I’m sure that’s a great consolation for all the people that cousin helped condemn.
This country may never go full Nazi, but then again, look at Germany 1934.
But if it does, all this “let’s not hate the haters” isn’t going to do a damn bit of good when they stick you in the rail car. Your trump-loving relatives might be sad, or they might be the ones that turned you in to the US Gestapo.
If you mean, am I sitting him down with facts and figures trying to show him how he’s wrong, then no. If you mean, am I trying to show by example that Dems/liberals are sensible, compassionate people, and throwing in the occasional slightly pointed (rounded?) remark in areas where I know I’ll have some traction, then yes. But I don’t realistically expect to change his views significantly, except that I think I can contribute to keeping him from sliding into Trumpmania.
Agreed - one is not required to maintain relationships with anyone just because they are family. I maintain a relationship with my cousin because he has a long history of kindness toward me and my mother, despite having grown up with pretty crappy role models regarding compassion, and because he is my link to a sense of “what are my [cultural] family roots?” The latter would not be enough on its own to keep me connected to him, but combined with the former it forms a pretty powerful argument to retain ties.
I doubt history has ever demonstrated good coming out of hate. Good comes out of principled resistance, not hatred.
Much, perhaps most resistance against the evils of the world is driven by hate. Whether it’s fighting against Nazis or against something like cancer, hatred is perfectly capable of motivating people to do good.
We’re not dealing with the fucking FORCE! Hate has its place.
You think the French resistance didn’t hate the Nazis, that is was just a polite disagreement on principles? You think the allied forces didn’t hate Hitler, just thought he was a not-quite nice guy that was misunderstood?
I’m sure the VC hated the American presence in Viet Nam. Look how that worked out. There’re still there and we’re long gone.
Your snipey, one line, cryptic drive-bys do nothing. You go in every Trump, election P&E thread and try to sound like you’re a brilliant clairvoyant.
What you are is a person with no power to help himself and you feel put out by the recent election.
Did you not think this was a possibility? You should have taken the last 8 years to prepare.
Lip service helps nobody.
It’s not right to tell Carol to disown, hate and curse her cousin. She has stated she’ll keep them and that’s totally her choice. I suggest she’s the bigger person for it.
I’m sure that’ll make her feel much better if and when he turns on her. Trumpists are dangerous and should be avoided out of self preservation. Like all forms of fascists.
You do not know he’ll turn on her. That’s just hate and fear talking.
Hating and fearing Trumpists is the rational position to take. And supported by history.
Well, dude. You’re gonna have a tough 4 years sustaining this.
Try, “the rest of my life”. I expect to be killed, and for the fascist regime to last until the nation is destroyed.
It’s nice that some here have cousins who are quietly ignorant and with whom they can avoid discussing politics and that some have been able to cut off family with whom they vehemently disagree. Some of us, however, can do neither. I have a cousin who lost both her parents and one of her two siblings within a few years. she was in her 20s. (The other one has been batshit crazy since his twin died during that time.) She then viewed my mom as her mom and thinks of me as a sister. Moreover, like CairoCairol’s cousin, she did some good things for the family. When my mom, in her 80s, had an emergency appendectomy, I was there but could only stay 2 weeks afterward. My cousin . drove 2 hours and stayed with her another week. When my other aunt and her daughter weren’t speaking, this cousin repaired the gap. She can be warm, funny, and loyal. And besides all this, we’re Italian, so la famiglia e tutto is a core value.
However–and this is the part that’s largely unacknowledged in this discussion–my cousin has swallowed whole everything she’s heard on Fox “News” and won’t shut up about it. She blamed “the Chinese” for Covid and angrily told me how “stupid” “those people” are, though she knows my beloved DIL is Chinese. She loudly scorns LGBTQ people, though I have LGBBTQ friends and relatives who stand to lose important rights. She opposes immigration, legal and otherwise, even though our moms were immigrants.
I haven’t spoken to her since the election and am dreading her next phone call. I’ll have to ban all discussion on the election, politics, immigration, abortion, race and ethnicity, the economy, education (I’m a retired teacher.), COVID, climate change, and a host of other topics and, since all roads lead to MAGA with her, I’ll have to put up road blocks on subjects leading TO those subjects. I’ve tried steering her around them, but it doesn’t always work, and besides, I’m angrier and have less patience. I’ve TRIED gently and persistently using truth and logic. It doesn’t work with opinionated and overbearing people who have bought into an alternate reality.
I’m afraid I’ll snap and tell her what an ignorant traitor she is and how ashamed Mom would be of her views. I don’t want to hurt her after all she’s lost and all she’s done for the family, and I do love her, but I can’t listen to her Dunning Krueger ravings, either.
So yeah, I’ll “keep her,” and care about her, but for those of us who have cousins who insist on spilling their toxic crap, it’s understandable if we don’t want to have them over for Thanksgiving and try to keep them at arms’ length.
This shit isn’t that easy.
I am reminded of the old adage “Hate the sin, not the sinner.”
With regard to anyone who voted for Trump, I think it is absolutely appropriate to hate that they voted for Trump, and to hate the attitudes, beliefs, etc. that go along with that.
But hating people, villainizing people, demonizing people, being contemptuous of people, dividing people into “us” vs. “them”—that’s a big part of what Trumpism is. And I want no part of it.
Maybe if you calm down and realize this is all in your head and not the reality you can live to see a better time.
If you are in some kinda real danger start preparing now.
I assume you’ll still be in the US as most people saying they’re gonna leave can’t or won’t.
Get prepared now instead of spouting scare words to people suffering with relatives and friends and their political choices. And making them feel bad for not disowning them.
They can’t kill all of us and we certainly can’t kill all of them…History shows that.
A phrase I’ve always considered hypocritical, and usually used to justify bigotry. Hating the sin is hating the sinner.
The phrase itself is not hypocritical, even though some of the people who use it may be.
Well, then, hate the hypocrisy, not the — hey, wait a minute.
Thankfully, my cousin has done none of those things.
Doesn’t that kind of depend, though? If the phrase is used in reference to gay people, I agree - to hate a person’s sexual identity is tantamount to hating them, however much anyone might try to deny it.
But if my son “sinned” by, let’s say, becoming a drug addict and stealing a car, I’d hate the sin, but I’d still love my son.
Unlike most people in this thread, I don’t have many friends, and I don’t have that much family left, either. Maybe I’m selfish, but I don’t intend to get rid of the ones I still have unless I absolutely, positively have to.
I am in a similar situation. All of my immediate family including my son are deceased. I have a couple friends and a number of cousins that I remain close to. Some are Democrat some are Republican.
All are beloved as they are the only people left in my life.
One of the Republican cousins is my Power of Attorney and Executor of my estate and will be taking care of my end of life tasks. She has also been like a sister to me all my life.
I am not giving up the only people left in my life because of politics.