Thank you for this piece. I fear my parents will have the same ending. The things they now believe are so disconnected from reality and they have started to shape their personalities in baffling, awful ways. I always say Fox News was a gateway drug that destroyed that generation.
Thank you for writing this. I lost my mother suddenly in June of 2019 due to an aneurysm. She had graduated from the University of Missouri law school the same spring I graduated from high school, 1979, and became one of the first female attorneys in Greene County. She and my father divorced my freshmen year in college and she did not remarry until 1990. She succumbed to the brainwashing of Fox News against President Obama despite losing her entire retirement savings under the Bush economic crash; and then supported Trump. We could not discuss anything political because it would mean accepting things she stated as fact which were not true. I will never understand how such an intelligent, liberal woman who was ahead of her time was pulled into the MAGA abyss.
Great piece Jess. Only the very best of us are without demons of some kind waiting for an opportunity to surface. As you say this all didn’t start with Trump, but he invited these demons into the daylight and helped them prosper.
This is my story too. The dad who taught me hard work and respect and who showed up for me every single time has lost the ability to discern who the bad guys are. None of us will discuss the hateful nonsense he sees on Fox all day with him. Rather than turn it off, or even consider that any of it might be wrong, he says “Well I guess we don’t have anything to talk about.” This has left my dad an isolated, depressed, and angry man in the middle off a family that loves him and wants to honor his sunset years. It is heartbreaking to all of us.
I'm sorry. My Mom started down that path- FOX on, if the tv was on. I started hearing very odd statements about just getting rid of teachers, welfare malingerers, etc. Luckily she does not live on her own and my stepdad was and is still anchored in reality. He would press to watch other news- they watch Deutsch Welle (my Mom was born in Germany) every night. That turned the tide. The world wasn't in awe of that man. The world was not laughing at Biden. She no longer watches FOX and her thoughts are kinder and more generous to others once again, but it was a close call. FOX is insidious. It captures the lonely, the all-day tv watchers. You and your dad were victims. I'm glad he saw the world through a clearer lens as he approached death, but I'm so sorry you lost those years with him.
Oh, Jess. I had the hardest time reading this - and typing this…. Because the tears flood my eyes. Your loss is so fresh. My mom passed nearly 12 years ago. But, I was lucky, because my only grandchild was born 6 weeks later. That helped me get through that first year. Yet, I don’t know if I will ever recover physically and mentally from her last 6 years. Alzheimer’s, a colostomy and a diaper, legally blind, and angry. I moved her from another state to my home. Then, her house was flooded. My siblings. Well, I cannot say our relationships survived it. I cared for my mother in my home for her last 6 years. I wasn’t able to work and the visiting nurse the last 2 years to assist with bathing+ was $96/hr due to the colostomy. I was so stressed I had a stroke. But still had to care for mom. Regardless of the hardships we went through… the moments when she was present were so precious… and heartbreaking as she wanted to know “where’s ___” and I didn’t want to tell her everyone she asked for was dead. There were also the nightmare moments… waking in a panic, taking her frustrations out on me physically (she reminded me size wise of Granny on the Beverly Hillbillies) - wiry but TOUGH.
Sorry this was so long.
My only surviving sibling is a raging MAGA. Our last get together/reunion was dinner after spreading ashes of another family member. I saw adult nieces and nephews and their families I hadn’t seen in over a decade.
Times have changed. We have to find a way to do better. But, it takes ALL of us.
I lost my dad in January. My parents had just spent over a week at our house for the holidays. He wasn’t in the best health, so we spent a lot of time just sitting and talking, when he wasn’t chauffeuring my children all over town and spoiling them rotten. Our last political conversation that he halfheartedly attempted to drag me into was about how much a Big Mac costs in California now because Biden pushed to raise the minimum wage. Neither of us really wanted to be in the argument, the Republican in him just had to poke the socialist bear before they went home. I replied, “something something record corporate profits, what would you like me to make for dinner?” He said he’d order us all dinner from his favorite Italian restaurant in our city, and that was that. Less than two weeks later he got an infection that went septic and died.
I’m glad that neither of us decided to make it A Whole Big Thing™ like we did at least once every single time they visited. Maybe on some level we knew it would be the last time we saw each other outside of the intensive care unit he wouldn’t make it out of alive. But he wasted a lot of time in his adulthood being an Angry Man, and even more time apologizing for being an Angry Man. Maybe he realized probably a little too late that it just wasn’t worth it anymore.
Thank you. I could have written this. Although my father was an abuser all my life. I tried so hard to have a relationship with him. After Trump got elected he told me, "you need to get back to your Republican roots." In time he belittled me and my children so much for our viewpoints that it wasn't worth a relationship with him. He is still alive and I haven't spoken to him in 5 years. I will not attend his funeral. I have no respect for someone like him.
Great, heartbreaking piece. I think MAGA has destroyed relationships for many of us. My sister seems to be coming back a bit - I avoided calling her because her rants were so disturbing, but last time she just talked about the grandkids. It’s terrible what damage one man has facilitated. I’m afraid the divisions will outlive him, with all the people profiting from antivax and the like. Thank you for writing this, Jess.
Beautifully written, and heartbreakingly real. I'm so, so sorry your family suffered from such an insidious blight on our country. I have so many family members, coworkers who I used to like, that I simply cannot respect anymore. Because they choose fear and hate over decency and love. The saddest thing is that they're still wonderful, caring people in so many ways. But they're forever tainted by this single yet all-encompassing choice: they believe in trump no matter what. It's their choice, and it's terrible. But they are all in.
I had a lovely coworker who voted for trump in 2016. It was so hard looking at her afterwards. We shared a hotel room during a convention a few years later. When she told me that she regretted her vote, and was no longer a supporter of his? I broke down and fucking cried from relief. It was a small victory, but a victory nonetheless!
It's the small victories that we have, and I truly hope that you continue to get them, Jess. Thank you for sharing your story. I know your dad is so proud of you!
I’m so sorry, Jess. I’ve lost both of my brothers and my father to the crazy. Nothing I can do but live my life and hope that they find their way out before it’s time for them to go. Your story is so heartbreaking.❤️
Thank you for continuing to share all of your stories, Jess! I follow you on TikTok too and you have been a huge inspiration for me throughout this last year with everything you share.
I don’t have the same depth of story as you, but I understand the anguish that MAGA causes my own family. It hurts every day knowing that those you love have fallen for the lies of a movement that wants to hurt and destroy so many of us. It hits home every day and it causes pain and sadness every day.
This, just like every other message you put out, is so important - we have to do something and be something better. I can’t give up more family to this disease if there’s more that can be done to stop it!
Such a powerful piece, thank you for writing on this difficult subject.
I am lucky not to have family that got sucked into the Fox void, but I do have friends that I still puzzle over, wondering why they suddenly became such horrible people. Highly intelligent, well educated, wealthy, charming church goers, that--unlike your father--had zero reason to regard their lives as difficult. They would whine and complain about inefficient, ineffective government institutions, even as they benefited mightily from them. Their hate of the 'other' (Blacks, immigrants, strong women) was seething and steady and constantly grew. Our discussions became more and more 'through the looking glass', up was down, down was up, their sense of logic was gone, they would simply dismiss anything that criticized Trump. I had to give up on some very good friends who turned a blind eye to the ugliness that is MAGA. They simply could not see themselves. They were lost souls.
I see your father's decline as directly related to being in constant pain. Perhaps he was desperately reaching for any reason for his punishment and needed someone--anyone--to blame? And MAGA handed the 'other' to him so he could hate and have some reason for the pain he suffered. It doesn't excuse his getting sucked in entirely, but I regard people like him who succumb as less blameworthy. In this country, elder care and medical support is so expensive and so confusing, it would drive anyone mad. We have been failing a large portion of the most vulnerable in our population.
Reading stories like this reminds me of how millennials over a decade ago started getting absolutely fascinated with zombies--zombie movies were suddenly everywhere. I believe our sensitive children sensed the shift in the ethos and recognized it for what it was: mass mental illness, misdirected anger eating people from inside out, making normally good people say and do things that are inhuman.
This also happened to me, with my mother. She had COPD, was unhappy, and became addicted to Fox News at the beginning, but it became like a delusional system. Anyone who didn’t agree was out, including me. Thank you for writing about it, and all the great work you do for democracy.
My dad, a government employee his whole adult life, fell into the maga pit but was so angry about January 6 he changed his registration and stopped watching tv news. He was better for a year or so but is sliding back into maga and demonizing Dept Ed, higher ed (he was an engineer), government regulation (he has government retiree insurance & VA insurance & retirement benefits/disability from both agencies). This makes no sense to me, there is no logic, he hates the agencies that pay him the majority of his retirement & insurance costs and have allowed him his 40 years of retirement(he’s 93)? 🤦♀️ I’m tired of the rhetoric and the exhaustion I feel after spending time biting my tongue around him (and the rest of my family—but he affects me most). So I moved all the way across the country to escape the maga (a highly educated sister spouts qanon garbage in addition to maga). Very sad, but very much self preservation. I’ll be very sad when I lose him, but I imagine there will be a little relief and some anger (for other than maga reasons) might return. I feel for you, I’ve already had my dad 30 more years than you had yours and I’ve had time to let some of the old resentment and anger go. I can’t imagine how hard it is for you even now. 💔 I want to validate your anger and tell you it’s okay to have mixed feelings and that it’s okay to hold your appreciation for him and this sadness & anger in your heart at the same time. ((❤️))
Thank you for this piece. I fear my parents will have the same ending. The things they now believe are so disconnected from reality and they have started to shape their personalities in baffling, awful ways. I always say Fox News was a gateway drug that destroyed that generation.
Thank you for writing this. I lost my mother suddenly in June of 2019 due to an aneurysm. She had graduated from the University of Missouri law school the same spring I graduated from high school, 1979, and became one of the first female attorneys in Greene County. She and my father divorced my freshmen year in college and she did not remarry until 1990. She succumbed to the brainwashing of Fox News against President Obama despite losing her entire retirement savings under the Bush economic crash; and then supported Trump. We could not discuss anything political because it would mean accepting things she stated as fact which were not true. I will never understand how such an intelligent, liberal woman who was ahead of her time was pulled into the MAGA abyss.
Great piece Jess. Only the very best of us are without demons of some kind waiting for an opportunity to surface. As you say this all didn’t start with Trump, but he invited these demons into the daylight and helped them prosper.
Fox News is ruining the lives of elderly people who embrace Trump's lies in their last remaining years. It is a travesty.
And how many people died because of Covid because Fox and Trump minimized the risk?
This is my story too. The dad who taught me hard work and respect and who showed up for me every single time has lost the ability to discern who the bad guys are. None of us will discuss the hateful nonsense he sees on Fox all day with him. Rather than turn it off, or even consider that any of it might be wrong, he says “Well I guess we don’t have anything to talk about.” This has left my dad an isolated, depressed, and angry man in the middle off a family that loves him and wants to honor his sunset years. It is heartbreaking to all of us.
I'm sorry. My Mom started down that path- FOX on, if the tv was on. I started hearing very odd statements about just getting rid of teachers, welfare malingerers, etc. Luckily she does not live on her own and my stepdad was and is still anchored in reality. He would press to watch other news- they watch Deutsch Welle (my Mom was born in Germany) every night. That turned the tide. The world wasn't in awe of that man. The world was not laughing at Biden. She no longer watches FOX and her thoughts are kinder and more generous to others once again, but it was a close call. FOX is insidious. It captures the lonely, the all-day tv watchers. You and your dad were victims. I'm glad he saw the world through a clearer lens as he approached death, but I'm so sorry you lost those years with him.
Oh, Jess. I had the hardest time reading this - and typing this…. Because the tears flood my eyes. Your loss is so fresh. My mom passed nearly 12 years ago. But, I was lucky, because my only grandchild was born 6 weeks later. That helped me get through that first year. Yet, I don’t know if I will ever recover physically and mentally from her last 6 years. Alzheimer’s, a colostomy and a diaper, legally blind, and angry. I moved her from another state to my home. Then, her house was flooded. My siblings. Well, I cannot say our relationships survived it. I cared for my mother in my home for her last 6 years. I wasn’t able to work and the visiting nurse the last 2 years to assist with bathing+ was $96/hr due to the colostomy. I was so stressed I had a stroke. But still had to care for mom. Regardless of the hardships we went through… the moments when she was present were so precious… and heartbreaking as she wanted to know “where’s ___” and I didn’t want to tell her everyone she asked for was dead. There were also the nightmare moments… waking in a panic, taking her frustrations out on me physically (she reminded me size wise of Granny on the Beverly Hillbillies) - wiry but TOUGH.
Sorry this was so long.
My only surviving sibling is a raging MAGA. Our last get together/reunion was dinner after spreading ashes of another family member. I saw adult nieces and nephews and their families I hadn’t seen in over a decade.
Times have changed. We have to find a way to do better. But, it takes ALL of us.
I lost my dad in January. My parents had just spent over a week at our house for the holidays. He wasn’t in the best health, so we spent a lot of time just sitting and talking, when he wasn’t chauffeuring my children all over town and spoiling them rotten. Our last political conversation that he halfheartedly attempted to drag me into was about how much a Big Mac costs in California now because Biden pushed to raise the minimum wage. Neither of us really wanted to be in the argument, the Republican in him just had to poke the socialist bear before they went home. I replied, “something something record corporate profits, what would you like me to make for dinner?” He said he’d order us all dinner from his favorite Italian restaurant in our city, and that was that. Less than two weeks later he got an infection that went septic and died.
I’m glad that neither of us decided to make it A Whole Big Thing™ like we did at least once every single time they visited. Maybe on some level we knew it would be the last time we saw each other outside of the intensive care unit he wouldn’t make it out of alive. But he wasted a lot of time in his adulthood being an Angry Man, and even more time apologizing for being an Angry Man. Maybe he realized probably a little too late that it just wasn’t worth it anymore.
Thank you. I could have written this. Although my father was an abuser all my life. I tried so hard to have a relationship with him. After Trump got elected he told me, "you need to get back to your Republican roots." In time he belittled me and my children so much for our viewpoints that it wasn't worth a relationship with him. He is still alive and I haven't spoken to him in 5 years. I will not attend his funeral. I have no respect for someone like him.
Great, heartbreaking piece. I think MAGA has destroyed relationships for many of us. My sister seems to be coming back a bit - I avoided calling her because her rants were so disturbing, but last time she just talked about the grandkids. It’s terrible what damage one man has facilitated. I’m afraid the divisions will outlive him, with all the people profiting from antivax and the like. Thank you for writing this, Jess.
Beautifully written, and heartbreakingly real. I'm so, so sorry your family suffered from such an insidious blight on our country. I have so many family members, coworkers who I used to like, that I simply cannot respect anymore. Because they choose fear and hate over decency and love. The saddest thing is that they're still wonderful, caring people in so many ways. But they're forever tainted by this single yet all-encompassing choice: they believe in trump no matter what. It's their choice, and it's terrible. But they are all in.
I had a lovely coworker who voted for trump in 2016. It was so hard looking at her afterwards. We shared a hotel room during a convention a few years later. When she told me that she regretted her vote, and was no longer a supporter of his? I broke down and fucking cried from relief. It was a small victory, but a victory nonetheless!
It's the small victories that we have, and I truly hope that you continue to get them, Jess. Thank you for sharing your story. I know your dad is so proud of you!
I’m so sorry, Jess. I’ve lost both of my brothers and my father to the crazy. Nothing I can do but live my life and hope that they find their way out before it’s time for them to go. Your story is so heartbreaking.❤️
Thank you for continuing to share all of your stories, Jess! I follow you on TikTok too and you have been a huge inspiration for me throughout this last year with everything you share.
I don’t have the same depth of story as you, but I understand the anguish that MAGA causes my own family. It hurts every day knowing that those you love have fallen for the lies of a movement that wants to hurt and destroy so many of us. It hits home every day and it causes pain and sadness every day.
This, just like every other message you put out, is so important - we have to do something and be something better. I can’t give up more family to this disease if there’s more that can be done to stop it!
Such a powerful piece, thank you for writing on this difficult subject.
I am lucky not to have family that got sucked into the Fox void, but I do have friends that I still puzzle over, wondering why they suddenly became such horrible people. Highly intelligent, well educated, wealthy, charming church goers, that--unlike your father--had zero reason to regard their lives as difficult. They would whine and complain about inefficient, ineffective government institutions, even as they benefited mightily from them. Their hate of the 'other' (Blacks, immigrants, strong women) was seething and steady and constantly grew. Our discussions became more and more 'through the looking glass', up was down, down was up, their sense of logic was gone, they would simply dismiss anything that criticized Trump. I had to give up on some very good friends who turned a blind eye to the ugliness that is MAGA. They simply could not see themselves. They were lost souls.
I see your father's decline as directly related to being in constant pain. Perhaps he was desperately reaching for any reason for his punishment and needed someone--anyone--to blame? And MAGA handed the 'other' to him so he could hate and have some reason for the pain he suffered. It doesn't excuse his getting sucked in entirely, but I regard people like him who succumb as less blameworthy. In this country, elder care and medical support is so expensive and so confusing, it would drive anyone mad. We have been failing a large portion of the most vulnerable in our population.
Reading stories like this reminds me of how millennials over a decade ago started getting absolutely fascinated with zombies--zombie movies were suddenly everywhere. I believe our sensitive children sensed the shift in the ethos and recognized it for what it was: mass mental illness, misdirected anger eating people from inside out, making normally good people say and do things that are inhuman.
This also happened to me, with my mother. She had COPD, was unhappy, and became addicted to Fox News at the beginning, but it became like a delusional system. Anyone who didn’t agree was out, including me. Thank you for writing about it, and all the great work you do for democracy.
My dad, a government employee his whole adult life, fell into the maga pit but was so angry about January 6 he changed his registration and stopped watching tv news. He was better for a year or so but is sliding back into maga and demonizing Dept Ed, higher ed (he was an engineer), government regulation (he has government retiree insurance & VA insurance & retirement benefits/disability from both agencies). This makes no sense to me, there is no logic, he hates the agencies that pay him the majority of his retirement & insurance costs and have allowed him his 40 years of retirement(he’s 93)? 🤦♀️ I’m tired of the rhetoric and the exhaustion I feel after spending time biting my tongue around him (and the rest of my family—but he affects me most). So I moved all the way across the country to escape the maga (a highly educated sister spouts qanon garbage in addition to maga). Very sad, but very much self preservation. I’ll be very sad when I lose him, but I imagine there will be a little relief and some anger (for other than maga reasons) might return. I feel for you, I’ve already had my dad 30 more years than you had yours and I’ve had time to let some of the old resentment and anger go. I can’t imagine how hard it is for you even now. 💔 I want to validate your anger and tell you it’s okay to have mixed feelings and that it’s okay to hold your appreciation for him and this sadness & anger in your heart at the same time. ((❤️))