For some context, we are first generation immigrants. My parents are Russian, my mother and her husband have been living here for 20 years (even got rid of Russian citizenship couple years ago), my biological father is still living in Russia.
It’s damn exhausting to discuss political topics with them, especially my father. He keeps telling me how great it is to live in Russia, how their economy is doing great and how he’s proud that they are defending their “brothers” in Donezk and Luhansk from the evil bandera regime in Ukraine.
My mom voted far right in the past election. She doesn’t believe she voted for nazis, but the party’s views on economics, climate policy and immigration seem to align with hers. She believes wind farms are harmful for the environment. What the actual fuck.
Whenever I try to argue with them, they tell me that I’ve been brainwashed by “Western propaganda”.
I’m at a loss. I love my parents and I know that nobody’s immune to propaganda, but it’s heartbreaking to see them holding these toxic beliefs. How would you deal with parents like these? Should I just declare to never talk about politics with them again since it’s pointless?
Similar struggle. I told my folks (they live 2hrs away and I see them every 2 mo.) that they need to choose: a relationship with me or talking about politics. At first I gave a couple warnings, but after maybe 3 or 4 times. I reiterated, me or politics, and left without another word. Works with phone calls too. “Did you hear what Bide” click - I hang up.
Treat them like dogs - they’re trainable. If you abruptly leave or hang up every time, eventually they’ll get the hint. If not, they’ve made their choice and if it’s not you, then you’ll need to move on.
I didn’t travel 2 hours to talk about someone I’ll never meet. Let’s talk about ourselves and what’s new in our lives. What’s going on in the garden, what’s new in the office, whatever happened to what’s-her-name you used to hang out with.
they’re trainable
This does work from experience. It also obligates you to be the person that puts energy and work into the relationship without it ever being reciprocated.
At any point you can decide that it’s not worth it anymore, OP. It’s completely fair to decide that this minute or 5 years from now.
I gave up on my mother after she voted for Trump this past election. I had been accommodating her terrible beliefs by instating a “no politics” rule in 2020. But her helping him back into office again is too much. I have friends who he wants to harm and that’s not acceptable to me.
When I was younger, I would have argued till I was blue in the face. I’ve since learned to choose my battles and not waste my time and energy on battles I know I can’t win… so I’d leave it alone as much as they allowed it, and eventually refuse to discuss it at all if needed.
My therapist made a really great point when I brought up this exact issue with him. He asked if I value a relationship with my parents, and I said yes. Then he said that the price you have to pay for having a relationship with them, is never discussing politics.
It worked for a year or so, but then they voted for that rapist again, and I’ve since cut them out of my life. I’m not walking around on the eggshells of their bigotry and ignorance just so I can get some semblance of what some may describe as affection. You can only say/do so many shitty terrible things before I’m just done with you completely, and they hit their limit, so it was time to cash out.
Sorry, my advice of ignoring politics only works for a little while.
If you don’t mind me asking, how often did politics come up with your parents?
Edit: just for my own perspective, they came up a little with my father while he was still alive and very, very rarely with my mother who I still see daily. I gently gauge the political position that my kids have but I’ve raised them all with empathy as a central tenet of their upbringing so that’s more or less where they tend to fall as best I can tell.
I am not interested in ending up where you did and I mean that with kindness.
My parents have conservative talk radio and/or fox news on basically 24/7 in their house and car, so there was really nowhere I could escape their politics. I figured out that all their talk was BS, but could never convince my parents of anything. I could take a quote from their favorite host, and pair it alongside facts stating the opposite was true from an organization that they, themselves, were members of, and they still would dismiss me.
In reality, it’s not the politics that got between us, it’s that they’re shitty people.
Rapist? You mean Bill Clinton? Or Biden, who showered with his 16 year old daughter?
I’m gonna need to see the receipts on this one. Sounds like some ‘pizza dungeon’ tripe.
Clinton was impeached for, at best, getting busy with a staff member. Maybe you have a different opinion, but I have a hard time believing things would have gotten as far as it did publicly if what truly happened was just some banal impropriety. Oh my, he got a blowjob from a college aged staffer? I doubt there are many presidents who haven’t. Why did this get far enough for immediate public knowledge?
Biden… before AI image generation took off, the magats made tons of compilations of pictures and videos of him making young girls obviously uncomfortable. Too much to just write off as coincidence or bad timing of photos. The bathing with his 16 year old daughter was from public statements made by the alleged victim, stating that it had happened.
Beyond all that, I have to get this off my chest: Y’all motherfuckers believe Epstein island is real (and it was), but you draw the line of believability at: “There’s no possible way the global elite could have sex trafficking infrastructure in the area surrounding a common meeting location. They would never use such obvious code language around pizza and pizza toppings. You know, the code language that can be verified to have been used by pedos on 4chan in the clearnet and that’s also been noted by darknet reseachers.”
I’m not saying the trumptards were 3000% correct to target a specific business owner, or it was in any way OK to condemn by public opinion without any true investigation.
But you are certifiably insane if you somehow don’t think that the elite have human trafficking services including heinously illegal and horrendous shit available at practically every port of call. That’s basic fucking kompromat generation tactics that most intel orgs the world over would be chomping at the bit to support. Fuckers.
I know I keep my tinfoil hat nice and shiny on this shit, but of all the things to push back against, you choose “The fellows at the top are likely rapists”?
Oh. Wow. Really stupid. I’m so sorry
Well, you do know Ol Bill was at Epstein Island sword fighting with Trump.
Good thing I didn’t vote for either of them or Biden in 2024.
Oh hey we’re in the exact same boat! My parents are from Russia too and moved to Germany about 20 years ago. If the bureaucracy here wasn’t that slow, they would have had citizenship by now and 100% both voted AfD.
We never had a decent relationship and I’m not concerned about preserving anything, so the goal is to just fully cut all contact at some point 🤷
Until then, I just act ignorant whenever they bring up politics (like literally pretending to not know who Trump is, because “what, why would I pay attention to niche american politics, they’re literally an ocean away??”).
Works pretty well, sometimes it even does make them retrospect about why they would care so much about seemingly random topics (because Russian propaganda channels train them to react to specific buzzwords).
Ultimately, I don’t think they would ever change into better people and any energy put into changing their minds would be better used somewhere else.Get away from them as soon as its feasible.
OMG
I was born in PRC, and I immigrated to the US along with my family. They just look at WeChat all day, and regurgitate CCP propaganda, and also pro-maga propaganda which is kinda an interesting combo of propagandas, considering how maga is always anti-China. Keeps blaming Democrats for the “migrant crisis” like BRUH we are immigrants 🤦♂️.
They left for economic (and to some degree political) reasons. Its fucking hard to get a job in mainland China, like theres 1.4 billion people ye know what I mean. And there’s no unions, no strikes, no workplace safety, no labor rights.
Yea they look at their current Union job in the US and still be like: “China wasn’t that bad”
Also funny thing is: I was the second child to be born in my family… during the One Child Policy… 👀
So I was not supposed to be born, my parents violated CCP policy, and they would’ve killed me (as in a forced abortion) if they found me, so my mother had to hide until I was born, but even then, I didn’t have legal documents (like birth certificates) until they paid a massive fine.
AND THEY ARE STILL SYMPATHETIC TO THE CCP 🤦♂️
Gee, thanks mom, guess if you love CCP so much, just let them take you away and force an abortion? At least I wouldn’t have to deal with this fucked up world.
Like, that’s my best argument against them every time they bring up pro-CCP views, I’d just be like (in Cantonese, obviously): “So you agree they should’ve killed me? Why didn’t you just let them then?” that shuts them up every time.
I mean, this world is so bizzare, I feel like I’m on some Truman Show and everyone is just messing with me
I’m thinking that it’s hard for them to be anti-CCP when all of their lives have had CCP propaganda as their main source of information, and moving abroad doesn’t really break that bond since the familiarity is still available online.
And of course CCP doesn’t seem so bad when they’re compared to the “alternative” as portrayed by the CCP.
That is all… massively fucked up.
No different than many American-Indians tbh. If India is so great then why don’t these fuckers come live here? I fucking hate it here, let me go to USA in their place.
My parents immigrated from “communist” Poland years ago and had similar conservative views. Abortion bad, church good, black people lazy, etc… It took years of discussions and disagreement to get them to think in a more progressive way, and yes, having siblings helps. And if you can convince one parent, they can help you convince the other.
I truly believe that art is one of the best ways to alter the way people think. I found that watching movies/documentaries with my parents that had strong ecological and humanitarion viewpoints were a great way to start these discussions. Movies about topics like systemic racism, homophobia, corporate greed/fraud, environmental destruction, religious abuse, etc…
For example, the Netflix documentary ‘13th’ have real insight into how the systemic racism uses poverty to keep marginalized people poor and desperate enough to commit crimes. Which are then blamed on their skin color rather than their on economic situation.
Should I just declare to never talk about politics with them again since it’s pointless?
Yes. I thought that was obvious, when have you ever seen children being able to convert their parents?
I unbrainwashed my mom but not my dad
My parents were anti-gay marriage back in the day… they converted when they were faced with the fact that ALL OF THEIR KIDS are queer hahaha
They’re totally cool with stuff now, and very much not right-leaning anymore.
My mom was a conservative along the lines of McCain and Romney. My sister and I played a part in converting her, but Trump did the heavy lifting.
Yeah. As Dave Ramsey says “If they’ve wiped your butt, you’re probably not going to change their mind.” Lol.
While this is not incorrect, it needs to be stated for the record that Dave Ramsey is a fucking tool.
Let the record so reflect!
I stopped talking to them because every time I did I would have to correct things that they say because I am more knowledgeable about absolutely everything given that I’m not a dumbass
Smother them with a pillow while they sleep.
Edit: this comment will land on the right side of history
Block their access to propaganda channels. Don’t tell them you are doing this. Make it look like it’s malfunctioning, if you can. Expose them more to educational material.
Example: Swap fox sub with vox. Set the child lock on their tv. Domain filter facebook in their router or throttle the service to make it unpleasant to use. Set up url redirects. Get them a stack of dvds. Proper entertainment is better than propaganda. They watch that crap cause they are lazy and it’s easy.
If they give up and switches to a more sane channel for their entertainment, politics or otherwise, you have succeeded.
The idea is to remove them from the constant barrage of propaganda from bad actors. If they stop hearing about “evil trans people” every ten minutes, they will probably become uninterested after a while.
My parent gets recommended right wing propoganda via youtube, and it’s infuriatingly difficult to stop it. After I blocked Fox news, the algorithm will simply recommend Fox news videos and streams from innumerable other random channels that do nothing but that, and it becomes whack a mole.
I subscribed them to better sources, but even after deleting the view history, that shit always finds a way back.
Without looking anything up; I would try solving this problem with a browser extention that can hide videos by keyword.
filter FOX, trans, woke and whatever else usually excites or makes them angry. Check their history for a list of things to filter.
If you wanna be extreme, you could redirect youtube to some other video hosting site. you might be able to block some domains to break the yt app but still allow the homepage.
if they are accessing yt through mobile apps, I would consider swapping it for an alternative yt app with the feature of keyword filtering. without checking if they have this feature, you could check out Newpipe, vanced, skytube.
At least you can turn off recommendations and search suggestions and only show subscriptions in the ui.
Do them the service of installing sponsorblock and ublock Origin, to make the browser experience superior to the official app. (also avoids propaganda ads)
I hadn’t thought of a keyword blocker, but that might just be the ticket to solving it permanantly. Cheers for the recommendation!
I think the algorithm shit is why we have this right wing surge.
Yep. Billionaires have always had their thumb on the scale, but they’ve now found a particularly effective scale to tip.
Thank you for your advice. Unfortunately though, I don’t live with my parents anymore. They seem to consume information mostly through telegram, news articles and Russian television. I wouldn’t know how to shield them from those influences, I don’t have access to all their accounts or devices.
What’s more important to you: having a relationship with them or changing their views? I don’t mean this as some kind of “gotcha” thing. This is the choice you need to make.
You already have your simplest solution to this (don’t talk politics with them), but you made this post because you don’t like that solution.
Thankfully most things in life aren’t so black and white. It’s possible that you can work on them very very softly and slowly over time, but this all comes down to what you can stand in order to keep your relationship with them.
I personally think that attempting to avoid political topics with them is the best direction to go here, but it’s not my parents or my choice to make for you.
I moved a couple states away from my family to minimize any interaction. It’s not just politics. Their politics are, however, and indicator that they’re not the type of people I want to associate with, so the extra distance facilitates less contact.
Of course, I moved to Iowa, which has since shifted from purplish to red. At least I’m on a blue city.
