Don't let politics destroy your family
I’ve been morbidity collecting links about families breaking up because of political views.
For some reason it’s always about right wingers trying to hurt others, or religions trying to hurt others, and now being challenged back, leading to arguments or shunning.
The link that started this for me was (via a site I have forgotten — sorry), discussing fox news breaking up families.
https://luke.substack.com/p/i-hate-what-theyve-done-to-almost-39f
Some quotes: “feeling like you’ve lost a piece of your loved ones to Fox News brain cancer.” … “I asked a dozen or so of them to share how they lost a family member to Fox News or how their relationships have become strained” …
“He grew more irritable. He banned watching any news other than Fox News in his presence and failure to adhere would lead to abusive emotional outbursts. Soon he lost his sense of humor. Everything became about punching down at gays and minorities. “ …. “He then became more paranoid, claiming that power or cable outages were a plot by the Democrats (who secretly control everything).” until eventually “ … “My mother had enough. Out of the blue, she filed for divorce.”
A second story: “My dad, an immigrant, has had brain poisoning for years and years through this whole shit. He listened to Limbaugh in the nineties and it only got worse when he got Fox News. He used to think Trump was a dipshit but is now all in on the idiot's cruelty. He and my mom separated last November. There were other reasons but one of the big ones was his Fox addiction. “
A third quote form a father talking about his parents: “The two of us are worried about letting our daughter stay with them for any long length of time, because their toxic anger and resentment is slowly becoming their entire identity.”
At the other end is Right wingers not wanting to talk to left wing people, because of …reasons
from https://www.glocktalk.com/threads/2016-politics-splitting-my-family-apart.1615135/
“Well folks... I'd describe my family, wife's side included, as about 75% conservative and 25% moderate liberals.
So, the family gets together for a cookout yesterday. My wife and I, my sister and husband, my parents, my inlaws, and my sister-in-law.
My father-in-law is especially conservative, and politics came up. He said that he was "dead set" on Cruz or Trump in the 2016 election, as they were the only choices left. Well, my sister voted for Obama and this time says that she does not care for Trump and will probably vote Hillary or Bernie in the general election. This just set my father-in-law off. He said that he could not in "good conscience" be around someone or even "give nourishment" to someone who in his words "was a threat to him" and he asked her to leave his property. This, obviously, offended my sister, her husband and my parents, who are actually republicans, and they all ended up leaving. I talked to my parents and decided to stay with everyone else, but it was a very awkward setting. I don't know, frankly, if they will all ever see each other again.”
And from the New York Times about thanksgiving
“I don’t want to be part of the grand narrative that the ‘liberal elite’ doesn’t get the working class,” she said. “I am from the working class. I’m now pretty solidly middle class. But to my relatives, I’m elite, over-educated and too well read, an alien.”
It can get much worse - your children can become neo-nazis:
““You were getting shoved all that propaganda down your throat. . . . They got to reach you young. Got to shove it down your throat right away so you buy it. I don’t believe the whole entire narrative of the Holocaust,” he said, referring to Nazi Germany’s murder of 6 million Jews during World War II.
Looking irritated, Kirsten stood up and walked into the kitchen — past the message she’d written for Kam on the refrigerator, saying, “When you chose the behavior, you chose the consequences” — but he kept on talking.
“A lot of it was most definitely fabricated by the Soviets,” he said. “That’s my personal belief.”
She came back to the living room. He looked at her. He sighed.
“I don’t talk about this to all the normies,” he continued.
“I’m a normie,” she replied and then stood up and left again.”
Or you could be made to leave a religious cult - Shunned:
https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/06/the-seven-signs-youre-in-a-cult/361400/
“I was kicked out of the prayer group for the first time a year and a half later. Roughly two dozen of us were now living together in group houses in Missouri, sharing our money and working part-time jobs while we attended classes at IHOP University. Three nights a week, we worshipped together.
Tyler and other members of the group claimed I had a “wicked heart, prone to self-protection, anger, unforgiveness, and hate” and a “malicious, accusatory, group-rejecting, self-protective hatred towards most people.” After an intense night of confrontation in the fall of 2010, the group stopped speaking to me. I continued to live in the house, but I was completely isolated.”
Or have your family split by religion:- in this case Jehovahs Witnesses.:
http://www.bible.ca/jw-cost-family.htm
“Fox was summoned to the nearby Kingdom Hall to appear before a judicial committee. He went, knowing he was to be disfellowshipped.
Using smoking as the grounds "was a ploy. They had to use something. . . . The point is, they couldn't have helped (my wife) away on a permanent basis unless I was disfellowshipped. . . . And two months later, they were gone."
On Aug. 24, 1975, Fox returned home with Daniel and discovered his wife had fled with Coleen.
On Sept. 15, Daniel "was picked up at school, a ticket was put around his neck and he was put on board a flight to Toronto" to meet his mother, Fox says.
He says son Terry, a devout Witness who would soon marry, admitted that he and "others" had taken Daniel to the Halifax airport. This story is contained in Fox's affidavit dated Oct. 28, 1977, which was filed with the courts in the preliminary stages of Fox's child-custody application. The affidavit was also used to access telephone records in the search for the family. Fox later dropped the custody proceeding because he could not locate the children.”
Religious families could throw you out if you are gay:
“ Suddenly her mom’s silence matched Jackie’s own. “Oh, my God,” she murmured in disbelief. “Are you gay?”
“Yeah,” Jackie forced herself to say.
After what felt like an eternity, her mom finally responded. “I don’t know what we could have done for God to have given us a fag as a child,” she said before hanging up.
As soon as the line went dead, Jackie began sobbing. Still, she convinced herself that her parents would come around and accept her, despite what they perceived to be her flaw. As planned, she drove to Canada to celebrate her birthday with friends. When her debit card didn’t work on the second day of the trip, she figured it was because she was in another country. Once back in the States, however, she got a call from her older brother. “He said, ‘Mom and Dad don’t want to talk to you, but I’m supposed to tell you what’s going to happen,'” Jackie recalls. “And he’s like, ‘All your cards are going to be shut off, and Mom and Dad want you to take the car and drop it off at this specific location. Your phone’s going to last for this much longer. They don’t want you coming to the house, and you’re not to contact them. You’re not going to get any money from them. Nothing. And if you don’t return the car, they’re going to report it stolen.’ And I’m just bawling. I hung up on him because I couldn’t handle it.” Her brother was so firm, so matter-of-fact, it was as if they already weren’t family.
From that moment, Jackie knew that she was entirely on her own, that she had no home, no money and no family who would help her – and that this was the terrible price she’d pay for being a lesbian.”
And of course in the UK , it is Brexit:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/09/world/europe/brexit-friendship.html
“After arguments about Brexit, Mr. Hawkins sees less of his two best friends, who now tend to socialize or take bike rides without him. With his parents there has been tension though the major conflict was with one of his partner’s relatives. The discussion was “not very good,” he said with understatement. “He erupted.”
“We’ve not been invited to family birthday parties or get-togethers post referendum, whereas before we were,” said Mr. Hawkins who thinks that, here, remainers are seen as being removed from the real world. “I did get a lot of, ‘You went to university,’ after the vote,” he added.”
I know this has been happening for years, but it seems worse than ever now, and I blame Trump, Murdock, Fox, Brexit, The Daily Mail, The Sun, US AM talk radio, Religion, greed and Hate.