My sister's father-in-law is a very standard Eisenhower-era Republican; who cannot bring himself to recognize the evil of the current incarnation of the GOP. He remains a Republican but often appears sheepish and embarrased about it. He rarely talks politics (at least when I am around) and he remains a relatively cordial and empathetic man. I like him and find his company to be quite nice...same for this wife.
His son, my brother-in-law, is an insuffrable douchebag conspiracy theory loving racist freak - MAGA to the core and a walking, talking bullet point list for the craziest shit imaginable. He is an asshole to his core, he is openly racist af and proudly stupid, though he is convinced that because he listens to rightwing radio all day and watches Fox News all night that he is the "informed one" and he "has a REAL understanding of the country and how it must be 'fixed'. My sister has applied the transative property to herself and become an insuffrable soundboard of bullshit, nonsense, hate and outright lunacy. I cannot stand being around either of them any longer and avoid it all the time - begging off of family holidays and focusing more time on working alone with my dad instead of with my own sister and my nieces and nephews.
Its been about 6 years now - really kicked into high gear the second Trump rode down that elevator and absolutely accelerated after Charlottesville. I would rather put bamboo shoots in my cuticles than spend an eveniong with them. I recently had no choice due to family circumstances and had to witness my own brother threaten to punch our sister in the face if she did not shut up. She was on about Critical Race Theory and Grooming and Gender and the election and Immigration and on and on and on. I was able to concvince my brother to NOT beat up our sister but that was the limit of my successes.
She is lost in a ever deepening haze of 1/4 truths, full on lies, deceptions and propaganda...and ANY attempt to help her see this is an attack by the liberal elites and the media to force her to acknowledge gay marraige, non-binary identification and sexualization of her children (while shrieking like Maude Flanders from the Simpsons ). She really got pissed at me when I repeatedly pierced the veil by asking her to be specific instead of saying "they" all the time. She was pissed off about the third time I did it and was seething mad by the 7th time - but the reality is this: GOP adherents today must either turna blind eye and lie to themselves about their continued support of the broken mess of a once proud party...or they go full-on propaganda adherent and refuse all logic, reason and evidence in favor of talking points, manipulation and vagaritiesmeant to confuse and dissaude people from the truth.
"They" are "at it again"...on damn near EVERY issue.
Marriage Equality?
'They' are shoving it down our throats (obvious sexual inuendo blithely ignored..)
COVID-19 vaccines? (and really science in general too)
"They" are posioning everyone to control our will...
"They" are also ripping "us" off...
"They" include George Soros and his (apparently infinite pool of money to 'buy off everyone')
"They" do not know anything because 'they' kept telling people masks would end everything (nevermind...she doesn't care that is no where close to accurate or truth...)
Public Schools?
"They" are indoctrinating kindergarten classes.
"They" are shoving gender idenity into class to usurp parental rights.
"They" are also a problem because of moral permissiveness (nevermind that my 12-yr old niece has an I-phone and interacts with family events from the background with her face staring at TikToks and Instagram the whole time - totally unregulated and unrestricted and damn sure not on educational cooking video clips either).
Critical Race Theory?
"They" are making her kids feel bad about being white.
"They" are forcing everything to be about race all the time.
"They" are blaming "us" for slavery and its evils - even after 'so much time'...
She also could not identify what CRT is from a multiple choice list - identifying it as "reverse racism to teach white people they are to blame for 'everything'"...
The mess we're in is not only one group, it is many disparate ones.
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