Would you cut out your own family members over voting choices?
Edit: not sure why am I getting downvoted, I’m genuinely curious, not a suggestive question
As a queer person I don’t feel safe around people who support killing queer people. So obviously yes.
I have many conservative family members who, misguided as they are, would be vehemently opposed to killing queer people.
Remember the bell curve. Most people are not the extremes.
If you’re at a table with 11 people and a Nazi, you’re at a table with twelve Nazis.
Most people aren’t the extremes, sure. But if they refuse to denounce the extremists, they create space for the extremists viewpoints to survive and gain traction and acceptance on a broader scale.
So, no, even though I know most of my family would be against outright killing me, I also know they support and vote for people who are in favor of killing me. So no, I do not feel safe around them. How do I know if any of them hold extremist viewpoints before it’s too late? If they don’t denounce it, they’re every bit as culpable.
I hope by conservatives they meant Republicans (the MAGA cult of fascists and deranged lunatics). We’ll see if there are enough conservatives that are “vehemently opposed” to all of this soon enough. The Harris team definitely thinks so, for what it’s worth.
The people that still insist on voting for Trump, for possibly the third time, after a decade of this madness… can’t blame anyone for losing patience and avoiding them. It’s tragic, but the cult is real and has detached people from reality.
I stopped talking to my grandparents not strictly because of their vote but because every single conversation turned into them screaming and ranting about the black/asian/mexican/etc menace, and saying anything in disagreement got you screamed at or sometimes threatened with violence. we could be pleasantly chatting about the wildlife in their backyard and then suddenly it’s all about how the ‘n----rs’ are ruining the country and we need to bring lynching back. these same people will loudly say they aren’t racist, somehow. they couldn’t even behave themselves in public and would talk like this at restaurants in full hearing of anyone around!
Tough question, but you spend though time online and you hear stories of abuse from Trump parents and people ghosting them. It’s not so much about the voting choices though, but who those people are— which of course is correlated.
That said, you shouldn’t think in absolutes. I certainly quarantine family to once-a-year if they’re terrible, if even that. It’s not as direct as making a pact to never see them, you just avoid unpleasant people. That just happens to be Trump supporters lately since he appeals to the worst kind of people, but before that it was my folks like my grandpa who called Obama the n word and kicked my dad out at 15.
That make sense?
Yeah, that makes sense in a normal, not batshit insane world. But I view this election as different, as we are talking about overt fascism being on the ballot (and the race is neck and neck).
When it comes to fighting against fascism, you must think in absolutes. This ideology is cancerous, and it must be completely eliminated in order to prevent the incalculable suffering and death that it promises.
Sorry if that hurts people’s feelings.
I think it makea sense and gives a fuller perspective on this. To me the key words are unpleasant people. I was thinking to make the tradeoff of suffering through listening to their opinions on matters to help arm myself (figuratively, FBI) when the next discussion opportunity comes up (or argument). I frankly don’t know if that’s effective, to be an opposing voice in their lives. And just to clarify this is aimed at misguided family members, not the ones that are outright unpleasant
To be fair, I do the same thing- arm myself (figuratively!). If you have the emotional and mental bandwidth to deal with them, flexing those debate muscles is a great idea. But, life is hard and if you don’t have that bandwidth, they aren’t your problem.
It really depends.
I’m in Australia so while I detest our conservative party leader (not presently prime minister but probably one day), he’s not really as abhorrent as Trump.
If someone very close to me who I care about quietly mentioned that they voted for someone as awful as Trump, that wouldn’t be immediate irrevocable dismissable from my “inner circle”, but it would certainly change how I thought of them.
Perhaps oddly, it would be a bit like someone saying they believed vaccines were harmful or that the earth is flat. They’re not stupid (necessarily), but there’s some complex and concerning psychological stuff going on.
You will notice that it is usually Democrats who have no qualms with cutting ties with their families over trivial ideological differences.
Because the “trivial” ideological differences aren’t a two-way street. Democrats want people to be able to live as they want. Republicans are working to exterminate certain groups. As a conservative-passing liberal, (I’m pale enough to pass for white, and work in a conservative-biased industry), it’s really really hard to stay friends with conservatives; They’ll inevitably get too comfortable and drop an N-word because they think I’m safe. Or they’ll call one of our mutual BIPOC friends “one of the good ones” like it’s supposed to be a compliment.
In short, liberals aren’t an existential threat to conservatives. Liberals may have an issue with some of conservatives’ choices, but “owning guns” isn’t something inherent to your personhood. You aren’t born with a gun in your hand, and you won’t immediately die without a gun. On the other hand, conservatives are an existential threat to liberals, because they take issue with innate traits, rather than their individual choices. You can’t choose to be black, but conservatives will judge you for it regardless.
One side is saying “I’d like people to exist without judgement” and the other is saying “you don’t have the basic human right to exist.” And then the latter makes fun of the former when the former cuts ties.
