Summary
With Donald Trump’s 2024 election win, young Gen Z voters like Kate, Holly, and Rachel are grappling with deepening divides with their Trump-supporting parents.
For many, these conflicts go beyond policy disagreements, touching on core values and morality. Parents once focused on fiscal conservatism have, in some cases, embraced conspiracy theories, creating painful rifts.
Studies suggest political divisions are increasingly seen as moral judgments, fostering a “mega-identity” where political views signify personal decency.
For these young adults, maintaining family connections amidst such ideological fractures has become challenging.
This is what we’re going through with my in laws right now.
Parents? My friend volunteered as a poll worker on the University campus here. At his location, 25% of the students voted for the orange fascist.
Not too strange of a phenomenon if one considers what populism focuses on, the fabrication of divides in order to drive tribal responses from it’s followers.Trump’s rhetoric is only one variety of it that happens to be very effective at creating that divide, those that are swayed shouldn’t really be seen as people that support all of his nastiest views, but as people that have been taken in by that sense of tribalism.
The loss of community is increasingly problematic for individuals in this day in age. There exists too many groups vying for our attention, many of which being communities that span across the globe. And with all these options, local communities may not always seem preferential to these global ones due to comparative size or accessibility. However, they still generally offer much more, and can prevent people from feeling isolated in their lives. Populist campaigns seek to take these people that are divorced from a community, often socially isolated people, and give them a group that seemingly supports them. So long as it’s welcoming, it doesn’t really matter who’s at the head of it, nor it’s beliefs.
I feel the fact that older people that aren’t quite retirement age and younger men being the people that are most likely to vote for Trump kinda speaks to this theory. I feel like these groups are the most at risk when it comes to developing rewarding communities, so a group like MAGA could be appealing to them.
I say this, as a parent, to people who worry about cutting off their parents if their parents are toxic people:
You owe your parents nothing. You did not ask to be born. They owe you everything. That’s their duty.
I don’t know about you but some of us chose to get born. I remember rolling my round ass down through a warm long tube as I waited for my other half to meet up. And, I also remember waiting patiently for the right blast off, one that wasn’t going to end up in or on a tummy, and swimming so hard and fast past all the other guys.
I’d still probably do it again, but it would’ve been nice to know more about the outside world. But back then it was all just about swimming and trying to hook up.
I’m skipping Thanksgiving
