In a way I am fortunate. I have lost contact with my cousins with one reliably Democratic cousin. My sister who I think is fairly conservative is appalled that anyone could have voted for Trump. She asked me to explain it and I couldn’t. Many of my friends are Canadian (equally appalled) or have died. With one exception. He was a good friend when we both taught at U. Illinois. Then I moved to Montreal and he to Calgary. We exchanged emails a couple times a year. Then last fall, he wrote me that he was having trouble registering for a ballot. He would have been doing it at the same place as me, Champaign County, IL. He mentioned in passing that he had voted for Trump in 2016 and 2020. I ghosted him on the spot. Damned if I was going to help him register and vote. (I use an organization called Democrats Abroad which makes it very straightforward.)
I try to be optimistic. I’ve lost a few close friends, a cousin or two, to True Trump Derangement Syndrome (i.e., they’ve lost their minds where he’s concerned), but my conclusion is that I erred in making friends with them in the first place, and that I’m better off for knowing their true characters. Without Trump, they would still be harboring the same bigoted impulses, the same tropism towards greed and selfishness, the same inability to think critically, but I might have been able to gloss over it as “a bad day” or other ways of giving them the benefit of the doubt. But with Trump, their true natures have been revealed, and I can walk away from them with fond memories of better times, but walk away I can do, and have done, happily.
One close friend and former colleague. And a few more casual friends and colleagues. WIth some of those friends, it was no surprise when they came out as MAGA. Much sadder were the nice people who drank the Kool-aid.
No family, thank God. Last year we met relatives in Europe for the first time, and one of the first things we bonded on was American politics.
Every MAGA person I’ve known in my personal life (and its not a ton, but its more than a handful) has been deeply toxic in their personal life in one way or another. If emotionally healthy MAGA people exist I haven’t met them.
I think MAGA is just the final straw that broke the camels back about cutting toxic people out of our lives.
Looking at my social media, I’m having a hard time wrapping my brain around some of the people who are endorsing RFK Jr., just because he wants to ban certain food dyes.
Conversations generally do this. Many Trump supporters are eager to share their views.
I don’t generally scream on the phone.I had to do so with one cousin because he was spouting some really ugly stuff, and when I said I didn’t want to discuss politics with him, he ignored me and kept going. I asked him to stop twice more, but he talked louder to talk over me. I finally yelled at him, “I said STOP! STOP!” and finally a shrill “STOP! I’m not discussing politics with you!”
With another cousin, it was during the pandemic, and she started ranting about how the Chinese started COVID deliberately and worked her way to “These Chinese people are so STUPID!” I interrupted her to reminded her that my DIL, whom she’d met, is Chinese and a genius, but she ignored me and kept talking smack about the Chinese. I told her she needed to stop, but again, she wouldn’t listen. That’s when I yelled.
I should also add that these cousins were both on my Italian mother’s side. Culturally, yelling is seen as a sign of intensity, whereas in other cultures, it’s seen as aggression. I have a friend from the DR who gets it. My father did not. Sometimes Mom and I would go to the basement to yell at each other. He’d always shake his head when we emerged laughing and chatting.
Most of my wifes family are MAGAS. The all live at least 800 miles away.
Well… I don’t know if they are still hard core MAGAS, we just don’t discus it. 'Course that’s pretty easy as we don’t see them very often.
There are 2 other couples that live on ‘my’ road (hey, I lived here way longer than any of them). One couple are good friends. They hate Trump as much as I (If that’s possible).
The other couple… I donno. But think they are MAGAS. We had both couples over to introduce the new couple to our little group. The wife of the new couple went on and on about ‘wokeness’ and mostly just would shut up. It was decidedly strange. Nobody could get a word in edge wise.
They left first. The wife of the couple we like asked 'What in the hell was THAT?" So, yeah odd.
As is usually done in such situations, the new couple would extend an invitation of their own. They have not don’t that, which is fine.
That’s a MAGA flex, all the pinheads who used to publicly adore TFG saw a savior in RFK who revived their scorn for Covid vaccines and inexplicably gave them a platform for healthy living yet they did not realize the absolute nut job that is rfk. But they stuck with him like a parasitic worm. Now what do these twice fooled voters think?
I’m hearing crickets.
I’m not sure how well this fits in the premise of this thread, firstly because the reason for the family split is not strictly politics, and I’m not sure how much direct personal confrontation there has been (since I’m not local to the rest of the family any more).
One of my nieces, Bridget, has myotosis (or something similar) and as a result is immuno-compromised. Obviously, this meant that when the pandemic hit she went fully masked, as did anyone who would be near her. When the vaccines became available, everyone got the shots. Except it turned out that one of her cousin’s husband was a hard anti-vaxxer. Which meant that that their family couldn’t be at any of the family functions. It’s my understanding that this extended to my brother (the cousin’s father) because he, understandably, wanted to be with his grandchildren.
Again, being not local to where they all live I haven’t been directly involved in all this. But when I was finally able to go back to be with the “family” at Christmas the last two years instead of the who;e clan I was only able to see Bridget, her mother, and one of my other brothers.
We cut ties with most all of the folks that we field trialled with for 20+ years, and many 4H families that we knew for more than 15 years, due to the politics. Can’t abide stupidity, even if I’ve exercised a bit of it myself.
My born-again sister copied me in an email in which she expressed her pleasure that Trump had been elected. Just a couple of sentences in the middle of some discussion. I didn’t say anything about it, I didn’t see the point and didn’t want to get into it anyway. But I have emotionally withdrawn almost completely from her, and only participate in the most superficial kinds of emails now. So not actively fallen out/cut ties, but passively close to it.
I wrote off my birth father and several former friends and acquaintances in 2016. Have not regretted that decision so far and I suspect I will not going forward.
Yeah, I think that’s it. For some reason I can never remember exactly how it’s spelled, but looking it up on Wiki the symptoms match. She has good days and bad days, sometimes needs a cane or wheelchair to get around. Pre-covid she liked to go to SF and media cons, which is what bums her out the most.
We cut off one close relative a year ago. He’s always been right wing although not vociferous about it, and an obnoxious drunk, but his good points made him easy enough to tolerate. But over the past nine years he devolved into a pugnacious MAGAT and an angry, belligerent, dangerous drunk, both of which aspects led to his seriously endangering us. He knows we’ve ghosted him, and why.
So we went to my mother and father in-laws today, to check in after he had a fall on Monday, to drop off some goodies, and for me to do more tech support on their laptop.
They’ve got several articles set aside from the local newspaper (very conservative) about the emigration crackdowns, cutting for government spending on research, and ending of DEI programs. He also made one casual racist comment.
I could all but see the steam rising from my wife, along with pain and embarrassment, and got us out of there much earlier than intended.
My wife on the way home was pointing out that DEI was one of the reasons she got a decent job in the STEM fields, that research grants were part of what allowed her to GET her PhD (so her profs could pay her a pittance to do a lot of the work), and how could they be so blind to ignore what helped her and those like her!
The cultivated blindness in the MAGA-sphere is just horrifying.
