I grew up in a Republican household. My parents said that they voted for lower taxes, limited federal government, American strength abroad. They LOVE Trump.
It’s all been a lie. They voted Republican because they hate the Democrats. It took me a long time to realize that.
They don’t hate me, but they hate my principles. The thing is, I have principles, they don’t.
I find that conservatism is based on fear of the “other”, a lack of critical thinking, and the need for a leader or a voice of authority to look to. In my family’s experience, Reagan, and then Rush Limbaugh, guided us through the end of the Cold War and the existential fears that surrounded that time. Fox News took the baton and helped propel Trump and MAGA. But it’s mainly an identity, more than a set of beliefs or principles. The principles worked fine when Reagan or Limbaugh could explain them… but those were easily discarded in order to align obediently with MAGA. Having Fox News on the TV all day is a sort of cozy security blanket for my dad. He doesn’t feel the need to think too deeply about things. They take care of that for him. 🤦🏼♀️
It’s also important not to ignore the immense influence of the white evangelical church and how much it’s woven into a sense of identity and political obedience. The white evangelical church is white-knuckling issues on women, abortion, and sexuality, and most republicans in my life vote solely on those issues. Pastors are preaching that voting R is the only way to be a faithful Christian. Any conservatism that remains is just fear and control of others.
My Trumper parents hate me. I'm a highly educated childless single woman in her 40s, with half her head shaved, basically Satan incarnate. I don't have a husband or Jesus, they don't know how I tie my shoes without a man directing me. Solidarity comrade.
My dad passed away long before the rise of Trump. He was one of the finest men I’ve ever known. But he intensely disliked Democrats (and yes, I am experiencing dissonance in reconciling those 2 qualities). I have avoided dwelling on how he would feel about Trump and Republicans now. But one positive data point is my mom. Long time republican, 2x Trump voter finally had the scales fall from her eyes in 2024. She voted 3rd party, which I’ll consider progress.
My late parents were also traditional Republicans before trump, and were initially repulsed by him. They ended up voting for him twice and, had they lived, would surely have voted for him again. After my father died, I ended up heir to funding appeals from the various wingnut organizations he'd donated money to--Heritage Foundation, Free-Dumb Caucus, wingnut legal defense organizations.
Thank you. I also grew up in a Republican household. People who vote Republican tend to be racist in my experience. That was the very, very, very first thing I concluded about politics at about age 8. Since then, many educated years and long, long words have been spent to get me to reconsider my childhood conclusions, but lo and behold, we got ourselves right back here. They vote the way they vote because they believe in White supremacy. I wish it were more complicated. I truly, truly do.
Hard to disagree from my experience as well. The lessons I learned in childhood were that no person should be judged by any trait they couldn't control (homosexuality excluded because...something, something, Bible something). A person should be judged solely by their actions and character. All it took was the election of our first non-white President to show that those were only words. It made no difference that he was a decent family man without a hint of personal scandal (and he even checked those not at all racist boxes of being "well-spoken" and "educated").
It then naturally follows that they would go all-in on the most morally bankrupt person to ever run for the office.
Kate - I grew up in a divided household, but ultimately they thing that they agreed upon was fundamentally racist. Which is why now they have both gone full MAGA.
That's a helluva burden for you, I don't know how you do it. I was lucky. Both parents were active Dems, socially liberal, fiscally moderate (dad taught economics, mom was a research chemist). I'm probably more "conservative" then either, but strictly regarding foreign and fiscal policies. Never had to fight family, or hide my positions.
Paul. They are saying that because those were their households, family and friends of family. You have to accept the realities of people’s real experiences. Both my family and my husband’s family fit right in. So did so many in the town I lived in. No these were not card carrying racists, but they never shied away from making their values known. There really were a lot of them.
The people I knew as a child who still vote Republican are racist. I can't speak for people I don't know and I don't intend to. "They vote the way they do" in my quote referred back to my experience.
I can think of only 1 person in my family who votes R who wasn't racist: my grandfather, who served in France in WW2 and wouldn't vote Dem because they ran FDR 4 times. He passed away in 1999. He would've been a guiding light for my family in these times. Then again, maybe these times came to pass because his generation is no longer here.
That's her experience, Paul. Because you disagree with it doesn't mean it's "nonsense." To show that it's "nonsense" you need to show research data on Republicans and racism that proves your point. Here's your search string: "research on republicans and racism."
My parents were Republicans. The racism and sexism were what drove them out of the party. They voted for Clinton in ‘92, but didn't change their registration until 2004. It was hard to make that change.
Kate I am sorry that I have to agree with you. Unfortunately because racism and all forms of bigotry come in many flavours it’s possible for lots of people to convince themselves that they aren’t racist.
If my “Republican” family members weren’t related to me they would hate me. It was a tough lesson for me to internalize. The cognitive dissonance on both sides is massive.
Yeah, same, the compartmentalization is insane. Uh, what helped me understand it, though I cannot say I've made peace with it, is that it all comes down to in-group versus out-group politics... at least in the South in my experience with my family.
I'm treated as a weird cousin or nephew or whatever, but tolerated, because despite my politics, I am obviously "in-group" to my own family members. I think I'm viewed as a village idiot, or some such. But to the other folks in town, they'd immediately reject me as "out-group."
Or, even finer example, I have two family members in same-sex marriages now, and they've literally moved from outgroup (like before 2015, one was even kicked out of their house as a teenager) to in group (same person now hosts 4th of July for even the parents that kicked them out) as normalization of same-sex couples has increasingly spread in the South.
I approach it all with the attitude of “it’s the reason but not an excuse”. I’ve moved certain people to a different level in my life. They get a very shallow view of my life and our relationship is very surface level. Basically I’ve shunted them to an out-group, but didn’t tell them. It’s actually pretty easy to do since I’m not active on social media.
If I still personally utilized FB in any way I would’ve nuked some relationships from orbit several years ago.
This brings to mind JVL’s earlier writings about Carol, the immigrant who has lived in her town for 30 years and is a great person, now being deported because reasons. Your family group and friends may treat you as “in”; Stephen Miller and his brown shirts will not.
I told my Dad once that I wasn't comfortable coming home because Mom is a member of a political movement that would like to exterminate (possibly even in camps) the minority that I, as well as most of my friends, am a part of.
"Well, yes, she is" Dad admitted, "but she's willing to make an exception for you. Shouldn't that mean something to you?"
My parents didn’t survive to see Trump’s day. I wonder what they would have thought. As for me, I was radical left as a young man and have been shifting to the center ever since. I celebrated my 65th recently and can’t believe the mess we’ve created. The tail wags the dog on both sides and there’s never the meeting of minds or rational debate like what Charlie Kirk strove to have. May he rest in peace and may perpetual light shine upon him. And may his vision come to pass: not the positions he held but the desire to talk about them peacefully.
Did he really strive to have rational debate? That means using reasons and facts. He said a lot of false things like this: On his podcast, in 2023, he said “The Charlie Kirk Show,” in 2023.“Jewish communities have been pushing the exact kind of hatred against whites that they claim to want people to stop using against them".
I got into an argument on another more centrist site where they insisted Kirk couldn’t be an antisemite even if he believed in the “white replacement theory” (typically blamed on Jews) because he supported Israel. I still don’t know what to think.
Ah, he supports Israel because Evangelicals believe that the return of the Jewish people to the land of Israel is the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies which is a prerequisite for Jesus's return.
It has nothing to do with Jewish people. Or even Israelis.
Meghan McCain wrote a remarkably un-self-aware comment this week about how she couldn’t make peace with a political movement that literally wanted “to kill me and people like me”.
The drip-drip of info about the shooter’s personal life is filling me with dread, and I’m just a cis gay white man.
This would be the same Meghan McCain who announced her 3rd pregnancy while interviewing Usha Vance. This is of course, what emotionally self-aware and well adjusted adults do. You’ve got to hand it to her, for someone who came from a father who despite his ego could be very selfless she’s very good at always making it about herself.
What happened to her? She was the daughter of John McCain who Trump dissed. At her father's funeral, she reproached Trump saying the “America of John McCain has no need to be made great again because it was always great.”
Note that Stephen Miller thinks you can have your property taken away without being convicted of a crime. He hasn't read the 14th Amendment. But I'm not surprised.
The 14th Amendment will mean what six Supreme Court justices says it means at some future time when the Executive Branch does what it will do. Past performance does not guarantee future results.
I'd question how much of the dripping is real. It looks like a counter offensive to the fact that people were digging into who and what uses the phrases on the shell casings and realizing that aspect of the alleged killer's pysche was not leftist.
(I’ve reposted this at the link at bottom; I feel like the LDS connection — *NOT* the church itself, mind you, but the way it creates a stark division in many parts of Utah society — is an unexamined facet of this discussion that deserves some attention from people better-equipped than me to analyze it.)
Well, I happen to have had a close friend from St. George, Utah who’s gay and an academically-stellar autistic person (not suggesting the shooter is autistic, but it’s another way my friend felt excluded), and I think in places like that — where the church is part of nearly everyone’s life and to distance yourself from the church is to literally feel yourself lumped in with everyone else who is distanced from the church. In semi-rural Utah, “not comfortably LDS” can be a more important and overriding identity than anything else.
So I personally don’t think we’ll get any answers at all about his politics that make sense outside that context, and arguing about them is going to be a particularly dreary part of the next few weeks — as they say, excruciating boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror.
Okay, the shooter wasn't trans, but his bullets were trans!
Okay, the bullets weren't trans, but the shooter's roommate was trans! Probably!
Clearly, his motive revolves entirely around his roommate! It's just like Ronald Reagan getting shot so an actress would fall in love with the shooter all over again.
What's that? You think we're chomping at the bit to find a trans person to blame for this shooting? That's ridiculous. What would imply that?
I grew up in a Republican household. My parents said that they voted for lower taxes, limited federal government, American strength abroad. They LOVE Trump.
It’s all been a lie. They voted Republican because they hate the Democrats. It took me a long time to realize that.
They don’t hate me, but they hate my principles. The thing is, I have principles, they don’t.
I find that conservatism is based on fear of the “other”, a lack of critical thinking, and the need for a leader or a voice of authority to look to. In my family’s experience, Reagan, and then Rush Limbaugh, guided us through the end of the Cold War and the existential fears that surrounded that time. Fox News took the baton and helped propel Trump and MAGA. But it’s mainly an identity, more than a set of beliefs or principles. The principles worked fine when Reagan or Limbaugh could explain them… but those were easily discarded in order to align obediently with MAGA. Having Fox News on the TV all day is a sort of cozy security blanket for my dad. He doesn’t feel the need to think too deeply about things. They take care of that for him. 🤦🏼♀️
It’s also important not to ignore the immense influence of the white evangelical church and how much it’s woven into a sense of identity and political obedience. The white evangelical church is white-knuckling issues on women, abortion, and sexuality, and most republicans in my life vote solely on those issues. Pastors are preaching that voting R is the only way to be a faithful Christian. Any conservatism that remains is just fear and control of others.
I feel this.
Trump is devoted to weakening America abroad, except for attacking small unarmed boats. Hit another one today.
He really wants a war. The no war president really wants war with what he perceives to be a weak Latin American country he can easily dominate.
Does this improve his chances for the coveted Nobel Peace Prize?
Sounds about right.
My Trumper parents hate me. I'm a highly educated childless single woman in her 40s, with half her head shaved, basically Satan incarnate. I don't have a husband or Jesus, they don't know how I tie my shoes without a man directing me. Solidarity comrade.
Sadly you can copy paste your story to many many more Americans.
Oooofff this hits home.
Nick, my experience resembles your’s completely.
My dad passed away long before the rise of Trump. He was one of the finest men I’ve ever known. But he intensely disliked Democrats (and yes, I am experiencing dissonance in reconciling those 2 qualities). I have avoided dwelling on how he would feel about Trump and Republicans now. But one positive data point is my mom. Long time republican, 2x Trump voter finally had the scales fall from her eyes in 2024. She voted 3rd party, which I’ll consider progress.
You probably could add free international trade and a market economy where the government doesn’t own companies….and they too didn’t really matter.
My late parents were also traditional Republicans before trump, and were initially repulsed by him. They ended up voting for him twice and, had they lived, would surely have voted for him again. After my father died, I ended up heir to funding appeals from the various wingnut organizations he'd donated money to--Heritage Foundation, Free-Dumb Caucus, wingnut legal defense organizations.
And they thought I'd been brainwashed. Gaah!
"You are hated and are actively and publicly being dominated right now. Understand that and start doing something about it."
^This should be the mindset all across the anti-Trump coalition right now.
100%
Thank you. I also grew up in a Republican household. People who vote Republican tend to be racist in my experience. That was the very, very, very first thing I concluded about politics at about age 8. Since then, many educated years and long, long words have been spent to get me to reconsider my childhood conclusions, but lo and behold, we got ourselves right back here. They vote the way they vote because they believe in White supremacy. I wish it were more complicated. I truly, truly do.
Kate Fall, racism to me is the bottom line as to why people vote Republican.
SAME. I have never voted for a Republican because I've lived my entire life in Texas and the Texas GOP has always been racist first.
Hard to disagree from my experience as well. The lessons I learned in childhood were that no person should be judged by any trait they couldn't control (homosexuality excluded because...something, something, Bible something). A person should be judged solely by their actions and character. All it took was the election of our first non-white President to show that those were only words. It made no difference that he was a decent family man without a hint of personal scandal (and he even checked those not at all racist boxes of being "well-spoken" and "educated").
It then naturally follows that they would go all-in on the most morally bankrupt person to ever run for the office.
I men he did wear a tan suit that one time.....
You're right, Ian. How could I forget? We couldn't let someone like that represent us on the global stage.
Exactly right Benjamin.
Kate - I grew up in a divided household, but ultimately they thing that they agreed upon was fundamentally racist. Which is why now they have both gone full MAGA.
That's a helluva burden for you, I don't know how you do it. I was lucky. Both parents were active Dems, socially liberal, fiscally moderate (dad taught economics, mom was a research chemist). I'm probably more "conservative" then either, but strictly regarding foreign and fiscal policies. Never had to fight family, or hide my positions.
So most people who identify as Republican are racist. What a bunch of nonsense. Too ridiculous to even respond to
Accepting the truth about the party is difficult but necessary.
Paul. They are saying that because those were their households, family and friends of family. You have to accept the realities of people’s real experiences. Both my family and my husband’s family fit right in. So did so many in the town I lived in. No these were not card carrying racists, but they never shied away from making their values known. There really were a lot of them.
The people I knew as a child who still vote Republican are racist. I can't speak for people I don't know and I don't intend to. "They vote the way they do" in my quote referred back to my experience.
I can think of only 1 person in my family who votes R who wasn't racist: my grandfather, who served in France in WW2 and wouldn't vote Dem because they ran FDR 4 times. He passed away in 1999. He would've been a guiding light for my family in these times. Then again, maybe these times came to pass because his generation is no longer here.
Agree. The WW2 generation would never elected the buffoonish 🍊draft dodger.
That's her experience, Paul. Because you disagree with it doesn't mean it's "nonsense." To show that it's "nonsense" you need to show research data on Republicans and racism that proves your point. Here's your search string: "research on republicans and racism."
My parents were Republicans. The racism and sexism were what drove them out of the party. They voted for Clinton in ‘92, but didn't change their registration until 2004. It was hard to make that change.
Kate I am sorry that I have to agree with you. Unfortunately because racism and all forms of bigotry come in many flavours it’s possible for lots of people to convince themselves that they aren’t racist.
If my “Republican” family members weren’t related to me they would hate me. It was a tough lesson for me to internalize. The cognitive dissonance on both sides is massive.
Yeah, same, the compartmentalization is insane. Uh, what helped me understand it, though I cannot say I've made peace with it, is that it all comes down to in-group versus out-group politics... at least in the South in my experience with my family.
I'm treated as a weird cousin or nephew or whatever, but tolerated, because despite my politics, I am obviously "in-group" to my own family members. I think I'm viewed as a village idiot, or some such. But to the other folks in town, they'd immediately reject me as "out-group."
Or, even finer example, I have two family members in same-sex marriages now, and they've literally moved from outgroup (like before 2015, one was even kicked out of their house as a teenager) to in group (same person now hosts 4th of July for even the parents that kicked them out) as normalization of same-sex couples has increasingly spread in the South.
I approach it all with the attitude of “it’s the reason but not an excuse”. I’ve moved certain people to a different level in my life. They get a very shallow view of my life and our relationship is very surface level. Basically I’ve shunted them to an out-group, but didn’t tell them. It’s actually pretty easy to do since I’m not active on social media.
If I still personally utilized FB in any way I would’ve nuked some relationships from orbit several years ago.
This brings to mind JVL’s earlier writings about Carol, the immigrant who has lived in her town for 30 years and is a great person, now being deported because reasons. Your family group and friends may treat you as “in”; Stephen Miller and his brown shirts will not.
Where is there cognitive dissonance on our side?
Cognitive dissonance for me personally (and others in a similar boat). Sorry that wasn’t clear!
I told my Dad once that I wasn't comfortable coming home because Mom is a member of a political movement that would like to exterminate (possibly even in camps) the minority that I, as well as most of my friends, am a part of.
"Well, yes, she is" Dad admitted, "but she's willing to make an exception for you. Shouldn't that mean something to you?"
I told him that it did not.
That is really sad.
Proof she's a bigot.
I've been in Republican all my life. I miss the meeting where there was discussion of exterminating people.
You know, I never said Mom was a part of the Republican political movement, but I guess hit dogs do holler, don't they?
Yup.
My parents didn’t survive to see Trump’s day. I wonder what they would have thought. As for me, I was radical left as a young man and have been shifting to the center ever since. I celebrated my 65th recently and can’t believe the mess we’ve created. The tail wags the dog on both sides and there’s never the meeting of minds or rational debate like what Charlie Kirk strove to have. May he rest in peace and may perpetual light shine upon him. And may his vision come to pass: not the positions he held but the desire to talk about them peacefully.
Did he really strive to have rational debate? That means using reasons and facts. He said a lot of false things like this: On his podcast, in 2023, he said “The Charlie Kirk Show,” in 2023.“Jewish communities have been pushing the exact kind of hatred against whites that they claim to want people to stop using against them".
I got into an argument on another more centrist site where they insisted Kirk couldn’t be an antisemite even if he believed in the “white replacement theory” (typically blamed on Jews) because he supported Israel. I still don’t know what to think.
Ah, he supports Israel because Evangelicals believe that the return of the Jewish people to the land of Israel is the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies which is a prerequisite for Jesus's return.
It has nothing to do with Jewish people. Or even Israelis.
He told this lie about Jews: “Jewish communities have been pushing the exact kind of hatred against whites that they claim to want people to stop using against them,” https://www.mediamatters.org/charlie-kirk/charlie-kirk-defends-elon-musks-antisemitism-some-largest-financiers-left-wing-anti. Telling lies about Jewish people is the epitome of anti-semitism AFAIC.
I would gladly learn more about him. Thank you.
Do you want to know more about the things he actually said?
I’m so sorry you experienced this. I hope you found a great support system elsewhere. Found family is spectacular and special too!
That . . . is just horrifying.
"But she's willing to make an exception for you."
Oy.
He was 100% serious.
Yes, his dad thinks what her son thinks about her bigotry is personal to him. It's not. Bigotry is not ok.
And there is the follow-up question, "How would Mom see me if I wasn't her son?"
Meghan McCain wrote a remarkably un-self-aware comment this week about how she couldn’t make peace with a political movement that literally wanted “to kill me and people like me”.
The drip-drip of info about the shooter’s personal life is filling me with dread, and I’m just a cis gay white man.
This would be the same Meghan McCain who announced her 3rd pregnancy while interviewing Usha Vance. This is of course, what emotionally self-aware and well adjusted adults do. You’ve got to hand it to her, for someone who came from a father who despite his ego could be very selfless she’s very good at always making it about herself.
“ Meghan McCain wrote a remarkably un-self-aware”
Is an evergreen statement
She is riding the Algorithm Express for all it’s worth. So self-involved and hypocritical.
What happened to her? She was the daughter of John McCain who Trump dissed. At her father's funeral, she reproached Trump saying the “America of John McCain has no need to be made great again because it was always great.”
another nepo baby who should keep her mouth closed (the line forms behind rfk jr).
I'd love to have anyone who believes America is a meritocracy explain the career of Meghan McCain.
Note that Stephen Miller thinks you can have your property taken away without being convicted of a crime. He hasn't read the 14th Amendment. But I'm not surprised.
The 14th Amendment will mean what six Supreme Court justices says it means at some future time when the Executive Branch does what it will do. Past performance does not guarantee future results.
I'd question how much of the dripping is real. It looks like a counter offensive to the fact that people were digging into who and what uses the phrases on the shell casings and realizing that aspect of the alleged killer's pysche was not leftist.
Counter offensive plus Russian and Chinese bots fomenting division and violence?
(I’ve reposted this at the link at bottom; I feel like the LDS connection — *NOT* the church itself, mind you, but the way it creates a stark division in many parts of Utah society — is an unexamined facet of this discussion that deserves some attention from people better-equipped than me to analyze it.)
Well, I happen to have had a close friend from St. George, Utah who’s gay and an academically-stellar autistic person (not suggesting the shooter is autistic, but it’s another way my friend felt excluded), and I think in places like that — where the church is part of nearly everyone’s life and to distance yourself from the church is to literally feel yourself lumped in with everyone else who is distanced from the church. In semi-rural Utah, “not comfortably LDS” can be a more important and overriding identity than anything else.
So I personally don’t think we’ll get any answers at all about his politics that make sense outside that context, and arguing about them is going to be a particularly dreary part of the next few weeks — as they say, excruciating boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror.
(Reposted as a top-level comment: https://www.thebulwark.com/p/conservatism-is-now-just-a-domination/comment/156296619 )
I agree
The shooter was trans!
Okay, the shooter wasn't trans, but his bullets were trans!
Okay, the bullets weren't trans, but the shooter's roommate was trans! Probably!
Clearly, his motive revolves entirely around his roommate! It's just like Ronald Reagan getting shot so an actress would fall in love with the shooter all over again.
What's that? You think we're chomping at the bit to find a trans person to blame for this shooting? That's ridiculous. What would imply that?