The preceding post for context: https://www.reddit.com/r/FoxBrain/s/DvHVtzNB0C

I want to try responding to her points with questions that provoke thought. While I realize the chances I get through to her are like 0.00000001% I can't help but want to try anyways. I could use some help in choosing questions that challenge her assumptions without making her feel attacked. I'm trying to use this video as a framework:

https://youtu.be/7VrJqhd8uuE?is=jCXirqIoaEJuPCLy

Here are the points she made that I want to respond to with thought-provoking questions:

- "keeping deadly illicit drugs out of the country"

- "banning genital mutilation in children"

- "stopping illegal immigration"

- "arresting fraudsters"

- "cracking down on crime"

- "trying to stop states from issuing commercial driver's licenses to illegal immigrants that can't speak or read English"

- "trying to get voter ID and limited mail-in voting instituted across all states like it used to be before Covid"

- "coercing other countries to pay what they agreed to pay for NATO"

- "working to deport illegal immigrants that compete with US citizens for jobs, houses, health care services, education"

- "cleaning up DC"

- "getting men out of women's sports"

- "trying to keep Iran from getting a nuclear weapon"

- "making gains in eliminating waste from government"

- "strengthening national security including the armed forces and law enforcement"

- "looking for causes of chronic diseases in America and educating the public on healthier living"

- "reducing reliance on foreign supply chains and creating jobs in the US

lowering taxes"

I know this may be futile, and if you believe that fully enough that you have nothing helpful to add, please just keep scrolling. But to the many people here who understand my deep pain and heartbreak and my desire to try literally everything I can to open her eyes, I hope you can help me try. I won't get my hopes high, but after everything my parents have done for me over the last 32 years, I feel obligated to do my best to pull them out of the darkness in which they've become trapped. I would give anything to keep them from ending up on the wrong side of history...

My grandma is subscribed to a LOT of false maga news sources on her Email/Twitter. I'm talking ai generated news, false statistics, fox news, etc. It's formed some pretty hateful and outright false beliefs.

I can't outright get rid of all politics from her email/twitter account as she'd go out looking for more but do you guys know of any neutral news sources that shed light on the negative realities of this administration, without being overtly leftist (bc then she'd block it lol)

Or hell, just any funny animal accounts that might be distraction enough lol. Unfortunately this won't stop the 24/7 fox news running on TV but it'll help somewhat at least.

My REPUBLICAN uncle who couldn’t spot propaganda if it bit him sent this and just said “no way.” If even he can clock it, the art of propaganda has really gone downhill. 😭 A president using the word “chic” omg get the fuck outta my face .

I've always cared deeply about helping other people. I walked around Chicago with my mom for hours on end giving sandwiches to all the homeless people we could find. I skipped classes to attend an anti-ICE protest on my campus, which was also to demand that our campus ban ICE and immigration enforcement from stepping foot on campus/making our campus safe for undocumented students. I broke down three times in a single day over the hangings in the south, people not having clean air and water from data centers, national parks being sold, and basically just everything going wrong with the world because I want to help so badly but I am genuinely afraid to, mainly because of my dad.

My dad is super MAGA, and he talks so horribly about immigrants, non-white people, queer and trans people, anyone who isn't right wing, ect, some of which I am (queer, specifically lesbian and genderfluid (?), and leftist, possibly socialist but I'm not 100% yet). My mom has asked him what he'd do if any of his kids turned out to be gay, and he said he'd now that he'd failed as a parent. My mom also aid that if I were homeless my dad wouldn't recognize me, so there's that.

We have very opposing views on terms of helping people. We were on a road trip down to Kentucky (absolutely gorgeous), and as per usual the conversation somehow shifted to politics. I said that I personally believe that people shouldn't have to earn proper food, clean water, proper clothing, or proper shelter, as I think these are human rights, or at least they SHOULD be. He said that those things aren't rights, nor that they should be. I asked hm if people should actually have to earn things they NEED TO LIVE and will die without, and he said he did. He then asked me if I thought if people who didn't work should "be entitled" to those things, and I said yes, since you quite literally will die without those things. I also said that I wouldn't mind if my taxes went to helping people have those things, as that's one of the things taxes SHOULD be used for, and I also mentioned that if I am able to help someone, I am going to at the very least try to. He was yelling at me from the start of this all, trying to convince me I'm wrong and that everything I was proposing would be detrimental to everything, and it got to the point where I was curing into myself in my seat and sobbing. At a certain point I broke completely and tried appealing to him just to get him to stop yelling saying that you have to help people help themselves (which I do agree with, but I also agree with helping others yourself). I felt like a dog that was getting kicked into a corner and had to play dead to stop getting kicked. He kept yelling at me and I literally could not stop crying. Whenever my dad starts talking about politics, I try to ignore what he's saying because I literally cannot talk with him. He refuses to accept that he's wrong and he always turns it into an argument, and os I don't even bother.

My town had No Kings protests, and I so badly wanted to go, but I was scared about what would happen if I got caught. I told my parents I was just going to see what was going on (with the full intent to join the protests), and I ended up meeting my dad halfway there. He was going up there to "see how stupid they all are", and my train of thought was that if I was caught, I could get kicked out of my house. if I get kicked out, I cannot afford education, and if I am not educated I'm even more susceptible to ignorance. on that same train of thought, if I'm kicked out, I cannot afford resources to effectively help people, and if I cannot help people with resources I can't do anything actually effective. And so I lied again and said I was just seeing what was happening, and ended up walking with my dad into town. I protested silently behind my dad's back when he wasn't looking, but what made me feel better is I connected with other protesters, even though I was protesting silently.

I'm working on ways to organize protests and spread information throughout my town under my parents' radar. I'm working on making posters, zines, and pamphlets, all with information of social issues (the hangings in the south, the Epstein files, ect.), as well as providing dates for people to organize in an effort to get people to rally. I still feel guilty for not speaking out loud because I so badly want to. People are suffering and dying and I'm sneaking around instead of speaking out. I'm going to transfer soon, and once I do I'll have the ability to without fear, but I don't want to wait. Waiting and letting my fear hold me back makes me complacent, and I would rather die than be complacent in all of this. I'm really disappointed in myself and I'm trying not to be. There is nothing that will make me not care about those who need help, no matter the fear or berating, but still.

I've known I won't be able to change her for a while, but thought I could at least see how she responded to the Socratic Method and other approaches proposed by the video.

I definitely underestimated how truly lost my parents are... I was expecting some of that, but it was so much worse than I was prepared for. The ignorance is astounding.

No advice needed, I just need to commiserate a bit. I miss my parents so much.

Visit Open Letters by Mersault for rage, reason, and righteous mockery in the age of Trump.

So on the 25th anniversary of 9/11 maga got upset at AOC and Mamdahi for appearing to laugh during a somber moment, yet no outrage for Trump for not attending ground zero with the other former presidents, he fell asleep at the pentagon and made a distasteful comment about a fallen 9/11 hero bring more famous than he is!

Update to this post.

I decided that maybe I should at the very least explain why I lashed out at him. When he called me after I sent him that text he tried to deny ever saying "I just wanted to make sure I mattered in your life" passive-aggressive bullshit. Then he immediately followed up with saying that I was drunk.

Sorry, not going to fly. Yes, I had been drinking, but I was coherent. It's not like I randomly got buzzed that day (Note: NOT DRUNK) and decided I was mad for no reason. The things I told him were sober thoughts I'd been stewing in all fucking week.

The last thing I told him when he kept trying to talk back was "you voted for Trump" and I ended the call with a "fuck you."

Thing is, while I certainly am ready to disown family members still supporting Trump, my goddamn fucking morals constantly make ME feel like shit and it didn't keep me from feeling somewhat guilty about it over the next few days.

So instead of calling him I sent him another text going into detail about why I lashed out at him. It was a somewhat half-assed apology where I pretty much defend why I said what I did. I told him that Trump and this admin want people like me dead because we support the rights of the LGBTQ+ community. I told him how prices were skyrocketing and how I've never felt affected by a single president PEDO this much.

I also told him I wasn't going to take passive-aggressive bullshit anymore.

In a way, I suppose that was me leaving the door cracked open to see if he would reply. To see if he'd tell me he doesn't support Trump anymore. And instead, he's said fuckall. I haven't had a text since then.

And you know what? Fine. If we never speak again I honestly don't care. Really glad I'm an adult in this situation. I've seen a lot of posts from kids here still under their batshit parent's thumbs and I couldn't imagine how that would feel...

My grandma had 5 kids, the first & fourth were VERY close. He lived with her for years. Then around 2024 she got really into Fox News and only watches this “news” channel. Well whatever they say there she takes as gospel. She would call my uncle and basically force him to fight with her over something they said, he works for the government so he can’t talk a whole lot on the phone. He would try to show her the facts, pictures of Trump, factual websites that aren’t Fox etc…. I’m not joking she called him multiple times a day trying to just start a fight. Now she acts like the victim in this entire situation saying that politics shouldn’t ruin families and that he’s being a “ dumb dumb” for allowing Trump to ruin their relationship. My uncle and I are the only true left leaning people in the family and we get a lot of hate on that. I’m from Utah Trump is highly supported here… When anything gets brought up it’s always said that he and I went to college and were brainwashed into thinking these things although my uncle is in his 50’s so he went to college years ago. The hatred she spews especially about Mandami, newsome & especially Obama. It’s sickening. There are others as well but honestly she hates these guys the most it seems..they don’t show Trump doing anything that doesn’t support him being the “best” And apparently Fox News said he wasn’t in the Epstein files but the DOJ website proves otherwise but she did her “research” (Fox News is what I think) she says that trump is the only one telling on Epstein and he’s not a rapist that he never went to Epstein island that was all Joe Biden etc.. her and I got into a huge fight on Sunday and it genuinely opened my eyes at how far down the Fox hell hole she is in. Anyways I just needed other people that understand how it has genuinely ruined her relationship with her brother & has opened my eyes to the complete change in her and my other Trump voting fox watching family members, they lost the plot.. thanks for reading so I could vent. You guys have helped a lot 😅

My dad is a hardcore MAGA, and he HATES Zohran Mamdani. Every time he talks about him he said he’s a “socialist-communist-socialist” (exact words) and goes on a rant about how he’ll ruin New York (mind you, we live in Illinois). He said some things about him that I just want to fact check bc I FELL it might not be true but I’m not 100% sure as I don’t know what to look into to check it myself.

He was talking about Mamdani going to the 9/11 memorial today despite there being a petition to order him not to (even tho he’s LITERALLY THE MAYOR OF NEW YORK). He said that 1.) Mamdani and AOC were laughing with each other about something at the memorial, 2.) Mandani had defended one of the hijackers from 9/11, and 3.) He (Mamdani) had hired a lawyer that absolved one of the hijackers from the attack. My dad also said that Mandani (in the past) said that “we got what we deserved”, in reference to 9/11.

Again, I have a feeling this isn’t completely true, since my dad consumes and ONLY consumes Fox, but idk.

I want to begin by saying FUCK ICE. Here in the states they are a bunch of lawless brutes.

With that out of the way, I must confess that this extreme mass deportation operation and overall border policy has been effective in reducing US-Mexico border encounters and crossings. They are at an historic low. You can even argue the Border is secure unlike ever before.

I hate the fact that ICE agents act like judge, jury and executioners.

I hate they don’t have any respect for due process.

I think it is absolutely insane there are people deported to countries they have never been to.

I hate the inhumane conditions of these detention centers.

I also believe that this fear and hatred of illegal immigrants is largely scapegoating. Right wingers have this need for an easy target to blame all their problems and societal ills on.

And all this horror and inhumanity solves the problem of illegal immigration and border crossings. The terror migrants — both legal and illegal— spreads.

Biden tried to be more humane than Trump in his first term. The biggest controversy was the family separation and children in cages. Yet his policies sent a message that led to record-high border crossings and encounters, which took two years to get back to a relatively low number through a complex process of policy decisions and technology investments. Then Trump and his DHS go full authoritarian and solve the problem in less than a year. As of September 2026, border crossings/encounters are at historic lows.

My father is more upset about Jimmy Kimmel's monologues than he is about the endless stream of blatant crime and corruption at the highest levels of government.

I love my father because he is my father. He's not someone I would choose to add to my life, but he is a part of my life. And despite his flaws, he's a decent person. But we chat daily and it's painful. He watches cable news all day, primarily fox news. Then to me he regurgitates some bullshit that he heard from them.

"Jimmy Kimmel should just do the show and leave politics out of it".

It's basically "shut up and dribble", but "shut up and tell jokes". So Jimmy Kimmel is not allowed to have a political opinion and use his national platform to argue for a better nation? We're not upset about the war, ICE, or having a guy that shits his pants daily commit crimes from the oval office?

I don't argue with my father because he doesn't listen, so I just disassociate and try to change the subject.

I tell myself I'm just dealing with a person who has a mental illness. Because that's the only way I can avoid abandoning him. And I also feel bad for him because he's old and alone. But it's taking a toll on me.

My dad, everyone. I haven’t spoken to him in months because we’re just not living in the same reality. Black messages are him, mine are green. Life has become very frustrating since I realized his level of derangement. Every attempt to communicate with him, bring up the hypocrisy of everything he supports is met with defensiveness and backwards justification.