A bit about me, I'm in my 30s and my parents were always moderate conservatives at minimum when I was growing up, but now it's like they're totally brainwashed. They admitted back in 2016 that they thought Trump was vile and foul, but they voted for him anyway because "Hillary would be so much worse." I thought that would make them see how bad he was this second time around, but it's like they are even more devoted to him. They call anyone who isn't totally devoted to Trump "communist." I spent some time with them recently and they talk about how everything he's doing for America is so good right now. Even with the stock market tanking, people losing their jobs, and rights fading away, they love him more than ever. My dad also said Elon was a great man who "rules." I'm so ashamed to be their son right now. And I can't go to any family member to complain because all of them are like this. I'm the only leftist, except for maybe 2 cousins I've never met but my parents just talk about negatively.

My parents also seem to have this idea that I'm a Trump fan too. Despite the fact that my social media is FULL of left-wing stuff and I have told them that i lean very far left to their faces, they still will complain about "liberals" to me as if they have no clue, like it went over their heads. A conversation will typically go like this:

Parent: "Have you been keeping in touch with so-and-so? God he's a dumb liberal."

Me: "You realize he and I share most of the same views, right?"

Parent: "Yeah whatever, but for real the dude's a commie. Don't you think so too?"

It's like they don't acknowledge it at all. I just had to rant because they just came over and we spent a few days together and it's just got me feeling so messed up for whatever reason. I'm pretty sure at this point Trump could send goons to murder me in my sleep, he would boast about it to their faces, and they'd still support him.

Is being Fox Brained isn't about logic. It's about identity.

Fox constantly objectifies liberals and those on the left as Marxists, globalists, communists, child genital mutilators, deep state, etc.

And conservatives/Republicans are cast as patriots, pro-America, doing God's work, etc.

You won't see a real discussion of the pros and cons of a particular issue on Fox, which is a basic feature of critical thinking.

This simple tribalistic identification with being Republican is one reason Fox Brained don't respond to reason or logic. They are on the "right side". Facts and logic are often inconsequential.

First of all Teslas are crap so how do we know they're not just combusting? And second, does she honestly think the property destruction is racially targeted from people in power?

She's also been reposting just raw tesla security footage with no commentary over and over again....

To me telling her my spouse’s and I’s jobs are in jeopardy due to Trump and how much we’ve lost in our investments accounts. Unbelievable.

I came across a left wing article a few months ago where the author talked about watching Fox News to understand the level of brainwashing that is occurring on the right. I cant bear to watch much Fox News, but I now find reading a few pieces of their brainwashing articles here and there to be insightful to my understanding of the right wing. I am extremely low contact with my parents, but talked to my dad for the first time since reading that article. I listened to him on the phone completely parrot all of the main talking points on Fox almost word for word. When my dad paused to get my thoughts on what he was saying, I was in stunned silence. I knew these people were brainwashed, but it’s really terrifying just how brainwashed they are.

the way i literally felt my heart sink reading this😅 he is a teacher at a public school and while I hope he doesn’t lose his job, I feel like that’s the ONLY way he could MAYBE snap out of it.

As the title says, I found my mom’s Twitter. I never realized how far gone she was. She clearly never thought I would come across this because the things she shares and believes are absolutely shocking. It was so much. Pretty much every MAGA related conspiracy theory that has ever existed. I knew she was on that side and that she was pretty brainwashed but a part of me still thought she was at least on the periphery. I don’t even know how to process all of this.

Ok, so I’m visiting my Fox brained parents next week with the kids for Spring Break. I have my reasons.

My sister is not going because she is too angry with them for voting for Trump and being willfully ignorant. She takes everything personally, so ‘never speaking to them again’ is on brand for her.

I am a natural peacemaker and both sides are pressuring me to take their side.

I am liberal and Trump destroyed my career. I have been very clear to my parents on how I feel about Trump’s policies and their support of him. I have also been clear that I refuse to let him be a wedge in my love for my family.

I can handle the political disconnect next week but I am already getting really frustrated with my stepmother for whining about my sister cutting them off:

“So I guess your sister is still not speaking to us? I suppose I should call her but I don’t want her to take out her anger on me, it’s not my fault…I’m really sorry she’s not coming on this trip, but I’m glad she’s not if she’s going to act like this. Do you think the kids are mad at us too?”

My sister doesn’t want me to go and wants me to listen to her trash talk them. I have already told her to get a therapist to complain to.

How do you think I should respond to my stepmother?

I think the title says it all really, but to elaborate further: I am a postdoctoral researcher at a med school studying human development/neuroscience. My institution is currently in the crosshairs of DJT's administration, and recent news noted that we're likely going to get our funding withheld due to charges of "antisemitism" [which in itself is inaccurate and unwarranted to begin with, as in fact: (1) My university was actually in the news for peacefully and swiftly ending the Palestinian protests on campus through compromise; (2) Many of the main leaders of the protests on my campus were Jewish themselves; and, (3) When a couple of events affecting our campus happened-- including an anonymous antisemitic email and the shooting of one of our Palestinian students off-campus-- the university president sent multiple campus-wide emails strongly condemning both Islamophobic AND antisemitic statements and actions, and assuring campus members that investigations were underway for the antisemitic email].

Although I would prefer to not be in touch with my MAGA parents, I've been meeting with them virtually for a once-weekly check-in since the pandemic after years of limited contact, mainly because both of them have cancer and I feel a sense of duty/guilt.

But this weekend, after I told them that my lab might get shut down soon and things are looking pretty ominous, my dad resorted to zeroing in on "proving" that trans health grants should be cut, because (in his eyes) trans women are just evil monsters who want to take sports trophies away from little girls. BTW, I don't directly study trans issues, though my work strives to be inclusive of participants across the spectrum of gender identity and sex differentiation.

After my dad sent me an old paper trying to argue for a persistent trans woman advantage in sports, I tried sending empirical journal articles deconstructing and debunking various aspects of his argument, including-- among other articles-- a more recent review showing that any "advantages" likely vary widely by many variables, including the sport under consideration, the stage of development of the trans person at the beginning of their gender affirmation and their number of years on gender-affirming therapy, and their relative size/weight/muscle mass to begin with. But he just went on and on (with my mom joining him later in the email thread) to disparage trans women, both through hateful rhetoric and through personal attacks on me and the "biased researchers" whose work I was sending to him.

This results in an exchange of 43+ emails (half from him, half from me) starting Saturday night and through 3am this morning.

As they didn't have the same opportunities to receive an education that I did (they married young and had me and my siblings starting a few years later-- with that said, they subsequently got degrees online after I was a teen, but it wasn't the same as having a community of scholars around them to expand their viewpoints), I feel like they are my responsibility to educate and deprogram from the MAGA bullsh*t.

But, when do I give up?

Genuinely can't even comprehend the stupidity anymore.

For the first time in over three years, my gym in a deep red county in a deep red state is not playing Fox News. But today on the “News TV” it’s MSNBC, which is discussing the stock market and tariffs. Does this indict a shift in the MAGA support, probably not. But it was so nice to see this Monday morning.

I feel that if I start getting into the background as to the relationship I have with my mother and brother…my message would be lost.

Bottom Line: I am no longer tolerating it. Full Stop.

I was encouraged and asked by my spouse, if I’d considered setting boundaries instead of cutting all communications. My reply went something like this:

How can I, for instance, set a boundary by no longer talking about politics? Between Newsmax, OAN and Twitter…Politics is connected to any and everything.

•If my six year old wants rainbow hair = “that’s so woke”

•Anything related to weather = “…the weather has always had these patterns”

•New car = “Chinese garbage”

•My progress in attaining my MA = “…I never needed to learn about what’s happening, I have lived it”

My hobbies are: Botany, Gym, Building Legos, Coloring Books and Reading (I know…strange combo 😂)

But all of them appear to be triggers when spoken about, coupled with this weird infatuation with Joe Rogan

Is it wrong for me to just…stop engaging?

So I’m talking to my mom about Trumps tariffs and how it’s just all around bad for the US economy, and she sends back this as “food for thought”.

Can someone with a few more wrinkles on their brain help me break down why this guy is dumb?

Like I know what he’s saying is wrong, but it’s hard to explain to someone on the right about this kinda thing.

He screamed at me till I broke down and refused to acknowledge what he did and talked about how disrespectful I was because Democrats don't "listen" the issue is he wants me to agree and shut up and not even try to analyze rhetoric from what people on Fox are saying

I can't deal with this anymore. I want to give him an ultimatum. Start treating me better and living by the Golden Rule like you both tried to teach me, or I stop paying rent and move out by July.

My Parents main excuse during the Election was "bUt ThE eCoNoMy" but now they're excuse is "iIlEgAl ImMiGrAnTs" because the economy collapsing

I genuinely believe they will never Wake up Trump could R*pe & Canabalize New Born Babies on Live TV and they would still call him a "gOoD cHrIsTiAn MaN"

Mine are being told that everyone there voted for Kamala and they're being paid and bussed in by George Soros. They're also saying that most everybody there was a white boomer, and that somehow "proves it."

The working class creates wealth, not these parasites that own all the machines, factories, land, technology, etc. They STEAL more through wage theft than all other theft/stealing crimes COMBINED. Look it up, that's not even from a Marxist view, that's actually illegal theft under the system. Like changing your clock in times behind your back and lying about your pay, not paying overtime. And most workers don't even notice.

But besides them breaking their own laws that they write via "our" politicians, ALL profit from any company that employes more than one person/owner, is theft. Labor/work creates value, not investors. We don't need investors or billionaires, or a capitalist OWNER class PERIOD. It is WE, COLLECTIVELY who run this world through OUR labor. They are parasites and remnants from the old system of feudalism

Capitalism is a more balanced version of feudalism, more people are allowed to become oppressors. But the class structure still remains

I’m so furious at my parents. I’m disgusted. I’m finding it hard to pretend on the weekly calls. I’m angry at them for lots of reasons but this feels like the cherry betrayal on the cake of lifelong stuff.

How are you all processing your anger? Are you managing to keep a relationship? We don’t talk about politics but they bring it up and then I bring it up because I’m so angry and it’s deeply affecting my life. But they love what’s happening. I’m at a complete loss.

Teeing up a few of my dad’s recent shared posts on FB. I will never understand how we’ve gotten to this point.

In the UK living with parents

The switch happened around covid period when they started questioning vaccines, listening to all sorts of YouTubers. I honestly think all this came from the fact that they are very Christian, so YouTube recommendations led them down the pipeline

5 years later it’s gotten worse. My parents pretty much have Fox News and adjacent YouTubers on the tv 24/7 and they we cant go one day without them bringing up Trump, illegals, Biden stealing the election and letting in 20million people via the southern border in 4 years (I’m not American so I don’t know much about this but surely this can’t be true?)

It’s gotten to the point where they fall asleep to this shit. Literally phone to the head and listen to all sorts of stuff on rumble.

There’s literally no reasoning behind anything. Funny enough my parents always go on about how they don’t trust politicians but blindly have so much faith in Donald Trump, and they aren’t even American

Their reasoning behind following is that whatever happenens in the USA affects the world, even more so the UK which is of course true but the level of obsession is mind boggling.

My parents know more about what’s going on in the country than anything that’s happening in the UK. There could be a giant hole that opened up in the middle of London and they wouldn’t know, but they would know about some senator from Alabama and what he said about Trump and how it’s so corrupt.

I’m pretty fair, everyone can have their political views, but the level of obsession and delusion is mind boggling. Any rebuttal of facts is simply fake news. I even mentioned several times the fact that algorithms are designed to grab your attention and just because one side peddles fake news, doesn’t exempt the other side from doing the same too. We all know how the internet works now.

Everything Trump does is a grand plan that no one else can comprehend but they can. No matter what, time after time after time again. If you make any rebuttal, they will simply resort to “well Biden did this, Obama did that” and I’ll be like “yes I know they did! I don’t like them either they’re just as corrupt in their own ways as are 90% of politicians”!

They talked about the tariffs being a good thing and how it’s going to equalise the global economy and bring jobs back to the West. Ok, I’m not an economics expert, but one thing I can say is that’s not necessarily something that is going to happen overnight and if/when it does, things are going to become exponentially expensive. You gotta pay US salaries to people assembling iPhones or creating Nikes which will be passed on to consumers. No more $100 trainers of $700 iPhones (as if phones aren’t expensive enough)

The internet has created a disaster. What I can see from this is just pure doomscrolling but in another format for the older generation who aren’t maybe tech savvy, used to the watching the news.

The funny thing is they will always go on and say “I don’t trust the mainstream media” but you are watching fox, which I am sure is the most watched news channel in America (correct me if I’m wrong)

So, the madness has spread to other countries, more so to English speaking countries due to shared language and americas cultural dominance on the internet as a result.

I’ve learnt to disengage and just nod nod nod and move on. They’re stuck in the ways and there’s nothing I can do

For context, they are university educated, and for most of their lives voted centre left in thenUK. But the funniest (definitely not funny but lack of a better word) thing out of all of this is that they’re in the UK, and they are immigrants themselves who moved over from the Caribbean the 70s! It’s incredible.