He’s a father of a 28-year-old son and he’s hurting. A retired police officer, he proudly voted for Donald Trump every time he ran and never hid his political beliefs from his family. “My son and his wife say that since I’m a fan of Trump they’re no fan of mine and cut me off,” he said. “Now I can’t see my only grandchild who I was so close to. It’s crazy and it’s tragic.”
It’s also increasingly common. The 2024 election spatchcocked the nation, widening a rift that was exposed in 2016 and put in an even sharper gulf four years later. Now, the hyper-partisan politics in the shadow of the 2024 election is breaking the bonds of families to a greater extent than ever before.
Maybe its just that I was disowned in 2015 for being trans, but I find it hard to be sympathetic. We choose who we vote for and if your loved ones say your political views are so reprehensible that they won’t speak to you, either take the cue or accept that you shit the bed and now you have to lie in it
I am recently estranged from a narc parent.
Unfortunately in my case, it isn’t both of them. I have tried to explain to the other why I can’t roll with it, but it has been very difficult. Collateral damage, but I feel like I have no other option.
Scruples are about the only thing a lot of us have anymore.
Calling the bigotry and violence of fascist rhetoric “political beliefs” is lying by construction.
If you want to be friends then why aren’t you friendly?
They’re a bloodless thing, politics, abstract, almost administrative sometimes. Making decisions about who you associate with based on political views is apparently like getting into a screaming fight over an improper stapling methodology on one’s TPS reports, or ending a friendship over pizza toppings. And at other times, political views are sacrosanct, holy, the most special and personal part of a person’s belief structure, something that a decent person would be no more likely to critique, much less reject, than they would be likely to tell a new mother that her baby is ugly.
I have noticed that whether political views are trivial or sacred seems to depend on the point the professional mourner of crumbling civility is trying to make in the moment, in order to bolster civility. They are usually trivial when we are meant to make friends despite them. They are usually sacrosanct when we try to point out what they are.
But some of us have noticed that politics are neither of these things, have noticed that politics are where power is arranged and distributed, and have been listening not to the civility mourners or the supremacists they defend, but rather to the many people who are directly harmed by harmful policies driven by harmful political views, who have no luxury to believe in false separations. They know that politics are, in fact, a matter of spiritual alignment, and that spirit is not something to do with ghosts, but with the blood and guts of how collective belief touches their lives.
Two-thirds of survey respondents agree that ending contact with a family member because of political beliefs is not justified and that most family fights over politics could be easily resolved.
Ah yes those pesky, abstract “political” beliefs shouldn’t get in the way of family. Such esoteric ideals like
- I believe in human rights.
- Rapists should not be in power.
- Nazis are evil.
Who could ever let a silly disagreement over politics spoil a relationship? /s
It’s hard to be told “everything will be fine” when much of the incoming administration believes trans people aren’t real/shouldn’t exist/are all groomers. And it’s really difficult to even associate with folks who voted for this and refuse to see the coming storm.
Fucken, not to compare everything to nazis but it is LITERALLY the “first they came for x, but i am not x so i said nothing”, only it’s the fucking PARENTS hearing THEIR KIDS say “I don’t feel safe” and saying nothing except “can you believe my crazy children?”
This suggests we may need to put in extra effort to take responsibility for our role in conflicts, show greater empathy for others’ values and perspectives
Hah! That’s pretty much exactly what I’ve said to my (right wing) relatives on a number of occasions but it doesn’t work. Does the author not realize that this perspective is very liberal?
Liberals and progressives are the folks with empathy that can’t fathom how anyone could vote for Donald Trump; a well-known grifter, actual criminal, tax cheat, and total scumbag who cheated on all of his wives.
I have a ton of empathy yet I still don’t understand conservatives. The only thing that makes sense to me is that they’re authoritarian and their chosen authority tells them to hate certain people, that any given thing is a conspiracy, and that no government-run program is ever a good thing. But to tell them that to their faces is like telling them that they’re stupid and suckers. To them it’s incredibly insulting.
Yet when you try to figure out how they (someone who lives off Social Security) came to believe that, “Mexicans are stealing our jobs” it’s the only thing that makes sense. They really are suckers. They may have been “smart” at some point in their life but not anymore. They choose how to vote based on anger at imaginary enemies and fake news.
Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.
They want Order. Specifically, an Order where everyone is put on the Proper Rung of Society and Keeps to Their Place. And of course their Place is above X (insert minority group here) because they are Special because of Y (insert ridiculous circular reasoning—usually racist—here).
These people literally believe that if Society becomes Unordered, it will collapse. And of course the only ones who can maintain that Order are the Great and Glorious White Men. The proof is that all the richest, most powerful people are White Men! (Any rich, powerful person who isn’t White and Male obviously got there through DEI action or cheating somehow.)
Innuendo Studios has a pretty good video on this in his Alt-Right Playbook series.
Maybe he just shouldn’t be such a snowflake. As they say, facts don’t care about your feelings, and the fact is that every single Trump voter tacitly approves of what a repugnant human being he is.
You are the company you keep.
Too bad, so sad grandpa. Do better. Be better. BE BEST.
I don’t really care, do you?
Oh no! People are socialially ostracizing fascists.
Anyways, I hope it doesn’t snow today.
What are the odds this guy wept for the CEO and wants to see the suspect executed?
Probably low. Hatred of health insurance is bipartisan. He probably thinks that Trump is more populist than democrats (which is wrong) and that he’s more likely to rein them in (also wrong. They’re tied with democrats and a snowballs chance in hell)
Even Ben Shapiro is getting raked over the coals for sympathizing.
Even Ben Shapiro is getting raked over the coals for sympathizing.
Ooh, that is actually a fair point indeed. It definitely lends credibility to that notion since even Daily Wire enjoyers are in the camp.
…Although this guy has gone so far as to put his sob story into publication so I feel like the odds still put him closer to Benny than the general populace. I still like the odds I think.
he proudly voted for Donald Trump every time he ran and never hid his political beliefs from his family.
This sounds like an extremely euphemistic way to say he would not shut the fuck up about Donald Trump and his political beliefs. And his family likely gave him every chance in the world to quit that shit, and when they eventually just stopped wanting to be around him, he blamed everything but his own shitty behavior.
I don’t know if that’s what happened in his case, but it certainly sounds like it.
Celebrate adult children calling out their boomer parents on their hyperindividualist bullshit
Yes, the grandfather is hurting and is clearly the victim. It cannot be due to his own choices and his children calling him out for being a shit person.
ACAB
It’s crazy and it’s tragic.
take a drink every time a narc parent uses the words ‘weird’ or ‘crazy’ to describe being treated like the horrible person that they are.
I’m having a hard time relinking narc to mean narcissist and not narcotics in my mind. 😔
“Choosing bonds of identity over familial obligations” has judgemental connotations.
The thing about “bonds of identity” is that those people respect your right to exist and your personal agency. The family that deserves to be cut off does not.
If you’ve had it explained to you multiple times why the decisions you make are harming the people you claim to love, and you don’t change your behavior, don’t be surprised when that person you say you care about tells you to piss up a rope.
And for some of us we’ve built a culture around it because family has historically failed us as a community
When asked to reflect on how their actions and choices have lead to their families cutting them out, they responded “We’ve tried nothing and we’re all out of ideas!”
How Assholes Have Become an Epidemic in America
