this post was submitted on 19 Dec 2024
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United States | News & Politics

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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.

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[–] mindbleach@sh.itjust.works 20 points 5 months ago

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.

[–] SacralPlexus@lemmy.world 86 points 5 months ago (32 children)

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

[–] yuri@pawb.social 31 points 5 months ago

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?”

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[–] ZombiFrancis@sh.itjust.works 14 points 5 months ago (2 children)

What are the odds this guy wept for the CEO and wants to see the suspect executed?

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[–] vikingr@lemmy.world 25 points 5 months ago

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?

[–] riskable@programming.dev 39 points 5 months ago (5 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.

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[–] ubergeek@lemmy.today 48 points 5 months ago

Oh no! People are socialially ostracizing fascists.

Anyways, I hope it doesn't snow today.

[–] TheDoozer@lemmy.world 72 points 5 months ago

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.

[–] qevlarr@lemmy.world 45 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Celebrate adult children calling out their boomer parents on their hyperindividualist bullshit

[–] Raiderkev@lemmy.world 28 points 5 months ago

Womp fucking womp

[–] edgemaster72@lemmy.world 40 points 5 months ago

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!"

[–] InevitableWaffles@midwest.social 12 points 5 months ago

This thing reads reads like the the person in the middle of the disagreement trying to broker peace.

[–] cdf12345@lemm.ee 79 points 5 months ago

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

[–] Nougat@fedia.io 53 points 5 months ago

How Assholes Have Become an Epidemic in America

[–] AnarchoSnowPlow@midwest.social 83 points 5 months ago (1 children)

"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.

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[–] bunkyprewster@startrek.website 12 points 5 months ago (5 children)
[–] Chadus_Maximus@lemm.ee 3 points 5 months ago

Gobsmacked, even.

[–] TheAlbatross@lemmy.blahaj.zone 17 points 5 months ago

If you're not spatchcocking your country, you're just wasting time and ruining it's breasts to save it's thighs, really.

[–] enkille@lemmy.world 11 points 5 months ago

Removed our spines and flattened us to allow for more even cooking. If you remember when those dudes in black suits came around and did that to everyone, that's what this is referring to.

[–] WhiteOakBayou@lemmy.world 18 points 5 months ago

Like a chicken. Where you split the breast so it can lay flat. To illustrate the deepening divide.

[–] onoira@lemmy.dbzer0.com 97 points 5 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] Lemminary@lemmy.world 26 points 5 months ago

I'm having a hard time relinking narc to mean narcissist and not narcotics in my mind. 😔

[–] Dagwood222@lemm.ee 50 points 5 months ago (3 children)

Like so many problems in modern America, you can trace it back to Reagan.

Back in the day, it was important for politicians to try and maintain a civil tone with one another in public, no matter how much they despised each other behind the scenes. Reagan publicly used 'Liberal' as a pejorative and implied that those who disagreed with him weren't really patriotic.

[–] Taleya@aussie.zone 16 points 5 months ago

Nah, the absolute god king and bastard father of ratbag politics is richard fucking nixon

[–] karmiclychee@sh.itjust.works 6 points 5 months ago (2 children)

These days, it's more like they're literally buddies behind the scenes while expressing partisan vitriol in public for show. It's fucking gross.

[–] thefartographer@lemm.ee 38 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I just want to point out that McCarthyism existed before Reaganism. But he was a big fucking fan of it.

[–] Nougat@fedia.io 15 points 5 months ago (1 children)

And the Federalists and Democratic Republicans were wildly confrontational.

[–] Hasherm0n@lemmy.world 13 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Calendar on Adams in 1800...

"Ye will judge without regard to the prattle of a president, the prattle of that strange compound of ignorance and ferocity, of deceit and weakness; without regard to that hideous hermaphroditical character, which has neither the force and firmness of a man, nor the gentleness and sensibility of a woman."

That's just one example of many quotes from that time. There was some wildly vitriolic mud slinging in early American politics.

[–] otter@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 5 months ago

You stop at "mud slinging"? Mofuggas brought guns to a fistfight on congressional/senatorial floors. "Mud" ain't the half of it, and anyone who's not familiar with this history is gonna be doubly surprised when these psychos today cosplay as their favorite fictional version of said founders. 😶‍🌫️

[–] insomniac_lemon@lemmy.cafe 37 points 5 months ago (1 children)

It would be more than that if people had a place to go and a way to get there.

Also it's not just trumpism, it's that your family can be intelligent but fall for grifters... or they will be kind 90% of the time and then without prompt will casually say something really fucked up at dinner.

[–] Kitathalla@lemy.lol 7 points 5 months ago

Yup. Best I could do was to go to a friend's for Thanksgiving. Now it's back to hearing the 'all waking hours' fox news and talk radio.

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