Last time I saw him, I cussed out my pig uncle for making fun of Trayvon Martin's death

He didn't appreciate that and called me "A fucking punk" and my dad threatened to deck him square across the face

I say it was the best family reunion ever

i'm basically civil and mostly unavailable to shit family. it's tricky if you need their support, less so if you don't. i also moved further and further away and got off social media, so they no longer have low-effort mechanisms to inject themselves into my life. remove the low-effort ways to fuck with you and be amazed out how many assholes fall off the radar.

if i am trapped at a function, i grey rock them. if shitty people had any shame they would be embarrassed at how effectively they are led away from those of us playing at being uninteresting. people like this thrive on getting reactions out of others. it's like they feed on the dynamic. take that away and they starve.

if somebody reasonably needs something from me, i quickly get it to them without fuss but don't engage in any idle chat or banter. kind of like how i would deal with a shitty colleague or professional associate. maintain basic functionality, but leave them nothing personal to pull on.

i only get into struggle sessions with people i want to fight to keep around. bozos aren't worth my energy.

I’ll be the odd voice and say that unless your relative is a relative position of power, you shouldn’t give a fuck. Example: My parents voted for Donald Trump 3 times, they used to talk about him all the time. They think he’ll fix the country (and change Venezuela); he hasn’t fix shit, and now they don’t speak about him much. I think the material conditions are punishment enough, and 2 boomers in the suburbs of a red state voting differently wouldn’t have changed much.

Now, should you interact or hangout with these people? I don’t talk to my parents, even though I wish I had a better relationship with them. Not talking to them saves me from psychic damage.

Why can't they be honest about it, why dance around the point?

You can't cook a nice Thankgiving turkey by throwing it in an oven at 50,000 kelvin for 60 seconds. You can't make an extremist in a single conversation. Fascists, when not hegemonic, do not openly state their affiliation or goals because that would make them complete and utter pariahs. They just inch people over to them, bit by bit. It's more effective at recruiting, socially advantageous for the individual, and gives believers some way of justifying the things they wish to do (ie., "I was a centrist, but I was forced to become right wing by the crazy left!")

In my culture (the American midwest) if two people are willing to voice conflicting views (good god if you're not willing to speak to up you will hear a whole lot though) they generally mutually agree to not talk about it at all. So my advice is usually to just not back down, and they will simply not talk about it to you.

Failing that, I would probably just stonewall the conversation. The moment they say some shit just tell them they are gross for thinking that way and refuse to continue talking to them. Let them know they are judged for being bad people, but otherwise don't bother actually trying to talk. Eventually, if they want to try to talk to you about politics, they will have to ask about yours. Then you have control of the conversation.

I've learned to take good rhetorical stances that make them look like hypocrites without directly calling them that. (Never call a chud a hypocrite, btw, it's counter-productive) When they move back from their position i hammer that they never had any convictions about the thing in the first place. I've gotten half my chud relatives to admit they don't care about international order, free speech, equal rights, peace or anything anti-war, that they are fine with genocide, that they believe might means right, and more. I have a mental list and whenever a topic comes up and bring it back up that they have no right to be angry over ideological positions they've disavowed. Its very annoying for them, extremely so, so they've stopped talking politics around me because I don't care to call them a hypocrite, I just point out that they don't give a shit about the thing.

Sometimes they'll try and do the same but here's the beauty - when you are an insufferable ML like me all your positions are deeply entrenched. You double down and defend your openly held beliefs. It's easy when you have an actual ideology and convictions you are willing to stand by.

Unfortunately you need to take on abusive habits with them. Be deliberately calm when talking about it and take on an extremely judgemental tone - as if you are some kind of arbiter deciding their moral convictions. It's insufferable. When they raise their voice tell them they are being emotional. They'll never admit they believe horrific things. You have to dog walk them to the point. Don't tell them what they support. Get them to tell you and then point out how the consequences of what they support have already led to X,Y, and Z. The more you question them about each and every element of their beliefs, where they heard them, why they believe them and challenge every little aspect of it, then it starts to fall apart. Look up the Socratic method. There's a reason people got so sick of that dude they made him drink poison.

I have not talked to any of my chud family members in 8 years

Also they can't be open about their views because they know that even liberals will exclude them if they say what they believe openly.

if they have any shame you can ask them to explain explicitly what they mean when they avoid owning their position with their whole chest

I tend to make them explain themselves. "What do you mean by that?" Eventually you get to stammer town.

if they attack you personally go full scorched earth otherwise if they are talking with themselves keep it civil and practice apoliticalmaxxing. no one wants to stir up shit within family they'll learn to be quiet around you and at least you'll find some peace.

"deradicalizing loved ones" does not work, they are literally spending more time with their imaginary friends than they'll ever do with you, and arguing only makes them dig in. just make sure they know they sound like stupid losers because social ostracization is the only thing these assholes understand.

I mean it’s your life but you gotta remember they DESPERATELY want to be able to paint themselves as victims of some kind of imagined oppression.

My parents are cool. My family sucks. So I only see my family at christmas and mostly just help my parents deal with hosting them, theyre a pain to deal with despite not being like...awful politics wise. Theyre just libs with an average age of 70 or so. Im the youngest at 35. And that's by 20 years. I've also been pretty hard left for the last 20 so none of this is new to them and they know to not talk about certsin subjects around me. Lecture them until theyre uncomfortable talking politics to you, all you need to have is a lot lf confidence, a lot of knowledge and the ability to recall it at will. So, if you cant do that I just wouldn't bother with em

I cut off contact with people like this and find it makes me much happier

Laugh at them eating meat on fridays and wednesdays? Or skipping lent? If they don’t skip lent, say they are doing discount ramadan? (only private convos, don’t shit on religions in public). Ask them if they would sell their property if jesus was running around hiring apostles?

You have to understand the guiding light of a person, and then dance around it. I doubt their only goal is avoiding masks, but if it is oppositional knee jerk, laughs how much their boss owns them for a third of a life. talk about hopes and dreams, ideal life, understand them, and then redirect them if possible.

*If they like order and hierarchy, dunno what to say, never scored an agreement with such type of person. maybe godless billionaire bad/unearned or something about failsons? they don’t like line skipping (puttin in the work), but that fights with inheritance good thought, so it’s very contradictory to argue with

I don't ever have to deal with chuds but if I did - I'd tell them that they're racist and hateful.

Why can't they be honest about it, why dance around the point?

We laugh about the Overton window and it's always moving to the right. There's a similar connected hate "window" of how openly racist and hateful people can be in real life. It moves around over time and it is heavily based on locale. Right now most Americans can't say "Black people are inferior," or "Jews control banking," or "Gay people shouldn't have rights."

But they still need to make everybody know they are racist and hateful. To do so in a more "polite" way - they resort to transparent workarounds like euphemisms and "I'm just asking questions" phrasing.

I just cut folks like this out. I'm not mean to them I guess they just don't exist to me anymore. I have zero time for people that I don't like

Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.

Reacting to triggers rewards the behavior. Greyrock.

Why interact with them at all? Being aggressive with them just means more conflicts and ultimately wasted energy on your part, maybe worse if they get hostile. Avoid the grief and cut them out of your life and move on, if you can

Yeah, they can get fuck't.

She's joined Orthodox church after finding Catholics too woke for upholding hasic COVID restrictions, and constantly whines about Muslims.

Lmao, what the hell. I think you could easily show what a fraud this person is if you learn basic stuff about theological questions and history around roman catholicism, orthodox and islam. If she converted because of a reason as low as that I can guarantee that she doesn't really have any rationale about her beliefs except for explicit hate towards others.

That's just my guess ofcourse but I'd say you could easily get on her nerves by attacking her glaringly obvious ignorance on any of these religions.

I don't think you should engage if you don't feel like it, it won't change a lot. (I probably wouldn't) but to me it sounds like a very vapid person. I'm not religous at all and even I feel offended by "I abandoned my god and saviour because covid was too woke"

In my experience it's generally not worth it. But make your own choices.

If you arent currently dependent on them, look into it. If you are, fuck em. If they have money be juust polite enough and show up to obligatory to mooch/get that bread when they croak, if it doesnt seem like you stand to gain anything, there is no real reason to be nice.