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?
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 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.
I unbrainwashed my mom but not my dad
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!
I think a psychologist would say that if you really can’t find common ground, it’s best to agree not to talk about it.
Indoctrination is highly effective. Your parents were raised in a place where toeing the line is the norm and questioning those in power is traditionally a great way to ensure you disappear. Russians are deeply indoctrinated when compared to western nations because that’s how their society has been set up since 1922. The Soviet leadership ruled by suppressing any dissent, violently and without remorse. Just because the Soviet Union no longer exists, doesn’t mean their ways of doing things disappeared too.
The only way to change them would be to engage in an equally sophisticated program of indoctrination: deprogramming as it’s called. Since you lack the resources of the Soviet Union, it would be a much more difficult task, especially since your parents are now older and their brains are less changeable. They were indoctrinated as children and by a very prolific system. Reversing that now, by yourself, is a tall order.
I’m sorry your parents were failed by their leadership, it’s truly a shame.
My therapist made a really great point when I brought up this exact issue with him. He asked if I value a relationship with my parents, and I said yes. Then he said that the price you have to pay for having a relationship with them, is never discussing politics.
It worked for a year or so, but then they voted for that rapist again, and I’ve since cut them out of my life. I’m not walking around on the eggshells of their bigotry and ignorance just so I can get some semblance of what some may describe as affection. You can only say/do so many shitty terrible things before I’m just done with you completely, and they hit their limit, so it was time to cash out.
Sorry, my advice of ignoring politics only works for a little while.
If you don’t mind me asking, how often did politics come up with your parents?
Edit: just for my own perspective, they came up a little with my father while he was still alive and very, very rarely with my mother who I still see daily. I gently gauge the political position that my kids have but I’ve raised them all with empathy as a central tenet of their upbringing so that’s more or less where they tend to fall as best I can tell.
I am not interested in ending up where you did and I mean that with kindness.
My parents have conservative talk radio and/or fox news on basically 24/7 in their house and car, so there was really nowhere I could escape their politics. I figured out that all their talk was BS, but could never convince my parents of anything. I could take a quote from their favorite host, and pair it alongside facts stating the opposite was true from an organization that they, themselves, were members of, and they still would dismiss me.
In reality, it’s not the politics that got between us, it’s that they’re shitty people.
Rapist? You mean Bill Clinton? Or Biden, who showered with his 16 year old daughter?
Oh. Wow. Really stupid. I’m so sorry
Well, you do know Ol Bill was at Epstein Island sword fighting with Trump.
Good thing I didn’t vote for either of them or Biden in 2024.
I’m gonna need to see the receipts on this one. Sounds like some ‘pizza dungeon’ tripe.
Similar struggle. I told my folks (they live 2hrs away and I see them every 2 mo.) that they need to choose: a relationship with me or talking about politics. At first I gave a couple warnings, but after maybe 3 or 4 times. I reiterated, me or politics, and left without another word. Works with phone calls too. “Did you hear what Bide” click - I hang up.
Treat them like dogs - they’re trainable. If you abruptly leave or hang up every time, eventually they’ll get the hint. If not, they’ve made their choice and if it’s not you, then you’ll need to move on.
I didn’t travel 2 hours to talk about someone I’ll never meet. Let’s talk about ourselves and what’s new in our lives. What’s going on in the garden, what’s new in the office, whatever happened to what’s-her-name you used to hang out with.
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.
If you’re set on doing this you need to accept you may never be successful.
Also it has to be something gentle, not necessarily subtle, but compassionate. If you don’t accept that they believe in their views then they will only feel attacked and lash out for defense.
As for actually changing their views, choose one or two things that you can point to in examples they can observe. Propaganda has a very hard time defeating our own eyes and ears. I don’t even know which country you’re in so you’ll have to figure that out for yourself.
Another way to change their views is to get them to volunteer with organizations that help people down on their luck. A lot of times, just hearing the stories of how people ended up in need of help can change attitudes.
This is a positive recommendation :) know that you might succeed, but attempts coming from compassion instead of belittling or impatience. I tend to engage in asking certain questions until they reveal to themselves that they don’t support the things they’ve been tricked into believing
I work in Arizona with the homeless and downtrodden. The overwhelming majority of them are right wing and are homeless because they actively refuse help, among other severe mental health issues.
That sucks. I’ve had the opposite experience. Obviously the mental health issues are a thing but usually the people without those issues are keenly aware of why they slid into homelessness.
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.
Example: Swap fox sub with vox. Set the child lock on their tv. Domain filter facebook in their router or throttle the service to make it unpleasant to use. Set up url redirects. Get them a stack of dvds. Proper entertainment is better than propaganda. They watch that crap cause they are lazy and it’s easy.
If they give up and switches to a more sane channel for their entertainment, politics or otherwise, you have succeeded.
The idea is to remove them from the constant barrage of propaganda from bad actors. If they stop hearing about “evil trans people” every ten minutes, they will probably become uninterested after a while.
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.
Just avoid the conversations. You can’t change their mind.
Tell them what you think and then cut them out of your life. That is what I have done. Fuck their nonsense.
I moved a couple states away from my family to minimize any interaction. It’s not just politics. Their politics are, however, and indicator that they’re not the type of people I want to associate with, so the extra distance facilitates less contact.
Of course, I moved to Iowa, which has since shifted from purplish to red. At least I’m on a blue city.
Get away from them as soon as its feasible.
Easy. Log into their router next time I visit, adjust the DNS setting and redirect fox, oann, and facebook to actual news sites.
Some routers have DNS settings other than choosing a DNS provider? :0 What does setting this up look like generally?
My parents immigrated from “communist” Poland years ago and had similar conservative views. Abortion bad, church good, black people lazy, etc… It took years of discussions and disagreement to get them to think in a more progressive way, and yes, having siblings helps. And if you can convince one parent, they can help you convince the other.
I truly believe that art is one of the best ways to alter the way people think. I found that watching movies/documentaries with my parents that had strong ecological and humanitarion viewpoints were a great way to start these discussions. Movies about topics like systemic racism, homophobia, corporate greed/fraud, environmental destruction, religious abuse, etc…
For example, the Netflix documentary ‘13th’ have real insight into how the systemic racism uses poverty to keep marginalized people poor and desperate enough to commit crimes. Which are then blamed on their skin color rather than their on economic situation.
You don’t owe your parents anything. Cut them out of your life entirely if you need to and are able to. Otherwise either keep standing your ground and try to keep converting them, or just make it clear that you won’t discuss politics.
Both your parents sound slightly worse than my dad, who I went no-contact with for several years
I gave up on my mother after she voted for Trump this past election. I had been accommodating her terrible beliefs by instating a “no politics” rule in 2020. But her helping him back into office again is too much. I have friends who he wants to harm and that’s not acceptable to me.
