about leaning about someone else's experience or culture because they cannot empathize with them, and the xenophobia means they're scared of how to even broach the subject.
To sum it up - Americans are cowards.
Sadly, current events just reinforce that reality even more.
Travel is annoying and everywhere has a weird smell.
Also when you come back home after being gone a while, it smells weird there too until you go nose blind to it again.
Right? Going somewhere is bad and it ruins coming home.
he goes on about how people speak English in America and in Germany and Norway, they speak other languages
They do speak other languages. However, 88% of Norwegians seem to be fluent in English. The percentage is less in Germany, I think about 25%, but that's still enough people that you could get by, particularly in the tourist areas.
Pappy votes MAGA. So it's very likely that the Norwegians and Germans that know English have a better grasp of it.
¿Qué?
Your grandfather is a useless mouth breather. Sorry.
Is that really necessary?
Yes it is. Pretending like Maga are human just ignores the last 10 years. They should be isolated and shunned.