I’ve got to say that I think it depends on the opinion.
If the opinion is that all Muslims are terrorists or that all Jews are nefariosly in control or trying to take control of the USA or that all Black people are stupid or that vaccines make you attract magnets, no, I don’t respect those opinions.
Nor should they be respected. But I am talking about receiving vituperative backlash for saying things like I refuse to estrange myself from my cousin (who has always been there for me when I needed him) because he’s a Trump voter.
That to me is nothing like the opinions you listed.
One of my brothers moved from severe right wing Southern Oregon to that little outpost just outside hell, Conroe, Texas. The Trumpettes in Grants Pass were far to left-leaning for him. For some reason he has dropped out of sight.
Agreed. That’s why I said it depends on the opinion.
My baby daughter got involved(still is) with a redneck. His family heavily influenced his thinking politically. Don’t like to speak ill of the guy but I don’t think he’s got enough brain cells to even know about politics. He says the most outrageous things.
I kinda got in his face during the campaign. I speak poorly and slowly. He had plenty of time to counter argue but he had nothing to say. Just a blank stare. No lights on. He threw his beer bottle across the the deck rail and it broke on the drive way. My husband told him to leave and take his bullshit with him. Of course my daughter, who knows the truth, left with him.
It turned into my fault. And she didn’t talk to me for over a year.
She finally lightened up. Mainly because she needed help buying a car. But it’s held. The boyfriend does not come here anymore. Which is fine with me. I pay her insurance on the car. So I get to say who drives it. So he hates me because I banned his no lisc. ass from driving it. I understand he’s really angry about it.
She comes. She’s here this weekend, I like to think it’s for my birthday but she likes to deer hunt and the camp is opened. I’ll take what I can get.
I really really hated not talking to her.
I know she’s heard us going on about the blue wave. Not uttered a word.
I’m fairly sure she’s not voted the last two elections. I don’t think she likes Trump. But she lives with someone who does. In some circles I’d be instructed to disown her. But I cannot do that.
It’s nearly difficult to not just grab her shoulders and shake it outta her.
I’m not gonna disown her. I’m not gonna bring it up. But I’m also not gonna poke at her about her boyfriend. He’s responsible for his own crap.
We can sometimes be difficult. The liberal position is in large part about tolerance, but the conundrum lies in how tolerant we should be toward bigots. If you cut them too much slack (at least as far as their bigotry is concerned), they will band together and strive to take control of everything, as we have seen.
My friend and I drove through Texas enroute to New Mexico, and we happened to be there on my mother’s birthday, so I called her up, and she was dumfounded that I would go to such an awful place. But, people are people everywhere, and if you try to relate to them on comfortable terms, you can get along with them. There is no need to bring up difficult subjects, and it is not that hard to veer off such talk if others do.
Yes, we can sometimes be jerks when faced with intolerance, but that is because that is the one thing that we cannot afford to tolerate. And for some of us, sometimes, it can hit a tender nerve that pushes us over an edge. It is unfortunate, but the only practical way to deal with a tirade is to walk away from it until it burns out.
I do not currently have any MAGAt friends or relatives that I know of, but if it were to flare up at some time such as I could not leave the vicinity, I think I would just give them the no response until they had burned out on it.
I didn’t express that quite right, and it’s probably not something I will actually do. Since 2023, I’d been trying to warn everyone I know about what would happen if they elected Trump. Tried to tell them about Project 2025. One day, when I was under emotional strain from several things, I was talking to aforementioned bro about all the shite I was going through and on top of it my fears about the country going into the shitter. He could not be less empathetic - about anything I was saying- but lured me into a conversation about politics. I stormed out, shocked and angry and sad. We didn’t speak for two weeks. When we talked it out, I explained that I was looking for a bit of empathy, and that if political issues are making me distressed enough to cry, maybe he ought not to have been so dismissive. Sorry for the ramble. You are correct that it does no good to gloat, and I think I haven’t quite forgiven him for not listening to me when for once, I was 100% correct.
The conversation about it took place before JB dropped out.
The one person I’m very close to who really supports Trump is not a true MAGA-type, but he does feel that Trump’s policies are quite literally preventing America from utter destruction. Immigration is his bugaboo and every conversation ends up with some version of the same dead end: Nothing else matters if we don’t “protect our borders” and only Trump did that right. Just about everything else can be forgiven as long as he continues deporting anyone who isn’t supposed to be here. (This comes with a special focus on “Brandon’s illegals” and, sadly, a nascent concern for “preserving our culture.”)
When we spoke yesterday he was extremely distressed and anticipating two years of utter gridlock and legal chaos, followed by a Dem President who would continue Biden’s suicidal policies to our sure and swift destruction. And that I was blind if I didn’t see that, or stupid or insane if I thought anything else mattered AT ALL. No matter what other issue I tried to turn to, or what other election-related tidbit of interest I tried to mention, he kept bringing it back to the only thing that matters to him.
The fact that this blue wave was so dominant says to me that the Republicans pissed people off in just about every possible way, in every place around the country, in every demographic and social sphere to greater or lesser degrees. This was definitely not a single-issue election. While I love this person dearly, and we talk all the time, I’m so tired of being told how blind and insane I am that I think I’llbe giving him a rest for a while.
One of the wife’s nieces is a strong Trumpist, having voted for him all three times. She is a commercial airline pilot, so not the stereotypical Trump-ite. We haven’t spoken to her since the election, but then we rarely see her.
I completely cut off every trump supporter in my family and friend group 10 years ago during T1. I have never regretted that decision.
I’ve been strongly tempted to chat up my next-door (MAGA) neighbor since Tuesday, but the last time we – civilly – talked politics (probably a year ago), he admitted that the ‘culture war’ issues were kind of His Big Thing, and said that – regarding TG women competing in women’s sports – “if we could go back and nip slavery in the bud, wouldn’t that be a good thing?”
Yeah. Comparing transgender people in competitive athletics to the ownership of sentient human beings by the elite … didn’t really sit all that well with me.
When I saw him a few days back, I spoke about how happy I was about the Fall colors, but how sad I was at the prospect of having to rake leaves.
I beat a hasty retreat very shortly after that.
Did he ban Project 2025, did your mother raise an objection over that? After all, attempts to impose ANY religious doctrine at the governmental level is unconstitutional, so if you are against the one you would HAVE to be against the other, since, obviously, your objection would HAVE to be purely on constitutional grounds.
My MAGA mother has not spoken one word to me about the election. In the past, I haven’t been shy about disagreeing with her in the most polite way I knew how, so she typically doesn’t bring up politics these days. She’s spoken to my sister and is apparently fearful the United States will drown because the awesome might of the Blue Wave.
I haven’t spoken to my brother in four years. That was the first conversation in years, precipitated by my parents having a health crisis and having to move out if their home and into assisted living (they were both coming out of rehab after near death experiences).
He called me an idiot and an asshole because I had like a post on Facebook more than a year earlier making fun of Ted Cruz’s Cancun getaway.
After this election he called our mother (who is 90) and told her that because of their choices (my parents voted democratic this year after decades) their wealth would be expropriated by the death tax and their assisted living facilities would be looted by MS-13 (he’s obsessed with MS-13). My parents do not have remotely the kind of assets where estate taxes would be relevant, heck, they are more likely be penniless when they die than have half a million dollars. They also live in an are with no particular gang activity. It’s a lower middle class suburban to exurban area with lower than average crime rates. Kind of place where a murder is most likely to be a result of domestic strife, not a robbery or drug deal gone bad.
I cannot see us even talking when my parents pass away. A couple of my other siblings are also MAGA. But we just avoid talking about politics and social issues in general. Well, I avoid it 100% and if they start something in the siblings group chat, I just avoid it until they move on to talking about their kids, work or hobbies. Or I just post a picture of my dog on the beach or begging at the breakfast table.