i only have my father left, but both my parents were always latin-american leftists and so were most of my siblings.

most of my siblings married maga-white people and their children (as well as their children) are maga and my father and siblings have become maga-sympathetic as a result.

only my sister and i remain leftists and i’m convinced it was entirely because we were the only ones to marry other latinos. we both keep our distance for the rest of our family. it’s been 10 years since she’s seen the rest of the family and i decided to do the same thing last xmas. we only visit cousins/aunts/uncles that have maintained ties with our latin-american origins and that luckily happens to coincide with our politics.

my father still tries to maintain our relationship; but i suspect that it has more to do w my aunts/uncles prodding him to do so and it didn’t start happening until i told them about my decision last xmas.

I’m fortunate enough to not have anyone that close to me become part of the cult. Those who have, I’ve just stopped reaching out. Though that may not be an option for you in this case.

The best advice I can offer is to try to understand what a cult is, and how to work with that situation. A cult like MAGA is inherently irrational, so trying to win people over with rational arguments doesn’t work. Here’s one resource for how to talk with people like this.

Well, one of them died of COVID-19 without telling me that they even had it, and I don’t speak to the other one.

My dad did not tell me because he knew I would tell him I told you so when I was like, wear a mask, keep your distance, maintain safety protocols at all times, follow what the CDC is saying, treat this seriously.

It was literally weeks before the vaccine became available. Like if he had just, like, two more months, I would still have my dad.

I try to ignore them. Live my own life

My dad always leaned center-left, and he’s only gotten slightly lefter as I reach middle age and get very left. I’m very fortunate. My mom is long dead but I would like to think she would be on board too.

The real bugbear is my extended family, typified by dad’s sister and her family. Always leaned into the Rush Limbaugh right, but really she isn’t so much visibly MAGA as she is aggressively Zionist. It happens with a lot of Jewish boomers; Does ‘Never again’ mean for everyone, or just for the Jews?

Anyways, I was a protest at our local holocaust center in 2018, protesting the detention camps on the border. The proudboys and others were counter protesting. I told her about it, and she just said,

“They cant use that word, thats our word!” “You know who would agree with you? The nazis?” “What do you mean?” “They were there! I have pictures!”

Anyways, shes been surface level cordial ever since.

I deal with it pretty easily, I don’t have contact with them lol.

I haven’t talked to my mom since before trump even ran for president so.

No contact. I tried. I tried so hard to point out the wrongs committed by the regime that I thought that they would disagree with, but MAGAs just bend reality around it all.

It’s painful, given that most of us don’t do this out of a sense of right or wrong, but because we care. You get used to it eventually though.

I don’t keep in contact with my family, but I’d have no problem telling trump supporters that they’re dumbasses straight to their faces.

Went no contact in 2016. Was the right choice, my life blossomed without them. One of the last things my dad said to me was " guess I’m a fascist then" Still miss em tho, still not worth it to reach out. My aunt tells me however he turned on trump when his j6 crowd was yelling to hang mike pence. He would have always preferred a theocracy to a full blown white nationalist state tho.

Parent #1 is christian, and has all the mental faculties that come with that. #1 gets dragged into the current republican bullshit by proximity to the fusion of christofascism. I can still talk to that one about most things, as long as neither of us brings up anything about current government. Seeing as I live with #1 to make sure medicine is taken and quality of life doesn’t deteriorate, the days are… strained at best. We talk for a moment, I check up on the health, and then it’s either off to work and back to my portion of the house, or I avoid the other portion of the house and try to carry on my hobbies.

Parent #2 was once, so I thought, the logical, reserved one who didn’t care for politics. Then it turned out #2 just thought because #2 worked for the government, it was best to never really hold beliefs. As soon as #2 retired, fox news was turned on 24/7, and suddenly the mild distaste for people ‘not like me’ turned into full fledged rants. I try to keep all contact to a minimum, because I still love my parent and I’m sure #2 loves me, but I think that’s just deep roots from childhood. All of the good characteristics are still there, just buried beneath that vile layer of filth that manifests as hate. Every now and then you see the good qualities shine through, and it kills me knowing they’re likely going to never be the main character traits again. I can’t break contact because there’s a part of me that just can’t give up hope, but it hurts that I can’t come and actually talk through the much deeper thoughts on the world I have now like we did when I was still considering what musical tastes I had.

My grandfather and his family supported Hitler and were Nazi sympathisers. He admitted to admiring Hitler on his literal death bed. My mom never denounced or condemned him for his beliefs. She is currently ignoring the fact that my grandfather was Jewish and most of his family died in concentration camps. I brought up how Nazis were upset at the game Wolfenstein. She tried to defend the literal Nazis upset at a game famouse for it’s Nazi killings.

I provided climate change proof from NASA data and she claimed it wasn’t credible because the data came from NASA. SHE PAINTED A PICTURE OF TRUMP HUGGING JESUS. In her infamous extremely bad painting style. Off topic but my son had a portrait from her. He asked us to throw it away because his portrait was giving him nightmares. Made contact with an estranged aunt and found out that literally everyone in my family hates her art because it really is just that bad. Art is subjective, but in this case please make an exception.

Turns out my mother was always a Nazi, I just didn’t notice the signs until I cut her out of my life.

Sorry for your loss

My dad was in the military, but I never heard the sorts of things from him that I do now. He has started saying the N word to try to get a rise out of me, thinks Trump is going to “fix” everything, and every time I talk to him on the phone, I can hear fascist talk radio in the background.

We have learned not to bring up politics with each other. The last time I challenged him on it, he said I was being disrespectful, but I don’t accept that. He just thought I was supposed to sit quietly and listen to crazy ranting.

I have learned that in general it’s best to change the subject if someone wants to talk politics who I know I don’t agree with. Most people have gotten the point. We still get along great! We just have polar opposite politics.

Now I know that some people would question why I remain friendly with those people. The answer is that we have more in common than not. Someday, when everyone finally comes to the conclusion that the powerful and foreign are manipulating our political discourse to sow discord, we will finally be at peace again.

It weighs heavily on me, to say the least. It’s nearly impossible to have an even slightly tangentially political conversation with them that doesn’t leave me deeply disturbed and/or infuriated, so I pretty much avoid it altogether. Now the deepest conversation I allow is “how’s the weather” and “what are you having for dinner tonight?”, and that’s sad.

But it’s absolutely the case that engaging with them on political stuff is destructive to my psyche. And even worse, they have a way of turning otherwise entirely non-political topics into something political. These are not the people who raised me or the values they raised me with. And there’s no real logical consistency to any of it other than it’s definitely going to be in agreement with whatever the latest opinions are on Fox News and Facebook.

As a kid, the only particularly “conservative” view point they shared was on immigration. They absolutely believed the whole “Mexicans are taking our jobs” bullshit. I remember even asking them why they aren’t mad at their bosses for giving their jobs to the “Mexicans” and never getting a satisfactory answer for why that was given a pass.

And then from that one little common thread, the rest of the conservative/Republican agenda has wormed its way in. So, naturally as the conservative agenda morphed into a more fascist agenda, so have my parents’ beliefs. With age and health related mental declines, these ideals have become more cemented. These are people who will never forget or forgive Democrats for NAFTA, but also believe that Republicans wanted universal healthcare for all yet Democrats gave us Obamacare instead. They grew up growing and selling weed to make ends meet, and yet still believe it should be illegal and people deserve to be in jail for it. They have a gay kid but believe gay marriage is wrong, because the Bible says marriage is only between a man and a woman, and the government shouldn’t be involved at all.

They honestly buy into the idea that police officers and pastors are infallible. If someone is arrested, it’s because they are guilty of something. No pastor would ever sexually abuse a child, they are a pastor after all. If the president says something is true, it must be true. And again, none of this is how they raised me or the ideals they expressed when I was growing up, so it’s definitely like living in some kind of bizarre reality that’s tough to come to terms with.