To think my Dad has been radicalised?

[Februaryrat]

My Dad was a teacher back in the day. A Guardian-reading, mostly apolitical teacher.

He has a (hate to use the word) redneck friend in the USA whom he Skypes regularly, and whom I believe has radicalised my Dad. Over the last three years, my Dad now believes:

• Climate change is a hoax (obsessive hatred of windfarms)
  
• Hilary Clinton is a murderer
  
• Brexit is the way forward because some of "them" (mostly Romanians when pushed) are committing 70% of offences around here (they aren't) and the press isn't allowed to report on nationality of offenders (they are)
  
• The NHS is being brought to its knees by health toursits
  
• Trump is a businessman who is likely to give the USA exactly what it needs, and will be re-elected to great acclaim at the next election.
  
• The Mexican wall is a good idea
  
• Why don't more Muslims condemn terrorist attacks?
  

I am a hard-left feminist, who is finding it harder and harder to have conversations with him that don't end in mud-slinging.

His "source" of news is often what I would consider to be conspiracy websites. I am willing to accept sources of news from anything I consider reputable - and would consider any mainstream media including (spit) the Daily Mail, but the websites he comes up with seem to me to be run by nutters spouting nonsense.

As a previous teacher in a subject where critical thinking and reading was key, it astonishes me that he isn't able to see past the bullshit - but perhaps he thinks the same about me in my left-wing bubble.

Anyone else's parents been radicalised? Any hope, or do we just have to stick to conversations about the weather now? Shit, we can't even do that because of climate change.

[Februaryrat]

@Grilledaubergines I did not say that voting for Brexit = radicalised. I said voting for Brexit because 'some of "them" (mostly Romanians when pushed) are committing 70% of offences around here (they aren't) and the press isn't allowed to report on nationality of offenders (they are)' IN CONJUCTION with his other views, the majority of which are utterly disprovable in fact led me to believe his outlook had become radical.

It would be insane to suggest Brexit = radicalised. My mum voted Brexit but she had opinions regarding funding and the Greek bailout, which I disagreed with, but respect.

Neither did I suggest that disagreeing with me = dementia. Other posters said that they had had experience of relatives changing their views as a symptom of dementia. I said I had considered it but dismissed it, as otherwise he is OK.

I am always up for healthy debate but prefer not to be misrepresented.

(I am not giving the "feminists have won" comment the time of day, as blatantly goady and will derail the thread.)

[SansComic]

Neverthelessshepersisted

JustAnotherPoster00

Apologist was perhaps the wrong word. I'm not sure what the correct one was though.

Hillary smears Gennifer Flowers, a women Bill would later admit to having an affair with, as “some failed cabaret singer who doesn’t even have much of a résumé to fall back on.”

"I have been informed that the complainant is emotionally unstable with a tendency to seek out older men and engage in fantasizing,” Hillary wrote in the affidavit about the 12-year-old girl."

"Hillary reportedly threatens Juanita Broaddrick, Bill's alleged rape victim, into silence at a political fundraiser after the accused rape."

^The New York Times recently reported that, by some accounts, Clinton gave the "greenlight" to hiring a private investigator who collected disparaging accounts from ex-boyfriends and others who knew Flowers and then provided these stories to news organizations.
Internal campaign memos unearthed by the Times describe the aim of the work of the hard-nosed investigator was to "impugn" Flowers' character, "until she is destroyed beyond all recognition."^

"Hillary Clinton did call Monica Lewinsky, who had an affair with her husband, a "narcissistic loony toon."

"Bill Clinton entered into an $850,000 settlement with Jones, an Arkansas state worker who alleged that in 1991, he propositioned her and exposed himself. We have not uncovered instances of Hillary Clinton directly attacking Jones after she filed suit in 1994. But Jones recently told The New York Times that after her lawsuit, "they sent out people to dig up trash on me."

Perhaps, 'has stood by her very unsavoury husband who at the least abused his power coercing women into sex and at worst raped" would have been better...

[Kookypants]

Hilary Clinton is a rape apologist?

I've heard it all now smile

I doubt you have.

[Surreyblah]

My DF (ever since I remember!) has at times fixated on conspiracy theories, eg David Icke. IMO, in his case, it's a sign that his mental health at the time isn't great.

If a family member says things that are racist, xenophobic, homophobic etc it should obviously be challenged. Thing is, we might avoid a friend or acquaintance frequently saying awful stuff, but if it's someone you love it's harder. it's toxic behaviour.

My DM had to put my GM's partner straight on racism and would not see them for a long time because they repeatedly made racist remarks.

[whoputthecatout]

As I said upthread I'm very much a centrist. As I'm in my 70s extremism seems to have passed me by and I doubt it will capture me now. Fingers' crossed.

But, if you (as in one) wishes to counter very right wing views it probably helps to see where they might have originated. My feeling is that it in large part emanates from the huge changes socially and politically we have seen since the 1950s, or even 1960s when my generation was young. The country and its culture has changed enormously and I'm not sure that younger people quite grasp how difficult this can be for some older people.

All their old certainties have been swept away. In the cities in particular their communities have changed in a way that no one under 40 can begin to imagine. I think possibly we have not seen so much change since the industrial revolution, certainly not since the transport revolution of the early 20th century.

Many feel foreigners in their own land. By foreigners I don't mean racially in particular but as in strangers in a strange land.

When you find the world strange and all the old ways are being swept away (however repressed or intolerant those old ways may have been) and you feel that nothing you trusted or relied upon is there anymore it's not difficult to retrench.

What's the saying "Always keep a-hold of nurse for fear of finding something worse".

If you understand why something is happening rather than just assuming bigotry, you might be able to cut them some slack.

Who knows what your views might be in 30 or 40 years time?

[BroomstickOfLove]

What I find confusing, though, isn't so much extremist views, but extremist views which are pretty much the opposite of everything that they believed until their late fifties.

And it's only my mum. None of my other relatives of her generation are like this.

[Februaryrat]

Thank you all - the comments that have helped the most are the ones trying to seek empathy for where he is coming from - perhaps a place of fear or worrying about change.

Having said that, the university town he lives in has practically no immigrants or people of colour, other than during term time where Chinese students prop up the local economy. So any "fear" he is experiencing is theoretical rather than actual. He will not feel like a stranger in his neighbourhood as his neighbourhood is pretty much as it has always been.

But I will try to continue to have empathy, though I cannot bring myself to bite my tongue when he comes up with sexist or racist "facts".

[ShoutOutToMyEx]

My DF (ever since I remember!) has at times fixated on conspiracy theories, eg David Icke. IMO, in his case, it's a sign that his mental health at the time isn't great.

That's really interesting. Mine does this and as I've got older I've come to a similar conclusion.

My dad was involved in a closed adoption and I often wonder whether part of it is about seeking identity, confirming uncertainty, etc.

[unicornsIlovethem]

My dad is similar op. He's approaching 70 and has always been conservative, but is now talking about joining ukip to get rid of those foreigners (like the ones two of his children are married to).

We now have two safe areas of conversation - his gdcs and my mum's health otherwise we argue and he gets very aggressive.

Recently we had a bit of a row because he told me that my understanding of a court case was totally wrong because it didn't accord with the daily mail write up. I was one if the lawyers involved and present t the hearing...

[Surreyblah]

Interesting theory shoutout. Mine lost a parent as a toddler then was physically abused by a step-parent. He has, overall, had a "good life" but has always been "vulnerable" IYSWIM.

It can be trying though when he talks about mad stuff.

[Petronius16]

according to the FBI, the majority of domestic terror attacks are actually committed by white, male Christians.

OP, perhaps ask your Dad to ask his friend why Christian leaders don't condemn.

Of course, Muslim leaders condemn, but isn't reported.

[SarcasmMode]

Sounds like he lives near Exeter.

I agree it's a lot about fear / changing world I think.

[RortyCrankle]

Oh the irony

[glamorousgrandmother]

Hate to tell you this op but it will happen to you. I am in my 50s and I have noticed all of my elderly relatives are heading this way. I'm also a lot less left wing tham I use to be as a young woman.

Not necessarily. I am 61 and haven't become more right wing, in fact I am very afraid of the way the world seems to be going further to the right at the moment. My Dad is 91 and more of a non-racist leftie than ever.

[Rugbyplayersarehot]

I think you must be a fucking idiot to deny there are radical terrorists preparing to attack us, just as you are a fucking idiot to deny climate change.

I am with posters who find so called hard left and hard right people just hard going and very childish.

to be 'rabid' in anything is to he blinkered and intransigent. Nothing to be proud of.

[Ordinarily]

Hard anything, including hard-left is ignorant and blinkered. See Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot

Well said. Recently I've heard an awful lot of accusations about "back to the 1930s" and so on. I think it can be forgotten that the left is by no means immune to going too far.

[DianaDors88]

In my Dad's case it started with climate change & how it's all a conspiracy

May be maybe not, just like man never walked on the moon perhaps. It's important to think outside of the box. At the moment you do not have the capacity to imagine any further than what you have been told. The truth is sometimes far more shocking than the tramline teaching you have had.

[Ordinarily]

OP, I think no, he hasn't been "radicalised". He just has different political views to yours. There have always been some people on the left, some on the right, and plenty towards the middle, but the true extremes are pretty unusual (and obviously consider the opposite extreme to be the wrong one). Normal variations in opinion a few decades ago are now more likely to be considered "extreme" by anyone who doesn't agree with them. I find myself strongly disagreeing with politicians, writers, message board posters regularly. But I don't think it really helps sensible debate when accusations of extremism are dished out too regularly.

[BoneyBackJefferson]

You problem isn't that he has been radicalised, its that its not your type of radicalised.

[BabychamSocialist]

SansComic

Alternatively, Do you really believe that extreme and fanatical support of anything is positive? If this is the case then you're really beyond help.

Yes, I think having a fanatical support of womens' rights is not a bad thing. Are you telling me you do?

I'm not a betting woman but would put a lot of money on short odds that this is a lie.

You haven't met my dad. Obviously between death and voting for them I doubt he'd choose death, but it's a turn of phrase isn't it? He did change dentists after finding out he was a Tory though.

[DianaDors88]

Well said, olliegarchy99

[PigletWasPoohsFriend]

He did change dentists after finding out he was a Tory though.

Sorry but imo that is ridiculous!

[Puzzledandpissedoff]

anyone on the wrong side of 40 with any political leaning other than far left is developing dementia??? I've heard it all now*

Somehow I doubt it, as there's probably more to come

There pretty generally is, when extremists of any type at all are challenged

[Heathen4Hire]

My parents are daily mail readers and believe it all. They whinge about bloody health tourists and bloody foreigners and bloody scroungers...They are knocking 70 now and I can't get them to see another view. I put it down to their world being quite small (they travel but never mingle) and they are afraid. When df starts all I do is sigh...

[BabychamSocialist]

PigletWasPoohsFriend

Pretty sure it's up to him if he wants to do that. I got rid of the tutor teaching my kids because I saw she'd shared some Britain First memes on facebook. Don't regret it at all.