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People whose parents have become fascist, how are you dealing with it? (sh.itjust.works)

submitted 5 days ago by pep@sh.itjust.works to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

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I have 2 GOP parents, one that voted Trump originally and one that did not. Over the last 9 years, I have watched them both travel down the MAGA pipeline to become visibly fascist. The parents who taught me racism was wrong and to have empathy for others, have become openly hostile about immigrants, Muslims, and even parrot the Nazi "great replacement" theory.

Part and parcel with this, they refuse to have any discussions about the facts -- like immigrants not stealing and eating people's pets. They won't hear it, they won't even engage in the conversation...they just get angry and loud the second they hear anything that doesn't fit into the Fox News narrative. Can you relate? How are you dealing with it in your relationships with your parents?

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[–] ptc075@lemmy.zip 13 points 4 days ago (1 children)

For me, what has sort of worked it pointing out that both sides of the news are getting basic facts wrong - things where there shouldn't even be a debate. If the news was true, you could watch any channel - it would all be the same. Instead, we get things like one side claiming murders are up and the other claiming murders are down. Our current journalism is a failure of a system designed to drive engagement/viewership/clicks rather than convey knowledge.

I also find it helps to remind them that we're Americans first, party second. The other side isn't stupid, they're just getting a completely different set of 'news'.

[–] PolarKraken@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

I use these too. The "team sports" nature of it all is really deeply engrained, like a "water is invisible to a fish" kind of way. You can use that to surprise them and build some genuine curiosity sometimes.

It's really disarming and opens up convo when I seem to disagree with them on everything... but then just agree and help them attack whichever hideous Democrat they go after during a given conversation. Same for news, the conversation shifts in useful ways when they learn I dislike "their" (Fox and worse) news, as well as what they think of as "mine".

It's not enough to magically deprogram anyone, but it can start the gears turning. In my experience it usually takes the situation from two people standing across from each other fussing at one another, to two people standing together fussing at everything else. It's a start.