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?
Immigrants to where?
I’m low-contact with a couple of my core family. When we do meet, the other relatives are usually nice enough to just stop any political conversations or rants. Every once in a while, one slips through and I just ignore it, but our interactions have become infrequent enough that it’s maybe yearly.
It’s heartbreaking to both see some real opinions in some cases (some of which are products of their eras, and some of which have softened), but I also mourn the lack of immunity to conspiracy theories and propeganda on the other; I have seen almost a polar shift in one relative that really shocks me.
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?
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.
I unbrainwashed my mom but not my dad
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!
Science. Use the truth: find articles, researches and data.
You can’t use reason to convince someone away from an opinion they arrived at unreasonably.
You can enter the doubt. The goal is not to win an argument but to create a paradigm, the Socratic method presupposes listening to the opponent while continuing to ask him for insights that he will not be able to give you if he has not studied them.
To quote mc Paul Barnum
“They’re scared of change because they are new to it. So don’t demand change on the face. Change can be fluid. Sometimes it’s all right to give up on adults who worked themselves stupid.”
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.
Whenever I try to argue with them, they tell me that I’ve been brainwashed by “Western propaganda”.
I would ask “What makes you think so?” and go from there.
Likely the only viable way is to guide them into realizing where their biases come from, or that they’re taking views over without questioning them.
If you seemingly can’t change their opinions or views, and it burdens you, it’s fine to accept different or opposing views. You can either evade those topics completely, and if necessary be vocal and explicit about that, or physically leave [the room] if necessary, or make your opposition clear while also making it clear that you have no interest in discussing it further.
Tell them this, Can’t buy a house under Republicans,can’t buy a house under Democrats, while it’s great it worked out for them. You are not represented as a voter and they need to get their heads out of their ass. That is, if they try to push conservative ideas. Otherwise, let them be happy and stupid. The misery is coming for them eventually, so why rush them.
Feed them gotcha questions. Treat it as a mental exercise.
Do not do that. That just reinforces their beliefs and tribalism
It’s much better to coddle them so they instead end up feeling validated while they ignore you.
Have you seen the garbage dumps made up of the blades from wind farms that can’t be recycled? As for far right, Hitler was a fascist. Today the fascists are the far left, people like Antifa who believe violence is okay, in order to achieve their political beliefs. Imposing your beliefs on others using violence is fascism, and the left definitely engages in it. While I don’t think Putin is a good guy, it sounds like your Mom might be right about some things.
Have you send the ash lakes and ponds from industrial waste from coal power plants? Have breathed in the smoke as it fills the valleys of the mountains of your home state? Have you watched as rivers died from oxygen depletion? A couple tons of fiberglass is nothing compared to the shear desolation of carbon fuels. It’s easily contained.
There is a paradox known as the “tolerance paradox”. The basic premise is “should you tolerate the intolerant” while at first it may seem complex it’s really simple. No you should not. Those who call for violence on other deserve the boot. That is the difference between the left and the right. The right punishes those they deem ill fit to live in society. Forcefully. The left accepts, but are not push overs. Those who oppress deserve oppression.
What makes you think I want coal? Hydroelectric is the best way.
Hydroelectric is not the be all end all solution. It is highly local and has long term consequences to water ways, solar and wind are far superior in terms of environmental impact.
Wind and Solar are just as bad as coal. They require a lot of mining.
The mining isn’t entirely the bad part of coal. Mining can be contained it is a local pollutant. Burning it is the real issue. And fiberglass and solar panels are both made of silicon. One of the most abundant minerals on the planet it isn’t hard to get and mining it doesn’t create the same kind of drainage as coal mining.
But the diesel used to extract it, with the mining equipment, probably makes it a net loss over its lifetime. We’d have to see some studies on the power expended to create a solar panel, and how much it saves over it’s life, to see if solar is truly net savings over hydroelectric.
They have done the studies, it’s not. You can google to find them, I was going to pull them up for you but I’m out of my home country and I haven’t been able to access some sites for some reason.
Wind and especially solar produce a ton of energy. Some references I found stated a replacement rate of only a year for a wind turbine. Also you don’t need to use diesel to mine. Battery and electric operated heavy machinery are already in use.
I wish Antifa was half as violent as you dumbasses believed.
Are you…stupid?
There’s a whole lot of really wrong things there.
But show me those wind farm blade wastelands to start. Show me that - I’m gonna look by satellite because they’re huge - and we can talk later about those dangerous and violent anti-fascist types like demonstrators and veterans.
It would have taken less time to google yourself than type all those sentences. Go look.
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.
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.
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 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.
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. People watch one right wing video and then their feed is full of it. I felt like the world was doing good, being progressive, then in the last 5 years everything has gone to shit.
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.
100%. I wish we could go back to being algorithm-less (whereby we simply have to seek out what we’re into).
Same. Feeds were mostly random or had generally popular things in, now its all fine tuned dogshit. Social media needs to die.
No contact
Leave.
I have conservative parents. I’m hoping it will personally affect their lives enough that they understand how ignorant and irrational they’re being.
If they’re drawing social security or on Medicare you may get your wish soon.
Or just show them video of trump talking about how he’s going to slash entitlements.
