What Do You Choose To Do About MAGA Family?

 So, this is a question I've been struggling with since Trump first came down that goddamn escalator.  I cut all Trump-supporting friends out of my life...many were really just acquaintances who thought of themselves as friends.  I mean, I never liked Republicans and was refusing to date or fuck them decades before the NY Times started running stories about the poor Trumpsters being discriminated against on dating sites.  

So it's not like I had many Trumpster friends.  I had a lot of business "friends" that I networked with and would go out to dinner with here or there.  I ended those.  I had old high school connections on Facebook, I defriended them.

It was only family left.  Now, I really don't give a shit about cousins and aunts and uncles.   I don't see them or talk to them.  A few of them are without a doubt certifiable and I was afraid to be around them long before Trump.  One, I'm convinced is on an FBI watch list.  

I am talking about my immediate family.  That is my brothers, and their families.

Let's stick with my brothers and sister-in-laws. 

Should I give them up?

Much of Twitter would say yes, and anytime white people go full-racist, like white women did in Virginia last week, and elect some fuckwit, I see a new rash of those kind of tweets.

That white people don't talk to their own families about racism, we can't even take care of our own shit, and it's up to us to solve racism.

Believe me, I get the anger.   

Take a look at this:

 

How the fuck do you think we are supposed to talk sense into that?   I think there is a real either/or black/white viewpoint on this.

If I keep my trumpster family members, then I am condoning racist, LGBTQ-hate, etc.  Except, my immediate family never say racist things in front of me, and none of them hold anti-gay views.  

 So I don't talk about politics with them.  

I need to have a family.  You know, recently I had a panic attack at an airport, and was unable to board a plane.  My brother called me and told me if I needed to take Amtrak he would give me the 1600 dollar fare if I didn't have it.  

Nobody on Twitter is gonna call me and offer that. 

But it goes way beyond that.  I need family.  I have memories going back to childhood, I have holidays coming up that I anticipate being with my loved ones for.

I am human.  

I am willing to do a  lot of things, and I do a lot of things, but I'm not willing to give up my family.

I'm not willing to apologize for that either.  Because the apology would be performative.  I'm not going to give up my family so what would apologizing for that mean?

Even if I do get dragged on Twitter for it.  Or, dragged in real life.  

Since Trump was first President, every year around this time I do see a lot of posts by white people talking about how they disowned their families.   And they always get a lot of support.  I have seen many counter-arguments that someone like me, white, cisgendered, straight, can afford to "let it go".    I get that for some it's different.  If I were gay would I still want my family?

Well, yeah.  And as I said above, none of them have ever said anything anti-gay, and in fact, some of them I definitely know support gay rights.  But they vote for people who are anti-gay, right?  And, what if I were black?  Or Mexican?   They sure vote for people whose policies (and words) hurt minority communities. 

I know.  But the thing is if I were black or Mexican I would have a black or Mexican family.  So I wouldn't be facing that question. 

Should I be willing to give up my family and be alone in the world over this?  If I were a better person, braver, maybe.  But as things stand, I'm not that brave, I don't have a huge circle, and it's a very hard, ugly world.  It brings me little joy.  My family is one of the few things I have.   They're really the only people on this vast earth who give a shit if I live or die.  

This isn't a pleasant topic, and no one really leaves it happy.  For me, it's a true case of "it is what it is." 

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