It’s weird, in my family the black sheep are the ultra conservatives whereas everyone else leans from Liberal (at the most Right Leaning) to “Let’s burn down a mansion and eat the first non-servant who runs out alive!”
I was kinda glad that the uncle who was “Always trying to be my friend, always hip and cool and with it despite actually being none of those things and instead coming off as an annoying asshole.” basically stopped talking to me or even acknowledging my existence beyond telling his son/my cousin that I was possessed by Demons that made me cut off my dick and that’s why they gotta get the Mexicans outta America before they teach Evolution to white children (Barely an exaggeration), and his son/my cousin was smart enough to basically say “My Dad says you’re evil, but I’m actually going to be somewhat nice although still an annoying little bible thumping shit, because if you’re evil you have all the Satanic Video Games in VR!”
and I said “Well at least you have some level of thinking for yourself, here’s my Occulus (I’m not calling it a Meta), go nuts.”
Lately only my Aunt has been coming to Thanksgiving Dinners while the uncle and cousin have been staying at home, apparently she’s starting to get sick of their Right Wing Christofascist Bullshit.
For the record, she’s Anti-LGBT, Pro-Trump, and believes they eat dogs in Ohio, she’s just sane by comparison to her husband and son.
Like it’s the difference between “Trump’s racist, but at least he’s not a Democrat” Vs. “Trump is literally the Messiah, We’re gonna send the infidels to Christ for Judgement!”, Far Right Vs. QAnon Shit
We’re very civil about it in the hopes that she and hopefully the son too, can break away from her husband’s nonsense.
For the record: My aunt is the one related by blood, not the uncle.
I will say this, I hate Reddit Atheists; the kind that jump on your case for shouting “Oh God!” when you’re scared and worship the Sacred Texts of St. Hitchens. But if every religious person I ever met was like my uncle and his son, I’d totally get why Reddit Atheists are the way they are…
Last time the kid came to Thanksgiving, he was talking to my sister about Jurassic Park… Then during dinner when I was just making conversation, (Everyone eats at the same table, we don’t have a separate “Kid’s Table” sides they were in their late teens anyway) I made the mistake of treating dinosaurs as if they were real and not an elaborate creation of Hollywood.
He kept chanting “The Big Bang is a Faerie Tale, not a theory!” until I “apologized to Jesus for my blasphemy.”
They actually had to take him out of public school and put him in a private Fundie school because he kept failing his classes due to trying to claim most of History and Science didn’t actually exist on his assignments.
I’m deeply worried; one day that guy (He’s an adult now) is going to leave the bubble created for him by his Church and his father, and he will not be even slightly equipped to begin to comprehended the world outside.
Tell me about it, I don’t like my mom’s transphobia. I also don’t like the fact that she likes trump. At least she’s not a Christian Nationalist yet.
My dad is pretty chill at least and I try to be on good terms with him.
What makes you think he’ll leave? I know plenty of adults 40+ that are still like the…
Mom and Dad have to die some time…
It may happen when he’s old and grey, rolling outside on his futurstic hover wheelchair wondering why people say it’s the hover-servos that make his chair fly and not Jesus.
In my family, the more conservative guys are the clean shaven ones. Weird.
Also, GenZ men voted for fascism more than millennial men so this comic really is backwards
Replace the second panel red with “woke and gay”
Hey buddy! I may be woke. And I may be gay! And… What was the third thing you called me?
That’s probably being kind compared to what would be said if it actually were a problem.
Also there is no way the second dude isn’t going. He’s going and hes going to bs and eat and drink beer and belch, no matter who else is going to be there.
Just “woke” actually.
I still haven’t looked into what “woke” actually means, but from what I can tell, it seems to mean anything far-right people don’t like.
In left-leaning spaces it means “cognizant of the injustice pervading society”. On the right it means “uppity”.
cognizant of the injustice pervading society
I mean that’s what it means to people on the right also they just think that’s a bad thing.
Yeah, sense like “woke” is anything we’re not supposed to approve of this month.
I do find the word “woke” incredibly useful.
The moment the word exits someone’s mouth, I save a ton of energy on how to handle any further information they share (highly suspect).
Edit: I’ve actually discovered some great art and culture by being warned away from it’s “wokeness”, too.
that’s why the word was invented, to replace the obvious intolerance for openness
Hahahah that’s what they want you to think. Woke is from like the 60s. Do some research on it. It’s pretty interesting.
Actually in ancient etruscan…
… person meant mask. If you call someone a person, you accuse them of playing a role. Fact.
Words change meanings.
So it doesn’t mean awake anymore?
Yeah he thinks it means whatever the fuck the American fat right media says it does.
Don’t you dare fix that typo.
are you saying you’re woke on the subject? I thought it was from rap culture.
It’s from black culture. You tell your friends to stay woke so that when the cops stop them for no good reason, they remember to treat the cop like a wild animal and be careful around them. If you’re black and you treat a cop like a human being, you’ll get shot. So you gotta stay woke.
Be me
Liberal uncle in conservative/ trump family
Fly to red state for family member’s funeral
Get made fun of by all family members in public at the funeral reception
My grandma never met you. She lived to be 103, and died last October (2023).
My grandma loved you. She wanted you to do well, and be happy. Just as she did with everyone on earth. It’s physically impossible for her to host a dinner big enough to feed everyone on earth. But the logistical impossibility is the only reason she didn’t do it.
My cousin is a lesbian. She had been married to a decent man, had two kids. Good family man. Married for nearly 10 years before she discovered she was lesbian. The breakup was civil. He did nothing wrong. They both still loved each other, and loved the kids. He was still welcome at the table, as was my cousins new partner. My cousins mom was NOT accepting. When my aunt tried making a scene, my grandma said “Melinda…I won’t have hate at this table. You love your daughter. I don’t ask you to agree with your daughters lifestyle. But I do ask you do not bring hate into my home.”
My grandma was a teacher in her 20s. She lived in a small but growing suburb, and essentially raised the whole town. She got promoted several times as the years went on. Eventually being the district superintendant. She LITERALLY was responsible for raising thousands of kids, who were everywhere from the boomer generation to the millenials.
She had a simple philosophy. Which was that she loved you. She would put aside the world to hear what you had to say. My grandpa used to joke that when WWII broke out, she was having tea with the neighbors and helping raise their kids. Just discussing the day. Choas and war breaking out across the globe, but she was determined to hear about you. And for the kids, she would teach them that everybody was different, and we need to love everybody for who they are. Not who you want them to be.
And she loved everyone. Even you. Even though she never met you. She always said “Everyone is welcome in this home, as long as they take off their hat at the dinner table, leave hate out of their hearts, and tell me about their day.”
The only time I ever remember her saying anything negative, was somebody had said during trumps first term something he was doing in office.
Her reply was “I just do not like that man.”
AIRHORNS!!!
I know that sounds so non-aggressive, but for her to say she didn’t like someone would be like a world leader declairing WWIII. The room literally went quiet.
So I try to live my life to keep making Gram proud. Accept everyone, even if you disagree with them. You can’t just accept those you get along with, and not create an echo chamber.
So if you’re ever in Cleveland, you can have a meal with me. And maybe when you fly out of state to be with family, you can teach them about letting the hate go.
Your grandma sounds like a wonderful human who lived a wonderful life. I hope you are doing well.
Ugh, everyone has that non-racist uncle nobody likes to see at family gatherings!
He always stays sober and doesn’t join in the violent and racist tirade
They don’t think we’re open minded and understanding.
They think we’re ignorant of how the world works, condescending, and irrationally judgemental.
I’m not saying this is how we ARE, this is just how they view us, and because they view us like that from the very start, there is no opportunity for meaningful dialogue.
It is bi-directional prejudice, and only by acts of understanding and patience and wisdom can that be overcome.
Agreed, for the most part. I’m never going to be impartial and seek understanding with a racist Nazi. They will have to understand my fist.
That’s fun to say, but where they balk is they think you draw too big of a circle around groups to label them “nazis.”
So to them, you may as well think anyone who likes guns is a nazi.
Pretty true, obviously most racist biggots don’t see themselves as racist biggots. They don’t see us as “open minded” they see us as close minded to their views.
Depends on the person. I’ve been told to my face without a hint of irony that “you’re so open minded all your brains fell out”.
Being convinced to give a shit about other people just shows that you’re gullible, to them.
I spent most of my childhood being repeatedly informed by my incredibly Republican family that I lack common sense.
Yet, I have the common sense to know that if you let people do whatever the fuck they want to do with their own bodies and lives then they’ll stay the fuck out of your body and your life.
Perhaps that is an uncommon sense. However, it should be a common sense but the people who claim to have common sense fail to understand that consistently.
Maybe common sense is not all it’s cracked up to be.
Common sense is a thought terminator. It’s just “everyone who’s smart agrees with this”. It’s common sense you shouldn’t inject any aspect of a disease causing pathogen into people. It’s common sense that you can’t burn so much stuff you make the whole sky smoky or permanently warm the planet. It’s common sense that you don’t share an ancestor with an oak tree. Now none of that is true. You should get vaccines, uncontrolled combustion creates smog and contributes to global warming, and all eukaryotic organisms share a common ancestor. But if you phrase things right and say it’s obvious people will agree with your false statements and think people are over educated idiots for being right.
And, their views typically do not include the things that most of the people I know hate the most about the platform that they ascribe to.
They just think being Republican will make them wealthier or fix problems in the country or make the world a better place.
The single issue voters have an opinion on a single issue and everything else doesn’t matter compared to that one thing.
They don’t care about all of the bad as long as the single bit of good can be accomplished, and they don’t care if you think that single bit of good is a bad thing.
They don’t care to talk to or be dissuaded by their family members who are not approaching them with a spirit of love and care for them.
Beside that, it’s not mentally or emotionally healthy to live spring-loaded with ontological traps that can be fired off with a single phrase to bring down judgment and the fires of hell on the people you meet.
They’re not going to want to hear you if that’s what you’re bringing to the table.
Of course, after Trump in the white house, it’s kinda irrelevant.
Historians have a word for Germans who joined the Nazi party, not because they hated Jews, but out of a hope for restored patriotism, or a sense of economic anxiety, or a hope to preserve their religious values, or dislike of their opponents, or raw political opportunism, or convenience, or ignorance, or greed.
That word is “Nazi.” Nobody cares about their motives anymore.
They joined what they joined. They lent their support and their moral approval. And, in so doing, they bound themselves to everything that came after. Who cares any more what particular knot they used in the binding?Sure, let’s just casually label half the fucking country as Nazis. That definitely worked last time.
Prime fucking example of exactly what their first comment was talking about.
“We” aren’t labeling “them” anything. They literally sided with Neo-Nazis. People carrying swastika flags in support of Trump, and you think “not Nazis” were ok with that? Sorry friend, but no. If someone is okay to march with Nazis, they’re a fucking Nazi.
Yeah, ‘compassionate and nonviolent’ is translated to “judgmental cuck” in their language.
Hi,
Person struggling to still call self conservative. I don’t like lefties either - they hear the world “conservative” and thing MAGA Nazi shitheads immediately. And they are constantly condescending and judgmental, yes.
But that doesn’t change the fact that if you voted for Trump, you are either a piece of shit or you’re stupid.
It also doesnt mean that we who can understand Trump has now determined he can and will abuse his power shouldn’t try to dialogue with Trump voters without being shitty to them. You’re not going to turn a vote (if there still is one next time) by being an asshat. Just make sure they’re not hardcore Trump diehards because time is precious.
Here’s my problem with the “not all conservatives” mind frame: Nazis and maga have security attached themselves onto conservatives, and conservatives who “aren’t those guys” aren’t doing anything to eradicate those parasites.
If you have 10 conservatives and 1 Nazi at the dinner table, you have 11 Nazis.
I agree with the Nazi statement.
I did try to eradicate them. I voted Harris. The fact that so many people voted Trump after seeing what he did is what makes me question calling myself a conservative.
But I’m just some person in a some county in some state. I’m not a registered Democrat or Republican. Other than voting, I’m not sure what I /can/ do
The fact that you’re trying to figure it out is the important part. It’s important to self-reflect and define your ideologies, not by what others have told you to believe, but by what you personally believe.
Also, it’s okay to not take a label. It makes sense to want to identify yourself as an individual before attempting to identify yourself as part of a group.
Hi!
A while back I myself made the sometimes painful journey from a conservative to the progressive I consider myself now. I know you didn’t ask, but here’s some stuff to keep in mind.
The internet has no place for subtlety. People desperately want the dopamine rush that comes from righteous fury, defending one’s viewpoint and crushing those who disagree. It’s true of a lot of people, and I’ll be honest, I’m guilty of it on occasion. It just feels so damn good to be right.
But in my experience, most people in life don’t really act that way. I mean, in high school I occasionally got shit on by people who were “lefties,” but I was usually asking for it. More generally, people were much more likely to ask me questions and discuss our differences. They may have been judging me, but I never got that vibe. It’s just easier to see the person you’re talking to as a fellow human in person. And those people were integral in helping me realize that a lot of the stuff I was seeing online about feminazis and whatnot was simply more rage product, designed to get that part of the brain pumping and let me feel good and superior to someone else.
Removed from the left vs right rage online, I found that it became increasingly difficult to call myself “conservative.” Not because I was worried about how people would think of me, but rather because the more people I met and the more I learned about the world, the harder it was to reconcile what I knew with the views I had held. And when I would try to provide context or data to my fellow conservatives, they refused to listen. Anything that didn’t reinforce the views they held, they didn’t want to hear.
So much of what I thought I knew about “lefties” was from online takes and screenshots that others shared, but none of that matched my experience with real people in real life. And I’ve been so grateful I had the chance to spend time with people with significantly different lived experiences from my own who didn’t shun me for my views but were friendly and helped me become a more empathetic person.
Of course, this goes both ways. The average conservative doesn’t want to kill gay people or black people. They aren’t represented by the extremes either. Generally speaking, people just want to live their lives. I truly think one of the biggest differences between progressive and conservative mindsets is about how many people whose lives are different from your own you’ve gotten to know. It helps us be less afraid of one another. It’s part of why densely populated areas tend to be more progressive, I think.
Anyway, I wish you luck in your journey. Hope you didn’t mind my musing here!
They think we’re ignorant of how the world works, condescending, and irrationally judgemental.
Lol. Yep Though in fairness, I am genuinely judging them so fucking hard.
Don’t you just hate it when people are compassionate and nonviolent? Hand me my gun
FAFO will include some people learning that compassionate doesn’t always imply nonviolent
If they don’t kill you for being too open-minded and compassionate, you’ll live long enough go see yourself become the racist uncle
Nah. The “old age makes you conservative” adage is bs. I may not always be precisely on top of current trends, but I’ll never be a racist, hateful shithead just because I lived a bit longer.
Open-minded and understanding?
This is an ironic comic. I’d say it’s making fun of both sides, but you know that’s not the intent so it’s just super cringey.
Edit: Oh, it seems I’ve upset the open-minded and understanding. Perhaps the irony has flown over their open heads. Enjoy distancing your family this Thanksgiving and not understanding why you grow less tolerated and heard by uncles.
Yes, yes, we should totally be understanding of the people who want to see my cousin dead and my uncle run out of the country.
/s because there are sadly a lot of people who legitimately think this way
Paradox of Tolerance
Reminder: there is no such thing as the paradox of tolerance.
The rules of tolerance only applies to the people who abide by it.
Therefore, you are tolerant of tolerant people if you abide by the rules of tolerance. You are intolerant of intolerant people if you abide by the rules of tolerance.
It is very straightforward, the only pathway to paradox is from a lack of lexical understanding of the rules of tolerance.
What aren’t we understanding about, eh?
Any possible reason why anyone could have voted for Trump besides being racist or an idiot. That blanket labelling half the country as Nazis wasn’t effective last time and isn’t effective now. That a large portion of the populace feels so desperate for change that they were willing to vote for the fucking cheeto supreme.
I voted for Harris, and I completely believe Trump was the worst fucking choice the voting populace could have made, but unless you’re actually calling for the extermination of roughly half the country there has to be some attempt at understanding or bridging the gap wherever it can be bridged.
Nobody mentioned trump but you.
I mean, they’re wearing red hats in the second panel. They inferred Trump.
