Likewise. My dad strayed and voted for Dubya in 2000, but otherwise he, my mom, my two sisters and our spouses are all centrist or left of center. But we’ll acknowledge where a Republican officeholder or conservative commentator has a point, and we don’t hate those on the right.
I know how you feel OP. My dad rants a lot, listens to Rush and Fox News as much as possible, and believes the worst the Right Wing throws out. They are very much Tea Party supporters at this point. When I was younger, my dad and I loved to debate each other and would disagree, but he wouldn’t go crazy about it. Now, he’s over 80, has little patience, is half deaf but won’t wear his hearing aid, and considers me a Socialist at times because I’m not a Tea Party supporter. My mom has much of the same opinions as he does and will occasionally state them, but for the most part, she hates discussing and arguing about politics. Which is what saves things for the most part when I visit. I try to visit my parents twice a year and talk to them weekly or a little less frequently. I enjoy being with my mom because we share some interests, including computer stuff, so we manage to get along. She’s nearly 80 and has a lot of health issues. Since I want to spend time with them with what time they have left, I decided to ignore my dad’s rants as much as possible and just not engage him on things he says. Basically, that means letting a lot of things just fly by even if I object to them. Plus, my mom, since she hates discussing politics and hates his ranting, will try to get him to stop ranting. All that works for the most part, but occasionally he’ll pop off at me for something innocuous that I say and we might have an argument about that.
I know it’s hard, but ignoring your dad’s rants and not engaging as much as possible (and tell him you don’t want to engage) may be the best course of action, and if you can manage to find common interests that don’t involve fighting so much the better.
Perhaps you should do what Stalin did: declare everyone who disagrees with your politics mentally ill and have them committed to an “asylum”.
Or maybe just slam everyone who isn’t ideologically pure as a filthy Liberal? :dubious:
Come on man, this thread is filled with expressions of pain and sorrow at the loss of normal relationships with family members and you’re trying to make that evil.
What a silly, but all too common, accusation. I’m not “slamming” anyone. If there is an slamming going on, it’s by those who insist that their relatives who disagree with them on politics are, per se, mentally ill.
The very first use of the term “mentally ill” in this thread is you.
Gms453. Again, this is not about disagreement. It is about people we love who have changed in unpleasant ways. Look, I am a registered Republican. I voted for McCain. I am also the guy who started this thread. Read my op again with an open mind.
My Dad never had the hate in his heart he so vociferously expresses now. He spouts off to EVERYONE, and I really mean that: clerks at businesses, neighbors, the lady who delivers the mail. My Dad is now a preacher of his angry, nasty intolerance.
I posted this in MPSIMS for the simple reason that I love my Dad, and I am heartbroken by who he has become. That article on salon resonated. My Dad is not the only one.
And before you call me a whiny pussy, know that I have been in harm’s way on more than a few military adventures in the ME and Africa.
I have watched this happen to one of my brothers. I keep wondering how it happened. But tonight I received a phone call soliciting opinions that I thought pointed the way. The questioner asked if I approve or disapprove of Obama. I said neither because I cannot put a blanket answer on that question. He then asked, well then, do you disapprove of Congress? Again, I said while I was upset with a lot of stuff, I cannot give a blanket answer. He was so frustrated with my unwillingness to be put in one of his two camps that just mumbled, in a disgusted tone of voice, thank you for your time and hung up.
Is it the political parties or the media who is putting us in one camp or the other? Why do they give me only the yes/no option for a broad question? There are some things that Obama has done that I approve of, there are others that I don’t. And how do I approve of a person? Why not ask if I approve of his politics, choice of religion, haircut? They are all different things.
I think that attitude of “option a or option b” is too polarizing and the demand that we fit that mold is breaking down our ability to communicate. Polls don’t understand nuance so if we want the pollsters/media/politicians approval (and humans thrive on approval) we must accept their all or nothing simplifications.
My brother does. I refuse to. We change the subject just so we can talk to each other.
A woman who is a manager at one of my best clients is a Fox News watching Rush Limbaugh listener. When Obama was elected, she wished this father of two young girls would be assassinated. Yeah, I was sickened, but in areas outside of politics, she is a very nice, friendly person. We’ve known each other for 20 years, but I’ve never probed to try to understand the source of her political views. She does knows I’m a big old liberal.
A few months back, I’m sure fully stocked with right-wing talking points, she asked me about Obamacare. I told her that I was unhappy with it because I was a supporter of extending Medicare to everyone. She was shocked when I told her that the “Individual Mandate” was the Republican alternative to Hillary Clinton’s proposal and was proposed by the Heritage Foundation. That the Obama team backed it with the idea that, since it was a Conservative think tank’s idea in the first place, they would support it.
In spite of all the stuff she had heard and seen, this was entirely new to her.
Maybe it’s like all those people who hate the idea of gay marriage and equal rights - until it’s their kid who comes out.
While I don’t wish to imply an equivalency between Leftism and Rightism, and there have been some typical hateful things said in this very thread (“My generation is waiting for your generation to die already,”) I have to pipe in to say that my father has gone in the exact opposite direction. This once-moderate who voted for Reagan in the eighties because he favored lower taxes and limited social spending has joined the camp that describes Obama as a “right-wing corporatist” and vociferously supports single-payer universal health care. At family functions he will take a totally apolitical, pleasant conversation and use any excuse to hijack it with rants about the Republican party, corporations, the rich, etc. Seriously, it’s like, “hey Dad, I’m thinking of going on vacation to Yellowstone this summer.” “Oh yeah? You going to take your assault rifle? Cause Obama, shill of the Republican party that he is, just signed a law allowing guns in national parks. Yeah, if there’s one thing we need, it’s more guns. The Republicans sure will be happy when some lunatic blows your head off…” Occasionally someone will say “hey, give it a rest, we’ll all have a better time if we just agree not to talk about politics” and he will cool it for that one evening, but next Thanksgiving, Christmas, or birthday he just does the same thing. I’m not sure what one can do about relatives like this; some in this thread have suggested an agreement not to talk about politics but some people just won’t abide by that.
I have a stupid question. When we’re talking about Fox News, we’re referring to the cable news channel, yes? Or are there certain shows on the local terrestrial broadcast stations? I ask because my parents don’t have cable, but might watch what news stuff comes on the regular broadcast station. My mom used to listen to Rush Limbaugh on the radio, I’m not sure if she still does. I watched a local 10pm news broadcast once on Fox, expecting to see/hear right wing stuff but it seemed fine. I also don’t have cable.
They’re in their mid-late 60’s and are also starting to go down that road from mildly conservative (normal) to further to the right than I’m comfortable with. Stuff that’s anti-Obama, fear of death panels/anti-universal health care, anti-Muslim and gun rights stuff.
So if the Fox News being referred to is the cable news channel, well, at least in my case they’re getting those ideas from somewhere else. Maybe it’s just the radio, or certain shows that are also on the local Fox channel. Maybe it really is something strange that comes with aging. I’ll add to the sentiments in the rest of this thread, though, and say it saddens me even though it’s relatively mild so far, but enough that I have to gently steer conversations away from politics. When my mom starts spewing stuff about Muslims, I seriously want to slap her. And take her for a ride down Devon Ave on a Saturday night. My neighborhood. Ooooh. Scaaary.
The local Fox network affiliates don’t appear to have any particular bias in their news, other the the usual ones of leading with shootouts, kidnappings and other such nonsense.
They could be being mailed Fox news glurge by their peers.
Thank you.
True, my mom forwards me some crazy shit sometimes. Usually quickly followed by an answer from me with links to Snopes and two or three other cites for her to peruse the debunking of whatever crap she sent me. I’ve gotten a lot fewer of those in the last year or so, but who knows what she’s still receiving/reading? I hope she figured out to at least check Snopes. I’m pretty sure her Google search-fu has much to be desired. I’ve been hoping she has just learned to delete stuff with stupid subject lines without reading it first, but perhaps not. sigh
It’s critical thinking (which I’ve learned much better since joining here) that I think is just going out the window with age.
We’ve always had political disagreements in the family, but we’ve also always been very respectful of each others beliefs. To some extent, I think it’s because we’ve always disagreed that we’ve learned to tread a little lightly. I think it’s when you get people isolated from anyone with an opposing view that they start to get meaner about it.
So much of this seems to be a captive audience/opportunity sort of thing.
Example: my step-brother lives several states away and I only see him an average of once a year or so at family gatherings. I have always known him to be an easy-going person who cares very much about his family and would do anything for them.
So I was taken aback maybe five years or so when, at one such gathering, I walked into the kitchen and caught him in a conversation with his dad, my stepfather.
The gist of the conversation, and this is a direct quote, was: “I’m mad.” He went on to list a whole bunch of things he was mad about, the specifics of which escape me now. With a bit more conversation, it was clear what was going on.
He had recently taken a job driving a tanker truck over long distances, and listening to Rush Limbaugh was a part of his daily routine. He had bought into all of it, hook, line and sinker.
Neither my stepfather — who remains, as he always has been, liberal in his views — nor I chose to engage my brother at the time. And none of this has come up at subsequent gatherings. Still, it disturbs me to think that he has been taken in in this way.
I don’t have a problem with those who hold views that differ from mine, as long as they can express them cogently and back them up.
The problem I have with basing the whole of your political outlook on Rush Limbaugh is that entire books have been written, and websites devoted, to the errors of fact he routinely makes on his show. From everything I’ve gathered, he’s not one to let the facts stand in the way of his stances, and routinely pulls statistics and other supporting evidence right out of his ass if he thinks they’ll work to his benefit.
And it’s not to say that those on the liberal side are blameless in this regard, either. It’s wrong no matter who does it.
Anyway, the point being that my brother, like millions of others, was a sitting duck for this sort of thing. In the end, I think, people like being mad, like getting their blood roiling a little. Makes them feel more alive, I suppose.
As numerous examples in this thread and elsewhere have shown, this has been taken to extremes never before seen.
Did much of this rightward lurching begin about 2008? (There seems to be much irrational antipathy directed against Obama specifically.)
I think it’s a lot easier to stoke the fires of rage when the economy isn’t good. Older people fear the nation is in decline and see their children & grandchildren struggling in ways they didn’t. Fox News feeds right into that and provides the convenient scapegoats of minorities, immigrants, gays and abortions.
This happened to my retired uncle. He would be so passionate about false information and lies that he took in as news. I would try to counter with facts, but it was never any use.
I know other like that as well. And again, it’s not about disagreement when even simple facts are plainly ignored.
More like 1992. The unhinged hatred of Bill Clinton really was at least as intense as that toward Obama - even the racial-fear aspect, since he was as out front about anti-racism as any pol in the country. The Antichrist stuff was in full gear, and there was a real market for the Clinton Chronicles tapes among what today we would consider the more-normal right wing.
I heard a story on the radio that stated that thinking about mortality can make people xenophobic.