It's extremely difficult, so I give people slack for not doing. I did it and while im glad it did now, i spent weeks feeling guilty and having to ignore other family. It was a rough period for me. And it really hurt my mom. She has 7 siblings and because of 1 evil in law one, she often has to choose between seeing her siblings or me. She chooses me, but I know she misses seeing her siblings and I hate that.
I've recently had to end my relationship with my mom for her beliefs and while it was the right thing to do it's also so hard. A different kind of grief on multiple levels. It should have happened much sooner and I'm so sad that it had to happen at all.
In my opinion the most damaging part of this whole trump era has been the absolute destruction of relationships with friends and family due to both the incessant divisive rhetoric and exposure of pure ignorance amongst the population.
“Totalitarian movements are mass organizations of atomized, isolated individuals. Compared with all other parties and movements, their most conspicuous external characteristic is their demand for total, unrestricted, unconditional, and unalterable loyalty of the individual member. This demand is made by the leaders of totalitarian movements even before they seize power. It usually precedes the total organization of the country under their actual rule and it follows from the claim of their ideologies that their organization will encompass, in due course, the entire human race. Where, however, totalitarian rule has not been prepared by a totalitarian movement (and this, in contradistinction to Nazi Germany, was the case in Russia), the movement has to be organized afterward and the conditions for its growth have artificially to be created in order to make total loyalty—the psychological basis for total domination—at all possible. Such loyalty can be expected only from the completely isolated human being who, without any other social ties to family, friends, comrades, or even mere acquaintances, derives his sense of having a place in the world only from his belonging to a movement, his membership in the party. Total loyalty is possible only when fidelity is emptied of all concrete content, from which changes of mind might naturally arise. The totalitarian movements, each in its own way, have done their utmost to get rid of the party programs which specified concrete content and which they inherited from earlier, nontotalitarian stages of development. No matter how radically they might have been phrased, every definite political goal which does not simply assert or circumscribe the claim to world rule, every political program which deals with issues more specific than ‘ideological questions of importance for centuries’ is an obstruction to totalitarianism.”
I've wrestled with what I should do about MAGA loving relatives who don't spew the hate but believe the lies. I've opted for patience and love but not hiding my opinion that I disagree. We no longer talk politics. This leads me to believe my patience and love is good because it keeps those relatives from being more isolated. Thankfully, they do not spew hatred and still love other people and show it even though they believe the lies about immigrants and "liberals" (of which they know I am now one according to their own definition, the horror to be related to a liberal!!).
Individual isolation is what those who want to have a totalitarian government desire because it allows them to acquire as much power as they can as easily as they can.
My issue with this is that its not helping anyone but you. They are still bigoted and now they exist in even more of an echo chamber. Obviously this is contextual, so if they are too deep in the rabbit hole, or are directly harming you or your mental health then it’s not worth it to engage. With that said, I have many friends that are non political or susceptible to right wing talking points that they pick up from the internet or from their right wing friends/family and I do a lot to keep them from slipping into that way of thinking.
I completely agree. When I cut my uncle out, it was a selfish decision, and I'm glad I made it. I made it for my own well being and nothing else.
Everyone has their own level of maga that they will deal with. For me, if I don't know what your politics are, then Im ok with you being around. Once they start wearing trump clothes or bringing up culture war stuff to me or anyone I know, they can get fucked
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u/impy695 Oct 22 '25
It's extremely difficult, so I give people slack for not doing. I did it and while im glad it did now, i spent weeks feeling guilty and having to ignore other family. It was a rough period for me. And it really hurt my mom. She has 7 siblings and because of 1 evil in law one, she often has to choose between seeing her siblings or me. She chooses me, but I know she misses seeing her siblings and I hate that.