I’m meeting my grandfather for lunch on Friday. It’ll be the first time I’ve seen him in several years. He went all the way down the hate hole. Never heard him cuss but last time we talked he was using the N word.
He’ll be 87 soon. Most likely, I’ll never see him again. He’s going to find out we’re moving out of the south to yankee land.
Fuck it. He’s not the man I knew. He doesn’t have the wisdom I thought he did.
I hate it and it fucks me up. I’ve lost my people to hate and stupid. So fucking stupid. They all want to suck some orange cock. Fucking really? That’s your fucking Messiah? They didn’t actually fucking read the fucking book they claimed they believed in while shoving bullshit down my throat and the throats of any child they could get ahold of.
Fuck em. They could wake the fuck up if they choose to. They could read. They could think. I tried to tell them.
I’m real sad about it. Not a fucking thing I can do about it. They can live inside their lie holes.
Blackberry Winter has skipped two years. There are armadillos, geckos, and fire ants now. Those critters didn’t live here until things changed. The fucking woods smell and sound different now. They could wake the fuck up and quit listening to fox or their preacher but they choose not to.
I tried to tell them and they didn’t listen because they choose to be ignorant.
fuck em
He doesn’t have the wisdom I thought he did.
One of the starkest shocks I had during the initial trump candidacy and pandemic was the veil being lifted on so many people I worked with or knew.
People I thought of as intelligent, level-headed, and reasonable suddenly appeared hateful, mulish, and willfully ignorant.
They didn’t care about the environment. They didn’t care if they got people sick or killed them with covid. They didn’t care about the open overtures to authoritarianism or fascism - if anything they directly welcomed this. The wild and rampant stupidity behind the conspiracies and Q-anon. The concerted attacks on women’s or lgbtq rights, the denial of equality or justice for people killed by police. The complete willingness to throw their fellow humans under the bus for any reason at all to spare themselves the inconvenience of not being able to eat at Applebees without a mask.
And they manufactured whatever slights they could think of to justify their actions regarding the above. It was retaliation for loss of perceived status as White People In Charge.
It completely killed discourse because you can’t have a discussion with someone who isn’t willing to argue in good faith. Who Gish Gallops and buthwhatabouts. Who exhausts their opponent with conspiracies that are so full of shit that you don’t even know where to start rebutting because they have no place in reality.
The trump election sharply split America in two. The country and the world are a far less stable place than a decade ago.
Yes. it was an incredible shock. 9-11 was less of a shock.
It’s like a transmissible soul sickness that they willfully acquired because it seemed easy and it made them feel right and justified.
I’m moving on and trying to make peace with it. I’m trying to view it as a different kind of pandemic or an asteroid that came out the sky and smacked us.
When you realize all the people you admired for their love of freedom actually just meant the freedom to be an asshole… That’s a hard lesson to learn.
Yeah, that’s the truth. Their freedom to not be inconvenienced regarding how their fellow humans are treated.
He’s not the man I knew. He doesn’t have the wisdom I thought he did.
The grief is really, really real. I’m so sorry. I feel this way about several people I grew up around, It sucks to realize people you respected aren’t interested in doing the right thing or even acknowledging reality.
My Dad growing up was probably fairly conservative but cool where it mattered - people are who they are, live and let live, that sorta shit. We never really discussed politics or anything.
When I graduated he remarried, sold the trailer I grew up being told would be mine, bought a house he lost within 2-3 years and kicked me out of basically immediately. I ended up in the Army, caught an IED, got seperated. Couldn’t even use the “guest room,” charged me $500/mo (in 2008, kinda insane then but maybe not so bad now lol) to sleep in the open basement and kicked me out again cause I wasnt paying up fast enough.
An ex convinced me to call him years later. First words out of his mouth - “You have that money you owe us?” I never reached out again.
Over covid, he tried to add me on Facebook. I’d blocked him but he made a new one. Hell no, but you’re my dad I’ll let you creep. On a post about the protests going on - “Those protesters wouldn’t be a problem if we just gun em down.” I blocked him and then had to tell me aunt (“you can’t just block family over politics”) that this isnt political, its moral and I don’t want anyone like that in my life. Bright side, I never have to feel bad about it ever again.
Its OK to let people go and cut them out. Blood family, chosen family, friends, they all stay with you even if your paths split apart. Never let old bonds tie you to a toxic situation. My Dad killed it growing up, now he’s a fascist. As you said, the man I knew was gone, and I do NOT owe whoever this new guy is anything. If thats the life they want to live, let them.
I got lucky, my father died when I was 4. My step father was good in spite of his religion.
That shit fucking sucks. I’m sorry for you. Sucks donkey balls.
Those things make us hard. We’re hard and take care of the ones we love. We make sure they don’t ever have to live like that. You sound tough, we’ll keep on going and loving. All we can do.
I’m from the South so I feel your pain, people are painfully ignorant. I’m more interested in the fact that you said the woods sound and smell different, could you elaborate?
This will be hard to put into words. I figure it’s a result of climate change/global warming.
There was an eartheir note in the smell when I was a kid. Now I smell more clay and piss, I think the piss smell is from the insects changing. I smell less oak and a lot more privet. Less walnut and pecan sharp smells. Lots of a green smell that I only used to know in high spring. Fungus and wood rot way more often. Something like cut grass even in February.
There was a constant whine and buzz. It was a background noise and is mostly gone. There was always knocking in the trees and it happens way less. The ground had a buzz and shuffle that is way less, even though big beetles move through.
There are new whinings, there’s a deeper buzz.
It’s all subjective, it’s different, things have changed.
I’m trying to put words to this, but it’s like trying to talk about the way water feels.
When I see stuff like this, I’m happy my father died when he did. He was also suffering at the time so seeing him no longer in pain was a good thing. I won’t get into that whole story, but he started going that way when he became a bit too forgetful. As in, he couldn’t even follow along with a normal conversation anymore. Happened sometime in the mid to late 2010’s.
He watched stuff like Fox, and listened to guys like Rush Limbaugh, and he was religious. I don’t really follow any media/news organizations, I don’t listen to pretty much any broadcasts specifically, nor follow any specific celebrities, and I’m atheist/agnostic/non-religious (I have some beliefs, but they’re not relevant to the story. I will say that I generally abhor any organized religion with a few exceptions).
I never saw him get consumed with hate over these things. He wasn’t aware enough that he could have even realized that Trump was president at all.
I should also disclose, were not Americans. We’re Canadians, but ask pretty much any Canadian about American politics and most of us will have a good understanding, meanwhile we generally know less about our own politics.
In any case, at the time that this decline into hate mongering started, his mental faculties were all but non-existent.
I’m truly sorry that you’ve had to deal with this op. I wish you the very best of luck moving forward.
Appreciate the kindness. I kind of wish they all died early so I didn’t have to see the rot.
Y’all watch out, be on guard.
Live well an full.
I’m sorry. It’s still hard to grow up and realize that people aren’t who we thought they were. Never meet your heroes, as they say.
Either this is a significant personality change that would indicate an illness requiring treatment, or this is who he’s secretly always been in which case you’re really not losing anything but your illusions and if this is the last time you see him then you’re not really losing anything important.
If it’s the former it may help you to feel better by trying to get him some help, even if you fail then at least you tried. If it’s the latter then it’s just best to cut your losses as soon as possible and move on.
Have you tried locking Fox behind parental controls on their TV?
Maybe I could have early on, but cousins would have probably unlocked it. Too late now. Now I’m just tired.
Holy shit that’s a good idea! My dad is clueless about technology 👌
I am drunk AF, but yeah. If people don’t have the decency to understand ecology, fuck em. They are living in their own world which does not reflect reality. If they choose to deny every logical point you present, that is on them.
I’m drunk as well. Fuck em. They chose not see things as they are and accept others for who they are. They chose to drink the poison.
Just going to point out that alcohol is literally a poison people drink to make them feel good. In much the same way that listening to someone who is projected as an authority figure, telling you that everything that’s wrong in your life is someone else’s fault makes your grandpa feel good.
He doesn’t have to feel bad for supporting bad politicians/policies, because they would have worked if not for those damn immigrants.
He doesn’t have to feel bad about voting to deny people abortions because they’re all just drugged up sluts who should be punished with children.
He doesn’t have to feel bad about destroying the environment because science is wrong sometimes(I can’t really condense the rhetoric on denying climate change because it literally makes no sense?).
The reason they watch this stuff is to feel better about themselves. And just like an alcoholic, indulging in performative blame-shifting politics can make you feel good in the short-term, while negatively impacting your life in a million different ways, ultimately resulting in you losing your friends, loved ones, career, and community.
-Adding this after posting
Actually, I was nearly a victim of the same thing, myself. I was in college, and I was lonely. I started listening to Dennis Miller on the radio as I drove to work and school. I liked him, because he was funny, and although he was right-wing and would talk to right-wing guests, he always seemed very tongue-in cheek about it. But As I listened to him, and the programs that sandwiched his, I noticed that I was getting angry. Like, every time I would drive and listen to these programs, I would just sit there, fuming.
Angrily staring out the window, trying to identify the drugged out loser homeless, the rape-crazed migrants, and the godless whore women using abortion as birth control. I’d drive and just… hate… like it was an activity to take part in. Luckily though, I realized it. I was sitting in particularly bad traffic, listening to the radio, and I was just so damned angry.
I was literally glaring at everyone and everything. and it kind of hit me, the question, “why am I so angry? what am I getting out of this?” and I turned it off. It was at this point, that I realized what I listened to had a profound impact on my emotions, and that if I was going to let something I listened to have control over me like that, then I’d at least like it to bring out an emotion I desired. So I started listening to the classical music station. It brought calm, it brought relaxation, it brought pleasure. And I never went back.
Just going to point out that alcohol is literally a poison people drink to make them feel good.
It starts that way, but quickly turns on you. Pretty soon you’re pissed at everything for no good reason, you’re tired but have enough energy for angry outbursts, and your world just shrinks and shrinks along with your brain. Horrible drug. Maybe some people can handle having a drink regularly, but I sure can’t ':S
Anyway yeah, getting caught up in politics can be similar.
Not sure what you’re saying about the local ecology. In any case, it’s changed radically since I was a kid in the 70s, plain to see.
FFS, you don’t have to clean the bugs off the windshield at every gas stop. That should be a major wake-up call to us old folks. The bottom of the food chain dropped out!
Nothing you can do OP.
Yes you do lol, bugs messing up my windshield dam it lol
We’d drive across the state as a kid and at the end of the day it was a sticky mess that was beginning to impact a driver’s ability to see well. I drove across the country a couple years ago and there were days at a time where we didn’t need to clean the windshield.
I had the same experience. Driving three hours in an Ohio summer in the 90’s meant consistently using the wipers and fluid to get bugs off the windshield. Then in 2013, driving across country, I had to clean my windshield of bugs, a single time. Now? haven’t needed to clean the windshield in years.
I ask my conservative father about these things, he just ignores it. Literally, if it doesn’t fit within his small, hate-filled world-view, then it might as well not exist. If I insist upon a response, he just starts hating me.
It feels as though I’m losing my parents in much the same way dementia would take them. Except it’s not some medical condition, it’s smug assholes in suits profiteering off peddling hate.
I have similar issues with my family. Never forget how much they love you, and never forget that they are the ones who helped you become the person you are today, regardless of the politics and or language they used to get you there
They have become what they taught me not to be. I studied what they told me was the truth. They would crucify Jesus for being a pinko commie. Something changed and they aren’t who they used to be. I have a lot of trouble trying to make peace with it.
They opened your eyes. Give thanks for that. The world works in mysterious ways, and they need your love more than ever now.
This… I don’t necessarily agree with this. If you come from a healthy, functional family, then sure, but for those of us who don’t, this is a very unhealthy attitude to keep, and is a mindset that is very easily manipulated.
And it’s almost impossible to explain to people who don’t come from that background. Ask me how I know…
This actually sounds a bit toxic tbh
How so? Because the family is toxic?
It’s not necessarily the case in this specific situation but in general this way of thinking can prevent people from getting out of situations that are really bad for their mental health.
That was the case for me at least where I didn’t cut off harmful family members out of a sense of obligation to them but that was a bit of a different situation to what the OP is describing.
My sympathies. Ignorance, especially willful ignorance, can be absolutely exhausting to deal with.
Don’t focus on that. Just remember that Friday is probably the last time you’ll see him alive. Try to steer the conversation towards pleasant memories. Make the conversation about his life, not current events. Ask him about his childhood, his first car, how he met your grandmother; stuff like that. People like to talk about themselves. Plus, it’ll keep the conversation away from politics.You might even learn some interesting family history!
Not to mention possibly have one last happy memory with a relative you thought was gone forever. If he steers it back into hatred, well, at least you tried.
There’s nothing stopping you from going NC with extended - or even immediate - family, if they negatively impact your sanity to that degree. At the end of the day, you’re human, and so is everyone else. Live your life on your own terms.
I don’t disagree, but when you mention it like that, I can’t help but think of how cults shun people who don’t assimilate.
For your gandfather, could it be dementia? Personality change, including dropping of inhibitions, can be signs of that.
No, he’s still sharp. This shit ate my parents, cousins, aunts and uncles. I’ve got one aunt that is still sane and she moved away when I was a kid.
If you are going to be upset about other people like this, you will be in a state of constant anger.
It’s not your responsibility to control what people do or think. My advice is to let those people be who they are, while you focus on being the best you can be.
Keep the people you vibe with in your life, and let the others go. Meet your grandfather and just observe him. This is life showing you someone who is hateful, from the sound of it. It’s just an example of who not to be, that’s all it is. Learn from that and remain calm.
You can do it. :)
If you are in the right state of mind, you can even smile at horrible things he says, because it’s just about him, not anyone else. You will start to view him as someone funny, like a child that messes up because they don’t know better.
Don’t fight people you don’t agree with. Just say what you think, and leave. No need to argue at all.
You will start to view him as someone funny, like a child
Well his grandfather is so old he’s probably well on his way becoming a child again.
There is wisdom in what you say.
I tried to help them. I wanted them to see a way without the hate.
It hurts a lot that they can’t come with me. I love them so much. It’s not okay that I can’t help them. My grandfather. My family. We make our choices.
It is so so so painful to lose a loved one.
It is excruciating to lose them before they die.
Even worse is when you see parts of what you liked about them suffocating beneath the propaganda that poisoned them. This is like a threefold death.
“This is like a threefold death.”
It really is. Grieving is a process and it comes in waves.
