Summary

With Donald Trump’s 2024 election win, young Gen Z voters like Kate, Holly, and Rachel are grappling with deepening divides with their Trump-supporting parents.

For many, these conflicts go beyond policy disagreements, touching on core values and morality. Parents once focused on fiscal conservatism have, in some cases, embraced conspiracy theories, creating painful rifts.

Studies suggest political divisions are increasingly seen as moral judgments, fostering a “mega-identity” where political views signify personal decency.

For these young adults, maintaining family connections amidst such ideological fractures has become challenging.

    • futatorius@lemm.ee
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      6 days ago

      You didn’t get to choose your parents. And there’s no reason to force anyone to continue associating with toxic shitheads with no capacity for critical thought.

      • lath@lemmy.world
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        6 days ago

        If you want to change the world, you can’t escape the confrontation.

          • lath@lemmy.world
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            6 days ago

            Agreed. But there’s a lot of blame going around that says otherwise.

        • EldritchFeminity@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          6 days ago

          What confrontation? The confrontation was deciding to cut them out of their lives. The only other confrontation to deal with there may or may not involve a baseball bat.

          • lath@lemmy.world
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            6 days ago

            People won’t magically disappear just because one no longer interacts with them. They’ll still exist, live their life and interact within the society we’re all a part of. One can set them aside for the majority of the time, but eventually those connections do come back to haunt and annoy.

    • cowfodder@lemmy.world
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      6 days ago

      Why would I want to continue associating with someone that voted to endanger people I care about?

          • lath@lemmy.world
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            6 days ago

            Apparently it is. Otherwise we wouldn’t have popular comments such as “if you didn’t vote, you’re complicit” or “silence is acquiescence of fascism”. So no communication = violence, because if you run away from them, then you’re giving them free reign to implement their views.

            • wreckedcarzz@lemmy.world
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              5 days ago

              …you act like you had control over their views at any time in the past, which is hilarious. Staying is simply suffering for no benefit. Now I’m not going to kinkshame, but damn man, you should really find another way to cum; anguish is going way too far.

              • lath@lemmy.world
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                5 days ago

                Dear solitary person, who is separate from the world, uninfluenced by anyone or anything, a true beacon of independent thought, you seriously believe your views are pure and untainted? That nothing and no one can change them at any point? Or were you so defeated by your past that you no longer believe a mind can be changed?

                From you who is already beaten and wallows within the bitter taste of their tragedy, all i have gained is sadness. I am sorry you suffered and i am sorry you were unable to regain your loved ones, if they ever were such, but please, do not drag others into your suffering and instead allow them to drag you out of it.

                Minds can be changed, views can be altered. Hope exists whether we can see it or not. And in this vein, I hope you will find your happiness once more and spread that joy instead of this current unpalatable sorrow.

                Be well.

    • Bophades@midwest.social
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      6 days ago

      I didn’t choose to be born. I didn’t choose to be adopted into a dysfunctional family. I didn’t choose to be raised as a little bigot. I did choose to walk away when I grew up and started seeing how people like me and my family were hurting others. This goes far beyond mere opinion, and perhaps you ought to spend some time reasoning about why these things aren’t that important to you.

      Edit to add a word.

      • borari@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        6 days ago

        Damn. As someone who also was adopted by psycho evangelicals and has spent thousands upon thousands of dollars on therapy to unpack all the shit they left me with, I get it. ❤️

        • Bophades@midwest.social
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          6 days ago

          Eh, I get the cynicism, because it’s hard not to feel it myself. But if I can change, so can they 🤟

    • EldritchFeminity@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      6 days ago

      I think people’s values and actions are perfectly fine things to judge them on.

      We’re not talking about favorite colors here. We’re talking about people actively enabling terrorists to attack minorities without fear of consequence and voting fascists who have openly expressed their intentions to destroy our democracy into power.

      If you voted for Trump, then your “idea” is that there shouldn’t be any work or medical safety standards, no food safety laws, no environmental protection to keep companies from dumping waste wherever they want, no national parks, and no schools. And that’s just the government departments that are planned to be axed. We can talk about Operation Wetback 3 next, if you want.

      • FuzzyRedPanda@lemm.ee
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        6 days ago

        Precisely. People have had 8+ years of Trump showing and telling everyone exactly who is and what he will do. Anyone who voted for him knew – or should have known – who and what they were voting for. You’d have to be willfully ignorant not to know who Trump and MAGA are by now.

        I know of no valid excuses this time. Ignorance is not an excuse. People knew trump is a monster when they voted for him; they don’t care. But many have so little understanding of how badly a second Trump admin will hurt everyone and everything. The “now concerned” trump voters just wanted change, but they voted for fascism.

        • EldritchFeminity@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          6 days ago

          Yep. These are people who looked at the fascism and bigotry on open display and said, “This isn’t a bridge too far for me. I am perfectly okay with this.”

    • pearsaltchocolatebar@discuss.online
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      6 days ago

      Believing that women and other marginalized people aren’t people isn’t a difference of opinion. Dismantling all regulatory protections isn’t an opinion. Supporting a person who is blatantly trying to dismantle our democracy isn’t an opinion.

      It’s a cult ideology, and no one has to tolerate intolerance.

      No one has any onus to maintain contact with a person who only believes in hate, regardless of their relation to you.

      These people made the choice to support a monster, and they deserve consequences for their actions.

    • Goodmorningsunshine@lemmy.world
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      6 days ago

      My mom and dad literally raised me to recognize that the people they have become are shit that would hurt their own children and grandchildren in the name of their hate. So maybe they should try to get back to being decent human beings before they whine about their kids not recognizing them as such.

    • TrickDacy@lemmy.world
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      6 days ago

      And you’re encouraging people to expose themselves to toxicity that is very unhealthy for them.

      • lath@lemmy.world
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        6 days ago

        The toxicity won’t disappear on its own. It has to be cleaned up.

          • lath@lemmy.world
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            6 days ago

            Yes, we’re seeing it live. Most people here don’t seem very much pleased with how time decided to deal with it though.

                  • lath@lemmy.world
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                    6 days ago

                    And either you’re expecting the people you hate to die first or for yourself to die before them. Neither of those cases actually solves the problem, so your choice is quite pointless. All you’re doing is passing on the torch to the next generation and thus maintaining the cycle of ruination.

        • EldritchFeminity@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          6 days ago

          Socially ostracizing them is dealing with it. People aren’t sticking their heads in the sand here. They’re telling these people that their actions have consequences, and one of those consequences is exile. Cutting people out of your life is just one part of dealing with these people.

          • lath@lemmy.world
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            5 days ago

            Let me ask you this, if your kid ends up in a way not acceptable to you, will you “socially ostracize” them? Simply say “there’s nothing i can do” and cut them out of your life?

            If so, then I am sad for you. Not pity, just sadness.

            If not, then why not feel the same for your parents? Because they’re old or something like that?

            I don’t know. It’s just… eh, can’t even use ‘weird’ anymore… maybe ‘lame’ works. It’s lame to be so decisive in giving up, yet still flower it up as some sort of moral punishment.

            Yeh, people are dumb. Yeh, people can be evil. And yeh, some people are irremediable with too much wrongdoing to be forgiven. But it’s important to know the difference between these aspects and treat them accordingly. Otherwise, it’s just being lazy about it.

            • EldritchFeminity@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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              Do you not understand the concept of compounding events or something?

              This isn’t coming from nowhere and it’s not the first action people are taking.

              This is coming from 10-20 years of dealing with these people. The drunk uncle going on about “the darkies” every Thanksgiving since Reagan was in office. The in-laws making comments about how they respect you as a person, they just can’t support your “gay lifestyle.” The mother or father asking why you can’t just be a feminine gay man instead of trans. People who have had years of their cognitive dissonance pointed out to them as they repeatedly vote for politicians who want to hurt their friends and family.

              And now, as the thugs are donning their jackboots and people are saying, “Enough is enough, you’re a danger to my life and right to freedom,” you’re wondering why the abuser doesn’t deserve to be in their victims’ lives?

              • lath@lemmy.world
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                5 days ago

                The path of least resistance.

                We often walk it without even realizing it.

                The drunk uncle. Alcohol is called liquid courage for a reason. Has anyone tried since Reagan to teach him throughout the year he’s got nothing to fear or was he left to stew with only a propaganda channel as company and then only rebuked at Thanksgiving?

                In-laws. Nosy relatives are a staple of large family gatherings. They usually don’t really care about your “gay lifestyle”, they just want to nag, nitpick and compare. “Look at me and my kids! We’re all proper and shit! Nyeh nyeh nyeh!” Even if you shut them down on one thing, they just move on to something else. The cunts. But that’s just how some social contracts work.

                Parents. The biological urge to reproduce is often times a contest of wills that the urge tends to win. Parents want biological grandchildren. When the possibility of getting one drops to zero, it’s a shock to the system. Does not compute. “Feminine gay man” is a fucking win in the face of that.

                You want people to make difficult decisions because they’re the right thing to do, but you don’t care to understand how or why these type of decisions are difficult to them. Because it harms you, it harms others. Well guess what, harm comes in different shapes and forms, often unnoticed and unchallenged.

                If you’re unwilling to understand the difficulty in changing who you are, who you’ve been for a large part of your life without a constant impetus to push forward that change, then do you really deserve that type of understanding from others? To clarify further, you’re the impetus. Without you there to push them towards acceptance, who exactly are you expecting to do that for them? Fox news?

                It’s hard, very hard, so hard that many just pack up and run. And that’s fine. It’s completely fine. But it ain’t the right thing to do, it’s the left one.

                • EldritchFeminity@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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                  4 days ago

                  Now you’re just justifying the actions of abusers. Your speculated scenarios are as likely to be accurate as they are to be completely off the mark. Just like your assumption that the people cutting extremists out of their lives never put any effort into changing their beliefs.

                  You want people to make difficult decisions because they’re the right thing to do, but you don’t care to understand how or why these type of decisions are difficult to them. Because it harms you, it harms others. Well guess what, harm comes in different shapes and forms, often unnoticed and unchallenged.

                  The same exact words apply to your own argument. You might as well be saying, “Abusive parents deserve to be in their grandchildrens’ lives because it’s harmful to them to not be allowed to see their grandkids.”

                  • lath@lemmy.world
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                    4 days ago

                    Your problem is that you believe their actions aren’t supposed to be justified. But that’s the wrong approach. “Every action has consequences” is just bullshit on its own. The web of reaction is as old as the universe and us picking which action deserve a certain reaction is nothing more than personal whim.

                    We’re flawed beings, all of us. I can’t be right for every situation, but neither can you. And the difference between us is that I want to try and treat each individual as an individual. You may see this as excusing an abuser, I see it as fighting against abuse.

                    I won’t protect everyone and i can’t protect everyone, but just like any other kind of death row decision, it has to be earned. Each degree of punishment has to be fair. The chance for redemption has to be given. Punishment should be for the purpose of rehabilitation. And if we can’t do it at an individual level, how can we expect it to be done for a better society.

                    Being just is hard work. And if you can’t do it, why expect it of others?

    • wreckedcarzz@lemmy.world
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      5 days ago

      I can’t possibly see why politics is so polarised

      Spoken like a true well-off middle-aged+ white cishet. ‘I don’t have any problems, so I don’t see what the big deal is!’

        • ayyy@sh.itjust.works
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          5 days ago

          We’re at the “round them up into camps” stage. Have you read a history book before?

          A disagreement of ideas is something like “should we fund government services through the sale of bonds or require upfront funding from property taxes?”

          Also, the way you are drunkenly taking this personally tells me that you have been recently ostracized by people you care about. Are you willing to share what relationships you have recently lost and how they went sour?

          P.S.: Congratulations! I think you may actually be the first author of a comment to receive more than 100 downvotes on Lemmy!

    • SleepyBear@lemmy.world
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      4 days ago

      Have you been staying under a rock for the past 8 years? When one party starts adopting fascist policies and removing rights from real people/citizens of this country it stops becoming just a difference of opinion. Politics is so polarized nowadays because one group is fighting to help save people, and the other is fighting to just help ONE group of people.