Your second term Trump voting relatives

[Funtatlaguy]

This question is for people with Trump voting family members only.

For those of you that haven’t cut off or distanced yourselves from them already, might you think about doing so if they vote for Trump a second time?

I haven’t spoken politics with many family members since November 2016.
It’s just not brought up by anyone either in person or on the phone, thankfully.
But, I fear that it will be before 11/3/2020.
I know that I am growing more resentful of them for supporting him and I’m sure they have grown more fond of Trump and are buoyed by the Barr letter.

Argh. How can our relationships, this country, and the world take four more years of this.

[hlthe2b]

1. I have a conservative female friend who, if she didn't vote for Trump, her husband surely did

We walk our dogs together 3-4 miles nearly every day. I know she bristles when I even touch around the edges of ANYTHING that might define the "partisan divide", so I have tried my best to discuss only the most benign subjects. While we can talk about animals, heaven help me if I discuss my disdain for big game hunting in Africa, because she and her husband are both bird hunters. Not deer, not elk, not moose--just birds, but she's still ultra sensitive.

So, after nearly 3 years of walking on eggshells, the subject of dolphin pods dying with bellies full of plastic came up and somehow she took offense at my saying that we (the US) could be doing more. She launched into a tirade about Mexico dumping on the San Diego coast, which, while true, they are not among the big dumpers in the oceans--especially in the heart of the Pacific. Us, on the other hand, falls right behind the big Asian players. She kept going on an on about how horrible Mexico is in this regard, and I just lost it. I won't repeat verbatim, but I found myself yelling that it isn't all Mexico, that despite "Fox" most Americans are really not that racist... You get the picture.

Now, I find myself having to try to smooth things over. She's not a bad person and that is probably true of a lot of conservatives, but it is just so damned hard to reconcile...

[Funtatlaguy]

2. You can't discuss brainwashed subjects with Fox viewers.

Waste of time.

[Freddie]

4. It's hard to do

I made it a point to *never* discuss politics at work. For 7 years I shared an office with a nice lady, we got along great and managed to never discuss anything remotely political. Wasn’t easy.
We’re both retired now and she just friended me on FB. So she’s going to find out where I am soon enough. She is a good person at heart but a devout Catholic, so if she’s a Trumper it’s because she’s a brainwashed fetus-worshipper. Another topic we managed to never discuss in 7 years.

[Croney]

3. I'm hoping he won't be on the ballot, but if he is,

I'm hoping he will lose bigly. Until that time, I'll put up with my sister's lunatic ravings because I've lost a sister to cancer and refuse to lose another over temporary politics, although her RWNJ lunacy is not temporary. All I can do is be an example.

[kickitup]

5. I don't associate with some of them.

I live in rural Kentucky and the great majority of my extended family are Trump voters. My parents voted for Trump. My dad wishes he would get off Twitter and act more like a statesman. He does think Trump is being unfairly criticized, however. But my dad is at least sane and sees Trump as a flawed person.

Others in my extended family have gone to Trump's rallies. I unfriended them on Facebook and choose not to be around them. They are all fundamentalist church goers of course and believe Trump to be some kind of Old Testament hero. I think they quote Esther or something. I'm just not going to waste a minute of my life on people who are that deluded and who at the same time think I'm bound for hell because I'm a liberal Methodist (disappointed in the latest vote but waiting to see how that pans out - my church choices are very limited in my area. The Methodists are as liberal as you can get here).

So I basically divide the Trump voters into two camps. The people who grudgingly voted for him and wish the GOP could act better and the people who are loons. I avoid my family members who are loons as much as I can.

[DFW]

6. I have a cousin in Memphis who is probably a Trumpanzee

Last I heard, he loved Cheneybush, but that was 18 years ago, when he was still on wife #3. He is probably on #6 by now unless the women of Tennessee have wised up, in which case he is deservedly alone. I have had no word from him since, and haven't physically seen him since 1994, which suits me just fine. I have no such creatures in my family otherwise.

[Funtatlaguy]

7. Wow, just one cousin. Congrats.

Wish I had such a good family tree 🌲

[DFW]

8. The rest of my famly ranges from reasonable to solid. No other Republicans I know of

I.e. no other social failures I know of. My wife's side is all German, of course, and our two daughters vote in the USA (Democrats, both of them, of course!)

[Funtatlaguy]

10. If I wasn't as old as hell, I'd ask you to adopt me. Lol.

[DFW]

11. Germany takes some getting used to.

They require "Stempel und Unterschrift (official stamp and signature)" for just about everything except crossing the street and blowing your nose. I think starting next year, you need it to blow your nose, too.

They also think that fighting traffic, fatigue and thirst for 20 hours straight in a cramped car to get to some third world vacation hut in Sicily or Greece is far less of a stressful trip than getting into a plane to Atlanta or New York and relaxing for 8 hours. "But that is SOOOO far away!"

Oh, and don't let the propagandists pull the wool over your eyes: NOTHING is free here!

Besides--we're old, too!

[anarch]

9. basically already cut off

But frankly in most cases, it had been long evident that there was no reconciliation of world-views likely to happen between the respective family members due to strongly held "religious beliefs" on the one side.

Pretty sure I've been a godless heathen commie as far as most of them are concerned for decades, and of course they were all horrified that I could support a (gasp) negro as president, not that most of them would say it out loud exactly like that. So, we were not close prior to 2016...the difference now is that I refuse to humor their bullshit for even a minute, and have had to shut out the constant stream of ridiculous right-wing nonsense on social media; it's frankly embarrassing to even look at.

I might re-engage someday if the particularly egregious relatives I'm thinking of ever, before we are all dead, come to their senses and denounce the idiotic and bigoted crap that they've been going on about for a long time now...but I doubt it.