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.
They are increasingly seen as moral judgements when people use their assumed morality as a platform from which to take rights away from people. Rights away from women and lgbtq at the forefront, but we’re also facing worker’s rights, your rights when encountering police as a minority, the law being more meaningless the more money someone has, your right to life in an increasingly gun-infested country where just standing in the wrong driveway will get you shot.
So it’s pretty easy to see why you don’t want to be around them.
I’m still trying to have a relationship with my parents despite their love of Trump. My mother, she’ll go out of her way to avoid politics with me and my husband, and I asked for a family photo with my nieces and nephews for Christmas, and she made sure all their Trump paraphernalia was removed. I still havent talked to her since the election as I’m still processing the fact that she voted for that fucker.
My dad on the other hand…the last time I spoke to him ended in a screaming match that he initiated, where he hung up on me because I called him racist due to him UNIRONICALLY believing that immigrants ate dogs and cats.
They want to homeschool my niece and nephew, and that terrifies me. That was ANOTHER huge argument that we had over the 2021-2022 Christmas period. I really didnt think Id ever go back after that. But Im so scared that if I dont try, those kids will never be exposed to ANYTHING other than my parents hateful views. I grew up in that environment. I had some views that Im not proud of today until I left home @ 19. I know how fucking convincing they are/how much they push the “fAmIlY oVeR eVeRyThInG” narrative.
That being said, I dont live anywhere near them, and I only see them once, maybe twice in a year, so Im not sure exactly how much affect I can even have on my niece and nephew. But I feel guilty not trying.
Weird. My son is 18 and him and all his friends voted for Trump… lol. Go figure.
Don’t deal with them. Walk away. You’re allowed to be mad at your parents for electing a felon dictator. You’re allowed to hate them and not talk to them again. That’s their loss, and you don’t need such toxic people in your life.
Here is where I am at and why. I believe that the next administration is a significant risk for the country, the envionment, and will likely have global geopolitical implications on what happens to Ukraine, Taiwan, and Gaza. The immigration policy and rehetoric is unbelievably hateful, not based on reality, and will likely be an unmitigated disaster. The promises to eliminate the ACA and governmental regulatory bodies/oversight in the EPA, FDA, and NOAA make all our our lives more risky and worse. Specifically though, they my MY KIDS LIVES MORE RISKY. If you are going to actively vote against MY KIDS, YOUR GRANDKIDS lives/futures in such a fundamental way, you don’t get to be a part of my life.
Me, disabled and home-bound (with the folks): that’s great and all buttttttttt
I’m not young anymore but I would say that I’ll never forgive my parents for their blind support of this shit.
The same people who have the nerve to tell you (fakely) they’re proud of you and think you’re really smart. But somehow I’m wrong about every single thing I’ve told them about trump for 9 years now
Same. It’s like you give them a situation, a fact, and how it applies. You ask for understanding and it’s " maaaa maaaa MAGA! SHE TURNED BLACK SHE SLEPT HER WAY TO THE TOP"
But yeah, MY sources are wrong, and biased.
Right. I think my dad especially has the attitude that it’s a) not really important enough to talk about and b) he gave up on the concept of him being wrong decades ago. He just couldn’t be, so yes my sources are obviously all wrong. Any implication that he is wrong is unacceptable to his fragile ego. So fucking weak.
Wait, your shitty, morally decrepit parents told you they were proud of you?
I only got the shitty, morally decrepit part and didn’t get the supportive part. Mine just wanted me to be their clone.
I mean same here. Just because every couple years they pretend to be proud for a moment doesn’t mean I ever believed them.
Guess they saw somebody on TV say it to a kid once or something.
I guess. Or maybe their parents literally never told them, so they think just saying it very occasionally is a great parenting move, despite never backing it with any action or attitude
I’m late 50’s and so is my wife. My parents are gone but hers are all MAGA all the time. She hasn’t talked to them much in years. It’s not just younger adults but older ones as well. I still have trouble comprehending what has happened.
In my 40s and parents are full support of Trump and Cruz (live in Texas). They were always on the conservative side, but since moving there they really went full into being “Texans” and yee-haw America!
I didn’t talk to them for over a year for something else, but totally in line with the politics/evangelical feelings. My grandma died and I went to the funeral where I finally spoke to them. I will text occasionally to say thanks for something they sent, but ultimately I have still pretty much cut them out everywhere else.
“conspiracy theories” like White People are The Genetic Master Race , Black People Haven’t Ever Invented Anything As Far As I know, Political Disagreements Of Any Kind Only Began After We Let Women Vote , Racial Equality is a Communist Plot Maybe, Lets Not Have It, If a Single Italian Is In Heaven, I’ll Throw Myself Into Hell , and I Drove By a School and Saw a Mexican Kid, This Country Is Already Lost, And I Bet The Jews Did It
Top 10 bangers
This reads like a Kidz Bop ad
Damn, that’s one hell of a long name for a book
Studies suggest political divisions are increasingly seen as moral judgments, fostering a “mega-identity” where political views signify personal decency.
I think this is important information that doesn’t get enough attention. The divisions that exist in the US today are often portrayed in the media as mostly superficial, as though we only disagree on the minor details of public policy choices, but generally agree on the core principles. I don’t think that’s true. I think there are significant ideological, philosophical, and moral disagreements among Americans. We have fundamentally different ideals, and we have differing visions of how America should be, and for how people should act and behave.
There are not only two different visions. I don’t think it is a strict dichotomy. I think there are several different, visions for the US. Some left, some right; some that want to focus on religious, social, cultural, or ethnic issues, some that want to focus on economic or material issues. There are multiple different ideals competing for supremacy, since the US is a de facto two party system, the winners are which ever groups can form the largest coalition of voters.
There is only 2 basic core values.
The right: some people are better than others, and the betters should rule. They differ on what makes someone “better”, but that’s about it. The left: Everyone is equal, some people need more help than others. They differ on who needs the help.
According to everything I’ve read, Trump was voted in by every demographic in swing states and even non-swing states.
I know that it’s a instinctive flex to dump on boomers (with good reason) but this calls for a bit more of a deeper analysis.
Fuentes, Gaetz, MTG, Miller, Boebert, Lake – none of these people are boomers. GenX at most and a lot of millennials. A quick glance through the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Leaders of the Radical Right show a lot in their 30s and 40s. Boomers vote and spend money, but they’re largely too old to be activists in the traditional sense.
The far right recruited young people online in the ‘00s and ‘10s. Gamer gate was when it broke containment. That was men my age (30) and a bit older and younger
Girls say they won’t let guys smash like they used to also. Fuck it. Pour on the punishments at this point. The more the better. Boomers can pay, young bros can pay. We’re all going to suffer once those tariffs start. Let’s channel that frustration.
Why are they still claiming “fiscal conservatism” is anything more than racism and class warfare by a different name? Why are conservatives “stronger on economy?” Of course this is causing divides about morals; a vote for the GOP is a vote for oppression and hate.
This bullshit dog-whistling by the media has to stop or we’re just letting 70+ million American voters off the hook by letting them claim “but I’m just worried about the economy.”
edit: I can’t find the source right now, but there’s a quote about this. I’m paraphrasing, but it goes something like “historians have a term they use for a person who voted for Hitler because they liked his economic policies. That term is ‘Nazi’”
Trumps “platform” was by any measure or definition less fiscally conservative than kamala. Pretty sure the reps left fiscal conservatism in the wasteland with Romney.
The new bullshit dogma for the right wing is “growth”. But I don’t think the Trump parade really even tried to explain that was the goal, or really any coherent economic policy.
Edit: the article seems to make the same point. That previously at least outwardly normal people have gone off the deep end.
You’re missing my point, at least partially. Even going back all the way to Reagan years (and certainly for Romney) “fiscal conservatism” was not actually about the economy or saving money; it was always about cutting social safety net programs that help minorities while enriching the elites (especially defense contractors and banks).
It’s a convenient piece of fiction that allows people to vote for conservatives who pass hateful legislation while claiming to be “not a racist,” but fiscal conservatism in the US is and always has been racist. If we want to see any change, we need to start forcing the media outlets and “fiscal conservatives” to say the quiet part out loud instead of getting away with claiming they are “not racist but…”
Agreed, de facto, budget cuts have been and would be racist.
Fiscal conservatism actually does mean something though. Like you could imagine a left leaning fiscally conservative government that maintained a balanced budget by raising taxes on corps and the wealthy. That would be basically fine (though I think on balance not as good as running a modest deficit to fund nice policy). If you just go, yeah no those words are henceforth no-bueno, aren’t you just buying into their doublespeak?
I’ll tell you what; when I see the term used by an elected official or GOP voter to mean something besides a dog-whistle, I’ll be on your side here.
Until then, when someone uses “fiscal conservatism” to tell me they’re voting Republican, I’m going to continue to believe that they’re ok with the rest of the GOP’s racist, homophobic, misogynistic platform, too.
When people tell you who they are, believe them. And don’t let them off the hook when they claim they’re “fiscally conservative”
“fiscal conservatism”
I remember when i thought they wanted balanced budgets.
Me too. And then Bill Clinton gave them balanced budgets and they still hated him and his economic policies, and I never really understood why until I realized it was because he wasn’t “hurting the right people”
I say this, as a parent, to people who worry about cutting off their parents if their parents are toxic people:
You owe your parents nothing. You did not ask to be born. They owe you everything. That’s their duty.
I don’t know about you but some of us chose to get born. I remember rolling my round ass down through a warm long tube as I waited for my other half to meet up. And, I also remember waiting patiently for the right blast off, one that wasn’t going to end up in or on a tummy, and swimming so hard and fast past all the other guys.
I’d still probably do it again, but it would’ve been nice to know more about the outside world. But back then it was all just about swimming and trying to hook up.
This headline is stupid.
Maga is the taliban, they’re the feeling of disgust made into a group, and they’re driving their friends and family away, and then dipshit news articles like this one pretend that it’s the normal people’s issue.
This headline is stupid.
Tbf the article is from Teen Vogue. It’s a publication meant for teenagers and is probably trying to relate to them more than the MAGA parents
What about parents dealing with their maga kids?
Not too strange of a phenomenon if one considers what populism focuses on, the fabrication of divides in order to drive tribal responses from it’s followers.Trump’s rhetoric is only one variety of it that happens to be very effective at creating that divide, those that are swayed shouldn’t really be seen as people that support all of his nastiest views, but as people that have been taken in by that sense of tribalism.
The loss of community is increasingly problematic for individuals in this day in age. There exists too many groups vying for our attention, many of which being communities that span across the globe. And with all these options, local communities may not always seem preferential to these global ones due to comparative size or accessibility. However, they still generally offer much more, and can prevent people from feeling isolated in their lives. Populist campaigns seek to take these people that are divorced from a community, often socially isolated people, and give them a group that seemingly supports them. So long as it’s welcoming, it doesn’t really matter who’s at the head of it, nor it’s beliefs.
I feel the fact that older people that aren’t quite retirement age and younger men being the people that are most likely to vote for Trump kinda speaks to this theory. I feel like these groups are the most at risk when it comes to developing rewarding communities, so a group like MAGA could be appealing to them.
Maybe they should have voted
