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In reply to the discussion: Ironically, once you decide a person or group is "stupid," you are relieved from thinking about them [View all]Alice11111
(5,730 posts)In my blue little town, with my friends, I am rarely around them. It is easy to forget how many there are.
However, I also have relatives across the state line 300 miles away (one reason I moved away over 30 years ago), who are like yours. They used to send me the most vile internet crap.
They don't anymore. Even though it disgusted me and I could rarely finish reading it, it kept me aware of what about 1/3, maybe more, of Americans are really like. I think some are passionate about their beliefs and others just aren't that bothered by it, or they just want to fit in with their peers. Together, they make up about half. Of course, I have no real stats, except for voting and the same polls we all see. Look at the news people watch. Half watch Fox or worse now. There is a STRONG anti intellectual, even anti intelligence, bias.
They go for the knee jerk RW positions and believe it's anti American or even anti- Christian to question them.
They claim not to be racists, but they ARE through and through. Plus, the religious hypocrisy makes me angry.
My brother, who is Pres of a corporation, carries a gun in his briefcase. He and his wife are open carry certified. I know he has a lot of guns. They have a very smart and talented 9 year old daughter. I worry about her and the guns, and I've tried to give him hints about accidents. He has obviously limited my contact with her because of my politics ...she would occasionally Facetime me and tell me she loves me, talking quietly, and say, they are asleep or in the bathroom. If you met them, you would probably like them. Hos wife is sweet and thoughtful, and he is funny as hell. We never talk politics, but of course it sneaks in, when values come up. He doesn't send me crap, but he asked me not to park my car with my Obamanos sticker in front of his house, in his opulent neighborhood. I ignored him, and it pissed him off. Yet, if i have a problem, he always checks in on me, and i do the same with his family.
My mother and aunt read Drudge, and who knows what else, and watch fox news. My aunt has all of OReilly's books on her coffee table, in her very large, immaculately organized and expensive home. They have sent me some stupid, awful insidious crap, always with some nonapplicable scripture at the bottom.Birther stuff. They sent Birth certificates saying Obama was born in Kenya.(My response was, photoshopped.) They sent Anti-Muslim, the stupidest things that anyone with a brain would question...everything you don't even want to think about. I look at the email trails, and there are a thousand senders who sent it to 50 others. I have a 2nd or 3rd cousin, closer to their age, who fact checked everything and called them out. How she had the time, I don't know? It was a whole lot of shit with crapola underlying assumptions. So, they took us both off the list. If I do get something, and it looks like they send me the stuff that they don't even understand is offensive, I ignore it. My daughter does too. So, our silence speaks. When I get non offensive stuff, I'll respond briefly, like one or two words.
Yet, my aunt is wonderful in some ways. I had a serious injury and she took me to the Mayo Clinic for a week. She is always there for anyone in our family in need, and she still works full time in her mid 80s.
After the sexual predator tapes came out, I asked my mother not to vote for DT. I've never asked her about her vote before. My daughter was raped, as a very young child. My mother had to testify, and be cross examined, so I thought surely she would get that one. She didnt. She said, All the women were liars. Bill Clinton was worse. Hillary and Bill murdered people. What DT said was fake news, locker room, etc. She sent me a text after the election and told me, life is good, we won!
I feel guilty because I don't call my mother, not since Christmas, and my brother checks in with her a lot, but I procrastinate. She's in her mid 80s and obviously won't live long. I was helping her with a newspaper subscription, and she was reluctant to get a year because she probably won't make it that long We have had too many brutal arguments, most of which she started. Twenty years or more ago, she was calling Hillary a bitch, just to poke me.
She pulls the Jesus card, as they all do, which makes me sick. I want to say, there was a commandment about that, not taking the Lord's name in vain.
Mostly, we all communicate by sending photos and videos of the kids or pictures of pretty animals.