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If my father was on his death bed, chances are I'd put most of it behind me and would ignore a lot of past transgressions.
OPs actions are a bit extreme. That being said, there isn't much that separates a neo-nazi from a trump supporter in my mind. I can't imagine anyone supporting him that isnt a complete piece of shit, and it is 100% a valid reason for cutting ties with people.
My wife and son are from another country, my children aren't safe in American schools, my wife and daughter have less rights than a man in America, my 13 year old son was being bombarded constantly by what a "man should be" racist christofacist bullshit. My parents vote against my family, so they are no longer a part of it. We moved to my wife's home country and never looked back.
I love my parents, but their hate for others was stronger than their love for my wife and kids. They can die alone with their red hats on.
Politics change, but blood is thicker than water. The way people are writing off family instead of just talking to them is awful.
What makes you think we haven't tried talking to them?
Trust me, most of us have tried and tried and tried and tried and tried and tried. Some certainly may have preemptively cut people out without discussion, but most of us have beaten our heads against a wall for almost a decade now, trying to convince them that we're human beings with dignity who deserve respect. We just withdraw from engagement, piece by piece, until there's nothing lost by just giving up. Cutting them off is usually the last and most consequential move, rather than the first.
At the end of the day (or life), your mother/father was and forever have been, your mother and father. Family is immutable, giving up is reprehensible.
I have friends who were abandoned by their parents and subsequently adopted. I lost a half-sibling with mental illness after their religious paternal family subjected them to actual exorcisms and other emotional trauma which eventually led to their suicide. My wife has a new 60-year old biological sister that she discovered 2 years ago via DNA. I have friends who cut ties with physically and sexually abusive parents. Family is quite mutable, we are under no obligation to hold fast to toxic blood relatives, and in many cases what we consider "reprehensible" depends entirely on how "reprehensible" the blood relative's committed offenses are.
I'm going to assume you're just arguing from extremely limited personal experience and save the long list of expletives I want to hurl at you on behalf of my friends and family because I'd prefer not to be banned from this community. Good day to you.
That's entirely different, and valid. I'm sorry for your friends who went through that, and it's something I understand myself. My own mother, who passed away recently, is someone I had cut off for decades due to a very long list of emotional and physical abuses I myself suffered at her hands. In no way I was implying that abuse should be tolerated nor expected. That being said, there was room for a limited form of relationship when she as a much older person apologized, and expressed a desire to repair the relationship and make a meaningful change. I got to see a different side to her as a result for 3 years.
Now to say that you cut family off because of how they vote, is to me, entirely absurd. Either they're misinformed, or obtuse, and in some cases sure, abusive. But cutting family off because they share a different political viewpoint, that's what I'm calling reprehensible.
Also, don't fucking assume shit, I've been through the hell your friends have been through directly, and know it all too well. People who snivel about sensitive feelings when they have absolutely no idea, are best giving some benefit of the doubt, which is something extremists on both sides of the politics could stand to improve.
Again, that's not what's happening here. Stop misrepresenting what people are saying to you.
This you?
This is the most circular argument I've ever been a part of. Can't say I didn't try.
I'm a US Army combat veteran, my wife was a foreign national (we left America), my son was born in his mothers home country making him a foreigner in America, my other two (son and daughter) were born and raised in America.
My parents voted against support for Veterans, they voted against immigration, they voted against gun regulation (guns are the main cause of death for children in America), they voted to take rights away from my wife and daughter, they voted against my family. Ignore all of that I kept trying to talk to them, kept trying to keep in touch.. my dad told me in a letter, that if we aren't for trump we're against him and told me to no longer try to contact him or my mom.
I'm glad they cut ties, because I was already done. I just helped them keep to their words and have ignored them since.
I'm really sorry man, first off thank you for being a veteran, and your story carries weight. Your dad making that statement is a terrible thing. Nobody should be doing that, especially when you're voting with your conscience. There's no need for "with us or against us" absolutes, and the common ground between people is there. People just tap into being told how to think, the rhetoric, and absolutes that don't need to define us. A large part of conservatives I talk to aren't actually anti immigration, they just say shit like "they need to do it legally" to which I ask them "Do you have any idea what legally means, and how long it takes?".
I think back to the mass influx of immigrants that had to come by Ellis Island in the late 19th century, and how wide open the country was back then, to which those people built a nation and powered through racism of a different nature back then. The whole history of "I don't hire Irish" and the "black Irish", or even how Potter derisively refers to "garlic eaters" in "It's a Wonderful Life" shows the long history of harshness towards immigrants in this country yet the best of times were built by immigrants themselves. When conservatives hear this stuff, they deprogram and become pro-immigration, but then realize how shitty our legal process is. I hope that some of them can hear this type of thing and start advocating for the right kind of change instead of treating humans as lesser for factors they have zero control over, like where they're born.
I don't know you or your family, but that you stood by your wife and kids after serving a country with ungrateful parts is beyond commendable and a show of your awesome character. Respect, sir, I truly hope you and your family are well, and I wish more people could demonstrate the compassion you and yours deserve.
If they treat you badly, cutting them out of your life is fine. No one should put up with that from anyone.
But cutting people out of your life purely because they vote differently to you is just weird and petty.
I agree. I wish Donald's cultists would talk and listen to these family members trying to pull them out. It is a shame that Repubs are writing their family off and instead deciding to believe bigoted delusions.
I agree with you, and it's also a shame that Democrats are writing their family off instead of deprogramming in a non-hateful way. You'd be surprised how Trump supporting relatives can get onboard with socialized medicine, by just talking to them as if they're not monsters. That's something a lot of the fucking idiots here on LW could benefit from, instead of yelling "bigot" while acting like a bigot themselves.