While I’ve certainly seen a lot of posts and cases about the other side of the coin. And not to dismiss this. I’ve seen plenty of stories and accounts of people who have lost family members to the cult of the “cheeto man” himself.

But my mom has gone complete bonkers since 2016 for an entirely different reason. Shes obsessed with hating Trump. From 2016-2021 it was like 99% of what she would talk about. Hell, its gotten a tiny bit better but its still like 50% on a good day of what she talks about at any given time still. During the Mueller era, she had CNN practically 24/7. So much so that one of the headlines literally burned into her TV. She would post and show anyone she talked to anti Trump memes, songs, etc. People started disconnecting from her and she just had this “Well I guess they dont like what I havr to say! They’re Trumpers anyways.” Pretty much lacking any self awareness into how unhinged the election made her and fully leaning into it.

This is a woman who went from not voting and not really caring for either side of the political aisle to running for and becoming a school board member. She was so insufferable in this position that she took a 4 year break because no one liked her, ran again, and resigned because no one on the board or at the school likes her.

Fortunately, I havent lived with her for the most part since COVID, aside from like 3 months when I was in between apartments due to a breakup at the time. But I do still love her and miss the old her from before Trump became president so I keep in semi touch with her.

But I had a conversation with her recently about this election that makes me question the sanity of most of these boomer libs. Despite knowing Im not voting for kamala or Trump, she keeps pushing me. Texting “your vote counts. Theres only 2 candidates” over and over. Even though I literally live halfway across the country from her in California. Shes running short of harassing me to vote for Kamala. And then out of the blue she calls me literally just to talk about this. Spews the same old zionist bullshit that “we should fund Israel, its just Bibi whos bad!” And that “Israel-Palestine is just ONE issue anyways”. And so on the usual crap about J6 and shit.

I said something like “kamala and trump are both evil, Trump is just honest about it”.

And she literally goes off “YOU THINK TRUMP IS HONEST! YOU MUST BE DRINKING THE KOOL AID SON! DONALD TRUMP IS ANYTHING BUT HONEST.”

Basically calling me a Trumper for the mere suggestion of Trump being honest about something. Much less, honest about him being evil. Before hanging up and saying I have nothing better to do. Despite her bothering me about the subject, her calling me to argue, and her lack of being able to talk about much of anything else.

Does anyone else have any stories of crazy lib relatives post 2016? I feel like I cant be the only one.

        • Lussy [any, hy/hym]@hexbear.net
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          Cutting ties with your mother for being too antitrump in your political discussions with her will surely bring you inner peace. Next order of business, just stop going outside OP.

            • Lussy [any, hy/hym]@hexbear.net
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              Don’t abandon your mom because of her misguided political opinions, especially when it seems like she’s experiencing some sort of cognitive decline? Seems pretty self-explanatory.

              • GarbageShoot [he/him]@hexbear.net
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                You are missing the point completely; Her political opinions are irrelevant here, it’s her obsession with it and with browbeating OP about it. There are communists like that too (many of us have been that communist), liberals breaking that off are honestly doing something reasonable, even if they are politically incorrect in general.

                • Lussy [any, hy/hym]@hexbear.net
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                  You are missing the point completely;

                  I really don’t think I am.

                  There are communists like that too (many of us have been that communist), liberals breaking that off are honestly doing something reasonable

                  Any liberal breaking off ties with their mother because she calls him in the middle of the night to talk about workers owning the means of production is being unreasonable.

                  • Mardoniush [she/her]@hexbear.net
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                    That is true, but the 4th or fifth time you interrupt your nephews birthday party to talk for 90min about how the Shining Path did nothing wrong people are going to stop sending you Christmas cards

                  • GalaxyBrain [they/them]@hexbear.net
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                    For real, this is absolutely not worth breaking ties over. Like, I’m.sure OP also hates Trump, being split on common ground is hardly a reason to even stop being friends let alone abandon your own mother, especially if you don’t live with them. This thread is absurd and has drastically diminished my hopes for the left if this is any example. If you can’t express patience and humanity to your own mother.whos just annoyingly anti Trump than I have little faith in any movement comprised of people with such a small minded and petty attitude. It’s pathetic. The real problem is your mom needs help. Provide some. Be with her instead of the TV being with her. My great aunt is dying who probably still thinks black people smell different (real thing she said once) but also regardless of that opinion voted and marched for civil rights in the 60s and never treated anyone different despite her olfactory opinion. She was a bit racist for sure but never once treated anyone different because of it, so whatever. I dunno why you’d try to get older family members closer to your side of the fence cause they saw you shit yourself and will never ever really change their minds for you. Who cares? They’ll be dead soon and are fairly politically irrelevant now. Olds gonna old. Fucking accept that and work around it.

              • GalaxyBrain [they/them]@hexbear.net
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                Fr, abandoning your mother for hating Trump too much is way more insane than what she’s doing. And like, the election is soon and it’s either she can keep doing this for 4 more years and then it’s over and she has to move on, or he loses and it’s over and she has to move on. This isn’t abusive behavior, if anything it’s a sign she needs less isolation. Don’t disown your parents just cause they’re annoying, all parents are annoying.

          • OptimusSubprime [he/him, they/them]@hexbear.net
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            This is not like dealing with generic libs who are just strangers. At a certain point you just direct them to https://hexbear.net/PPB or tell them to fuck off since a lot of them don’t want to argue in good faith.

            No this is family. What they are doing ends up pushing you away. And that shit hurts. But if you don’t fucking move on, it ends up fucking you up and I’m not going to let them fuck me up.

            So I’m sorry you hate my advice. It comes from a place of having to deal with that Trump hater bullshit myself and ultimately having to say “enough with this shit”.

            OP can take it or leave it. I’m done.

            • meow-hug Hang in there, comrade. I pretty much lost my mom to QAnon conspiracy brainworms, and I’ve been low-contact ever since. The only upshot is that I’m a grown-ass adult with a family of my own and that I haven’t needed to depend on her for anything in the past 20 years or so. She’s also a raging narcissist, so it was bound to happen sooner or later vivian-shrug

      • OptimusSubprime [he/him, they/them]@hexbear.net
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        And yet she continues with her Trump derangement syndrome, pushing away OP.

        I’ve seen it firsthand with my own mother. And I’ve had to let her go, no matter what I say to get her right thinking again, because she won’t listen. She is stuck in her hatred of Trump.

        So no, no “dummy” here. Just someone who decided to move on and get on with their life.

        • GalaxyBrain [they/them]@hexbear.net
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          There has to be reasons for you doing so beyond her hating Trump too much. Like, damn, you both hate the guy although for different reasons. Abandoning family cause they aren’t leftists is doing cultural revolution shit before a real revolution. You do you, but it seems very petty and weird to disown your own mother for the sole reason that she hates Trump too much.

          • GarbageShoot said it best earlier:

            Her political opinions are irrelevant here, it’s her obsession with it and with browbeating OP about it.

            The keyword here is “obsession”. OP’s mom is literally spiraling. My mom was literally spiraling. Both of our moms were actually being abusive.

            That is why I said to let go. When they become abusive, you have to leave them. Period. Sometimes, realizing you’ve been left alone because of an unhealthy obsession can snap a person back to reality. In my case, for my mom, me leaving helped her. To her, losing me was way worse than having some orange skinned imperialist buffoon in the white house.

            I don’t know if OP leaving their mom alone will have the same effect, but from what OP described in their opening statement, OP’s mom became abusive towards her child with her derangement, her obsession. From that revelation, my comment was about leaving an abusive relationship. Nothing more.

            • GalaxyBrain [they/them]@hexbear.net
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              I don’t live with my parents so I only need to put up with them being annoying on my own terms, so if one were to go that way I’d probably be more concerned than anything. op doesn’t live at home so it really just amounts to bullshit you need to deal with when visiting. I’m sorry but being annoying doesn’t count as abuse. If as OP said she was decent and cool prior to Trump, there’s probably more than just Trump going on here. I don’t know you, your mom or your situation but as an adult with aging parents, I’d be spending more time with them and talking to them more and I’d probably talk to a doctor or something if it seems like a major behavioral shift. If my mom was mentally spiraling I’d do the decent thing and be there for her. If she’s not in her 70s or older then she’s gonna outlive Trump being a viable president anyway, it’s either 4 years or he’s done in November, the source of the obsession will go away.

              I would have liked to discuss how Trump derangement syndrome has made old libs more or less as crazy as Maga people but it had to become the ‘you should disown your family’ post. You don’t get to abandon people when they become annoying. OP doesn’t live with his mom, OP can leave, there is no power dynamic in play that I’ve read that can constitute abuse in any way, being obsessive isn’t a form of abuse. It’s a sign THEY need help.

              We are so not gonna have communism if this is how people react when their mothers decline mentally. How about you consider what’s happening to them. If you don’t have to live with your parents and can leave whenever you want to when interacting with them, it ain’t abuse.

        • LigOleTiberal [he/him]@hexbear.net
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          I have trump supporters and evangelical christian converts in my family but I don’t cut them out of my life completely. that’s an over-reaction.

          • OptimusSubprime [he/him, they/them]@hexbear.net
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            And at a certain point, when they become toxic, you have to cut them out. Or risk “drowning”.

            There are other people I can help and other people more open to the truth, in the Marx-Lenin sense, of the world around them.

            And like I said earlier, you can be there for them when they are ready “to come back to their senses”. But what you will not be able to do is to change them. They have to want that themselves.

          • SkingradGuard [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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            Nah I have familu members who are fascists that won’t openly admit it (“I’m just a liberal, trust me! Yeah I want to exterminate trans people and Muslims, but I’m just a liberal!”)

            I can’t get them out of my life because at the moment, I have no choice because leaving would make me homeless.

      • TheBroodian [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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        Not to dogpile, OP will have to decide for their self if that’s the course they want to take or not, but I’m fully in the “disown your folks for your own well being” camp if necessary

    • hotcouchguy [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      Note that OP did not actually ask for advice, and we’re not really informed enough to give any. Like anyone, OP is going to have to consider how unhinged she is in totality, how much is tolerable at this point in life, if any other actions are feasible, and many other factors. None of us should be jumping to conclusions here, we’re just projecting our own experiences onto OP. Giving this type of uninformed advice is no more helpful than a random guess, but probably more irritating to receive.

      Edit: I’m referring to the thread overall, not just singling you out specifically.

    • Vernon_Tennessee [null/void, he/him]@hexbear.netOP
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      I have taken breaks of contact with her for completely different reasons. Albeit, she has a tendency to be self centered and gaslighty and this def reflects in her beliefs at times. But I dont go no contact with someone over politics unless theyre far right