I will try not to reveal much personal information in order to maintain privacy.
Anyway, I’ve known Alex for most of my life, they were pretty good for most of it.
In recent years, they’ve gone down the MAGA pipeline, and it’s gotten worse and worse over the years.
At this point: about every day they talk about illegal immigrants and Trump, often even making jokes about it.
They talked about it so much, and I tried to tell them the truth (such as that most undocumented aren’t criminals, they can’t migrate legally, etc.) and even encouraged them to do research about it, but they refused.
Here’s where things start to get crazy:
In recent times, anything they see that goes against their worldview is called “fake news” while they literally unironically called Fox News a reliable source. (Another family member made fun of them for “only looking at Fox News,” not knowing how right they were.)
They started to say how scared they are about “Venezuelan gangs” and even said that they check their windows and get scared at every sound because they are literally worried that it’s one of the “gang members.”
Then it happened:
We discussed the Garcia situation, where a legal immigrant was sent to CECOT without trial. We argued about it.
I asked stuff like, “Where’s the fair trial? Where’s the due process? Should you be punished for a crime you weren’t even tried for and convicted of?”
They kept saying lies like, “They DID get a trial! They’re an abuser! They’re a gang member! Only the worst criminals go there! You just support mean people and gang members!”
This continued back and forth, until it happened.
They cried about how scared they were of the “illegal immigrant gangs” and being attacked by them. That’s right, cried, with tears.
I was disgusted. I felt sad because they bought into this propaganda so much. And I felt amused to the point of laughing, which they didn’t like.
That person had various problems in their life. And they decided to cry about “the evil brown people coming after me!!!”
I didn’t feel sorry for them at all. That’s disgusting.
And that was just the first instance.
Recently:
We were having just a mundane conversation in the car, and they made a joke about CECOT and El Salvador. I said that I didn’t want to talk about that. They got angry and talked seriously about El Salvador. I told them again multiple times that I didn’t want to talk about it, and they kept continuing. They said stuff back at me like “You know who goes to CECOT? The worst of the worst!” so I was forced to confront them like “They send innocent people there without trial, I don’t want to talk about it.” I keep saying no, they say “I have a right to say what I believe.” I say, “I have boundaries, I want you to respect them. Can you please be respectful?” They say, “I cAn’T bElIeVe YoU sUpPoRt GaNgS!1!1!1!”
I tell them that I never said that and I want due process and don’t want to talk about this, they sounded like they were going to cry about “the brown people coming to get me again!!!” and I wasn’t in the mood to deal with that. Thankfully, I got to my destination soon after.
It is incredibly sad to see somebody I’ve known throughout my life turn into…this. Of course, there’s much worse that could’ve happened, but this is unbelievable.
They do see a therapist, and I think I should encourage them to talk to them about it.
Do you guys have any thoughts or stories to share?
This person is delusional and need mental health care.
Seriously, this looks like the start of psychosis…
do these fellas like crash out when they hear someone speaking spanish?
Stranger: “¿Dónde está la biblioteca?”
Him: 🔫 💥POW 💥POW 💥POW 💥POW 💥POW 💥POW reload 💥POW 💥POW 💥POW 💥POW 💥POW 💥POW
The brain is complex and fragile. Mental illness comes in many forms. Perhaps, even just to try and reduce the very clear anxiety, it’s time to go see the doctor.
The tearful hysteria over Venezuelan thugs is not meant to persuade you. It is an act of self-persuasion. “I’m crying, so this must be serious and real.”
Every fascist roach thinks the people they’re exterminating are doing the same back to them. This is the only way to maintain their self-perception of moral, rational people. They lie to themselves to justify the blood sacrifices their racist idols require.
This isn’t a therapist problem. Alex has a persecution complex, not a disease.
Alex probably doesn’t understand that they are doing this. Every single time they start their routine, shut them down by changing the subject. If you aren’t afraid, they might start to wonder why they are afraid.
They cried about how scared they were of the “illegal immigrant gangs” and being attacked by them. That’s right, cried, with tears.
I was disgusted. I felt sad because they bought into this propaganda so much. And I felt amused to the point of laughing, which they didn’t like.
Deep down, every Amerikkkan knows they deserve to be executed by the revolutionary masses.
There must be some kind of underlying issue at play here. That paranoia about “gangs” manifests from somewhere. I’m trying to find the right words to express what I mean here. There is a reason you can’t simply “facts and logic” you’re way out of these conversations. They’re emotional, and they’re rooted in fear. If you can identify that fear at the root, maybe you can have a more productive conversation about it. What has their life been like? Have they been going through a tough situation recently, lost someone, lost a job? These are just the kinds of questions I’d try and think about, when trying to talk to this person. You’ll know them better than any of us, obviously.
I gotta be honest, I don’t know your situation with this family member, but you can’t be in the defensive in this kind of situation, because it will always lead to this sort of interaction. Since this person is just gonna keep pushing your boundaries you don’t have a lot of options, but it would probably be a good idea to push back and assert your position, tho you probably should also call them out on their bullshit with actual evidence.
The best thing to do would probably be to sit down and have a real talk with this person while having other people around that can back you up on what your talking points and set some hard boundaries going forward if they refuse to listen to reason. This is a shitty situation that demands a lot of effort and evidence to revert, unfortunately.
If it is any consolation, they are not brainwashed. They too could look up the truth (even just to understand the perspective of their “enemy”), like you did, but they intelligently (wilfull ignorance is a filtering skill albeit the malevolence) choose to look up bigoted narratives as they do their part of the capital machine, where they perceive to materially benefit from it.
Till the day, if ever, the narrative of socialist solidarity offers them a greater material benefit than the current perspective they will dig their heels harder. The effort on your part to make that case may or may not be worth it; you may have bigger fish to fry.
A lot of us come from (extended or otherwise) families infected with the rot of imperialism and colonialism; it is from this furnace our iron is cast.
Addendum - Finkelstein and crocodile tears (start from around 30 sec):
If it is any consolation, they are not brainwashed.
There’s something to the idea that a lot of people aren’t particularly interested in learning, or even in stuff as minor as not repeating bullshit. But I’ve never fully bought the “no one is really brainwashed, they could just read a book” idea, because it really underestimates the strength of various types of group psychology. Think church congregations, MLMs, sports fandoms, pressure from peer groups, or anything else people get invested in despite seemingly obvious material incentives to back away.
I think a lot of people justify those situations to themselves with ideas like:
- This group has its problems, but the alternative is worse
- The problems this group has aren’t really that bad, and enduring them is worth something
- The problems in this group happen to people who deserve them
- This group gives me a real shot at something really good
Identifying which of these ideas “brainwashed” people are clinging to and attacking that seems like a better approach than simply writing them off (setting aside your true incorrigibles, who it does make sense to write off).
It is do with their class perspectives on the world stage.
Nearly everyone believes in brainwashing but somehow they are exempt from it. “Brainwashing” (as we understand it in the West) is a CIA invention.
It may be worthwhile also looking up the science of how advertising actually works, for example. It is really difficult to convince someone against their perceived material benefits.
It is important as marxists that we understand this and focus our energy where it is worth it, and not get lost in metaphysical nonsense.
What are the strategic consequences of decisively rejecting the tripartite social theory advanced by Orwell, and adopting Marx’s all-encompassing one instead? The basic call to action looks something like this:
- Stop accusing the masses of being “brainwashed.” Stop treating them as cattle, stop attempting to rouse them into action by scolding them with exposure to “unpleasant truths.”
- Accept instead that they have been avoiding those truths for a reason. You were able to break through the propaganda barrier, and so could they if they really wanted to. Many of these people see you as the fool, and in many cases not without reason.
- Understanding people as intelligent beings, craft a political strategy that convincingly makes the case for why they and their lot are very likely to benefit from joining your political project. Not in some utopian infinite timescale, but soon.
- If you cannot make this case, then forget about convincing the person in question. Focus instead on finding other people to whom such a case can be made. This will lead you directly to class analysis.
From Masses, Elites and Rebels: https://redsails.org/masses-elites-and-rebels/
Thanks for linking to that Red Sails post – that’s what I had in mind. I think it significantly overstates its case.
Accept instead that they have been avoiding those truths for a reason. You were able to break through the propaganda barrier, and so could they if they really wanted to.
It’s not that they could look past the propaganda if only they really wanted to, it’s not even that they’re avoiding the cracks in their worldview. They see the cracks, but they justify them in the manner I described above.
I think the way you get to reachable people is by attacking those justifications, not pointing to the cracks that they already see.
And how successful have you been? Why is it that there have been USAmerican marxists who are smarter, more charismatic and more daring than we are but have failed on the whole in the West in the sense of establishing a DOTP or even a reasonable nudge in that direction that wasn’t due to the Global South? Why have the CPC abandoned as a main strategy exporting revolution ie what lessons did they learn from Soviet mistakes? What scientific theory of change do you propose that supercedes all of the above?
The way you reach people is to offer material benefits within the short term. If you can’t make that case and understand why then you will resort to idealism.
The way you reach people is to offer material benefits within the short term.
This has also been tried (the feasible version of it is mutual aid) without much success. The reasons it and other strategies have failed in the U.S. are (1) the repressive arm of the state is so strong, and (2) it’s a rich enough country that trying to make it within the system is still a decent option for most people.
Now if we’re talking offering them benefits the left can’t actually deliver in the short term – guaranteed housing, education, healthcare, etc. – you have to go back to attacking their justifications for supporting the status quo. They aren’t unaware of (for example) the problems for-profit healthcare causes, and they aren’t willfully ignoring those problems, either. They justify it to themselves.
- you’re just providing more evidence that you can’t make the case for large swathes of USAmericans because they perceive to benefit more from capitalist society than a perceived socialist cause
- is there much of significant “mutual aid” in the US that was not just charity dressed up outside of maybe the Black Panther Party?
- and even then, Lenin:
I recall a conversation with one fairly thorough-going “economist” with whom I was not previously acquainted. We were talking about the pamphlet Who Will Carry Out the Political Revolution? and we quickly came to an agreement that its basic shortcoming was that it ignored the question of organization. We thus imagined that we were in complete solidarity — but… the conversation continued on its course and it turned out that we were talking about different things. My fellow conversationalist accused the author of ignoring strike funds, mutual aid societies and so forth, while I had in mind the organization of revolutionaries that was necessary for “carrying out” the political revolution. And, as soon as this disagreement made itself known — well, I can’t remember that I once agreed with this “economist” about any principled issue at all!
https://redsails.org/witbd-rs-abridged/#34-on-mutual-aid-and-red-tape
I think we’re losing track of what the other person is talking about.
I agree that a large minority of the U.S. population, maybe a quarter or a third, is unreachable in the short term (i.e., anything short of a government program offering them major direct benefits). They’re probably unreachable for a while even after that due to reactionary attitudes and all the cultural forces that reinforce those.
I think basically the remainder of the population (or certainly the remainder that would ever be politically engaged) can be brought around with promises of major direct benefits (e.g., Medicare for All). I don’t think any sorts of benefits within the ability of leftist orgs to actually deliver right now – benefits more on the scale of the BPP’s free breakfast program, or an abortion access fund – are enough to move the needle right now.
Because we can’t offer material benefits on the scale of what would really motivate people, and because mere promises of such benefits are of questionable value, I think we do have to do some politics and try to convince people that our program is better than whatever else is on offer. Saying we can do nothing until conditions change is defeatist, as is saying that it’s simply impossible to convince people to change their politics without a materialist carrot and/or stick.
What I’m arguing against is the the maximalist version of “they are choosing to buy in to the system because if they wanted they could just read about the problems I’ve read about.” They see the same looming problems we see, they just justify them away in ways we don’t. We don’t have to convince them (for example) that climate change is a dire problem, we have to dispel the justification that (for example) their favorite neoliberal approach to the problem is the most we could possibly do. It’s not wilful ignorance, it’s a political horizon that’s been stunted by a lifetime of basically no significant political actors suggesting anything outside of the neoliberal consensus.
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
Four months ago I had an awful argument with my great-grandfather about Islam, and he’s a HUGE Islamophobe. I’ve known this for years and I knew he would go full mask-off about it. He’s MAGA and so are some others, sadly. They all watch US state media and I get frustrated everytime I hear it.
I won’t repeat what he said but I kept telling him I didn’t want to hear his bullshit about how MuSliMs aRe TeRRoRiSts.
Then after I got home, I decided that if anyone in my family tries to have these kinds of conversations with me, there’s no point in trying to stay calm, I’ll just start screaming and swearing at these people if they want to start shit with me. I have boundaries and principles, if you want to overstep my boundaries, well, fuck you then.
So far no one has tried to have political discussions with me. I told my mom that I was done with being nice if anyone wanted to share their reactionary talking points and she agreed with me.
I’ll just start screaming and swearing at these people if they want to start shit with me.
Honestly, what’s the goal here? If other approaches aren’t going to get through to them, I get trying something else, but this doesn’t sound like it’ll work either. If you’re no longer trying to reach them, this might feel good a little in the moment, but it’s going to stress out you and the family more on your side pretty soon. It seems like it could only get those people to pay less attention to what you say as well.
If other approaches aren’t going to get through to them, I get trying something else, but this doesn’t sound like it’ll work either. If you’re no longer trying to reach them, this might feel good a little in the moment, but it’s going to stress out you and the family more on your side pretty soon.
It’s definitely something I don’t want to happen at all. I’m generally pretty patient with people but I’m also not great at talking with family members about these things. I think it’s more of a last resort than anything else. What I usually do is ask them to not have the conversation when I’m stressed out and come back when I’m ready. I’m open to having these conversations with them, but it takes a lot out of me pushing back against their racist talking points and encouraging them to educate themselves.
Edit: total numbers are for 3.5 years 2020-2023
In 2024 illegal immigrants in the USA were responsible for:
-
29 instances of homicide/manslaughter [country total: 75,082]
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1,084 instances of assault/battery/domestic violence [country total: 8,893,553]
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697 instances of burglary/robbery/larceny/theft/fraud [country total: 12,949,644]
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221 sexual offences [country total: 730,713]
https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/cbp-enforcement-statistics/criminal-noncitizen-statistics
https://cde.ucr.cjis.gov/LATEST/webapp/#/pages/explorer/crime/crime-trend
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i feel you, comrade…,someone in my inmediate family truly believes in bukele’s lies, this person usually only get news from el salvador from an evident propagandist youtube channel using memes to dismiss opposition, watches ufo channels, and truly believes that the rothchilds are the most powerful family in the world. sometimes i try to talk about the propaganda that is consumed, but this is something that takes some time because propaganda is that powerful
My stepdad is a propertarian and the closest that we got to a serious political conversation was in a car ride five years ago. I tried to tell him that the Bolivarian Rep. of Venezuela was suffering because of U.S. sanctions, but he denied it.
A week or so after that, I told my mom that I disagree with his assertion that socialism ‘doesn’t work’. I said that socialist movements have been successful, and when she brought it up with him, he nitpicked my terminology and he told her to tell me to look up the ‘tragedy of the commons’. At that point, I decided to lie to my mom that I agreed with him.
A few more weeks after that, I sardonically told him (through Facebook) that redistributing wealth to the poor increases poverty, and he gave it a thumbs‐up.
I was shocked; I must have looked like a deer in the headlights when I saw that.
Anyway, I think that arguing with antisocialists is almost always a waste of time, especially if you literally live with them. It is fun to troll them into unjokingly agreeing with the most inane or counterintuitive statements imaginable, but normally I would reply directly to them only with a blank stare and awkward silence. I’ve driven people off the wall with that before.
If I lived with ‘Alex’ then I’d most likely come up with utterly inane conclusions that they might find agreeable, as, ‘Allowing illegals in this country has been proven to result in fewer job opportunities for police officers.’ They might be gullible enough to actually agree with that.
On a minor note, are you interested in contacting me through Steam or Discord?
Sounds very similar to what zionists are known for with the victim complex. Makes me wonder if Fox News uses much the same tactics as israel (or rather, if israel uses much the same tactics as Fox News - since the likelihood would be that israel learned from US white supremacy, much like how Nazi Germany learned from Jim Crow laws).
This sounds like a family member in my household, though they keep pendulum from MAGA to liberal (the latter of which is preferable to me because that I can deal with; MAGA is straight-up fascist at this point and will probably push Dems to try and emulate it, thus sending the country to fascism).
Considering Harris’s “do not come” speech and her “keep Isntreal lethal” rhetoric, I think MAGA has already essentially succeeded in that.
I still rely on local Dems at times. I don’t vote national though.
Ugh, also, they need a better therapist, I feel, I’m sorry
