I’ve had some success with some family cousin Trumpers to turn the conversation around to them to justify Trump’s negatives. Rhetorically low road tactic of me, but them’s the times we live…
“So. As a voter, is it his criminal convictions, his sexual assaults, or his racism that most appeals to you. As a voter.”
This at least seemed to force acknowledgement of his negatives and clearly state my moral line, and avoid Gish Gallop defenses of Trump before they started.
I don’t believe it will be a digression to mention something about a Trump voter.
Before and during my second marriage, I lived out in the Arkansas woods. What neighbors we had were kind and helpful to each other. Mrs. Plant v.2.0 got her van stuck. The guy who came to her aid, who had never seen her before, who drove to borrow his father’s more formidable truck and wanted nothing in return, almost certainly voted for Trump.
We’ve just spent the last 18 years raising our son. Over that time you try to teach them empathy, kindness, honesty, humility. Treat others as you want to be treated. Assist those less fortunate than yourself. Don’t take advantage of others. Take responsibility for your actions. Basic traits every parent would agree, or should agree, they want their kids to have.
Trump’s actions show he possesses none of these traits. He has zero empathy, he is cruel, a pathological liar, has zero humility, treats others like dirt yet demands loyalty and praise, takes advantage of anyone any chance he can get, and takes zero responsibility blaming everyone else for his blunders.
Any adult who accepts, excuses, supports, and rewards this behavior is guilty by association. How they can explain their actions to their children I do not know. I would not want someone like this raising my grandchildren.
All lies or based on lies, according to the Fox News devotees in my family.
Ah, you’re being too generous. You didn’t even mention what a corrupt, venal, incompetent businessman he is (obvious from how many business ventures he’s run into the ground including multiple waterfront casinos); how much he likes to play at a self-made billionaire even though he was gifted a fortune and propped up by corrupt foreign banks and Russian gangsters; and his very public and creepy obsession with his daughter.
If you tried to imagine a figure who is the most clownishly inappropriate and inept person to occupy the Oval Office, Donald Trump would be the bespoke candidate for such a role. You could not engineer a being with traits less well suited to leading the country, or indeed, leading a town hall meeting of a village of eight people.
Stranger
Douglas Adams did have a variant opinion on the ideal candidate to play the part of the Executive, if we’re honest. And in that particular mold, Trump has some amount of fit.
Zaphod Beeblebrox would be a far better president even if one of his heads just lolls there like a hollow rubber jack-o-lantern.
Stranger
This is what’s so depressing about the whole thing. And some want to dismiss it all as “political disagreements.”
This article has a pretty good list of his most recent despicable acts from this term.
“The full list of outrages is too long to list here, and I assume that most informed readers know about most of them. But the general outline includes such abominations as masked government thugs abducting people off the street and disappearing them into a secret detention system, people being deported to a foreign gulag with no due process, curtailing cancer and Alzheimer’s research for no reason, shutting down dozens of vital government services, threatening social security and health care for millions of vulnerable citizens, targeting veterans, destroying foreign aid in ways that will literally result in the deaths of millions of people, using the Department of Justice to wreak revenge on the president’s enemies and much, much more. It is overwhelming, which is exactly how they planned it in Project 2025. The reality is much worse than the abstract planning document foretold.”
During Trump’s first administration, I often read the quote from rabbi Jonathan Sacks: “If your faith makes losing a sin, then cheating becomes a sacrament.” And it seems that Americans do prefer success as a virtue in itself, over character.
If Trump was half as bad he’d be worse.
You know that will not turn out well.
And again, why do you feel that is necessary? What do you hope to accomplish? What do you want the end result to be?
Maybe the realization that this decision really matters and that it is NOT okey dokey to support Trump. More self-realization on her part that this decision is very important to them. Is that really too much to ask, or are they supposed to pretend that it just isn’t that big a deal? What has to be done on her part for them to actually push back, do you think?
You can’t force that young lady to not love her Trumper boyfriend.
You can’t force grown adults to think like you do. Or vote like you.
You can talk. You can ask.
You can state your opinion of Trump and the crap going down.
I assure you the first derogatory remark you make about the Trumper boyfriend and it’s over. They’ll sit and listen no more. If they’re Iike every young adult I’ve ever met. They know more than you, they think.
Tread softly, if you want these people in your life.
Is it o.k. if they state their opinion every time he states his opinion?
Why not? Communication is better than no talking.
Why is it their business on the political views of her husband? Unless the OP’s endgame is
We are cutting all ties with you because you’re marrying a Trumpist.
We want to explain to you how we’re right and you’re wrong.
We want to open your eyes and have you break up with him.
We want you to realize we are right and become a Democrat
I really don’t think the OP has thought this through. Maybe I missed one of their posts but it seems the plan is:
Did you see that post I missed because it seems you’re answering for them as if you have.
At what cost? It’s not like this is some coworker that you don’t really want to talk to anyways.
Sure, but that’s not how the OP was presented so I don’t think that’s what is happening.
I feel the OP’s post is condescending towards their granddaughter and I really feel this is all about them explaining how they are right and their granddaughter’s fiance is wrong and the granddaughter is wrong by association. So again I ask, what does the OP hope is the outcome from all of this because it ain’t gonna be, “Let’s agree to disagree and you’re still invited over for Thanksgiving.”
Agreed!
I work with someone who voted for Trump. She is the person (adult) I spend the most time with during the day.
She is also very easy to work with and get along with, and work is very pleasant now.
There is another co-worker who, I happen to know, agrees with me up and down on most political points. She also is a very difficult person to work with. And I plain don’t like her. In strict point of fact, no one likes her.
It’s caused me some cognitive dissonance, but what it boils down to is that I’m liking work more than ever right now-- more than I have since I had to quit interpreting. And there’s already a rule not to discuss politics, so we don’t.
If we could, I wouldn’t change her mind, and she wouldn’t change mine, and work would be unpleasant.
I know so many people who hate their jobs, and I love mine, so I’m just counting my blessings.
The reason fascism was able to flourish in America is because a lot of people held their tongue in the interest of not making a scene, of not ruining Thanksgiving, etc.
Being a fascist isn’t just having a different political view and pretending that fascism is just another valid viewpoint is to enable fascism.