What do you say to family/friends who are right wing?

[ChocolateRaisin09]

It gets me down. I don't feel like I can discuss with my parents, in laws etc because I get too emotional, and they get defensive, but when I hear them say things like "Trump is what we need", and some frankly racist comments, I feel so helpless. They're not going to change. But I want to challenge them. It's no excuse that they're from another generation, there ARE older people who are not racist!

I wish I could stop them reading the Daily Fail (have wondered about gifting a subscription to a different paper) and broaden their minds somehow.

I am still so bitter that my parents, my in laws and people I work closely with all voted for Brexit. How do I stop hating them all?!

Sorry, bit of a rant. Wish I could let it wash over me, but honestly I don't want to be around these people sometimes and would consider limiting my daughter's time with them.

@Kelwar..So now people who voted to leave are considered inhumane??! That’s hilarious. I’ll tell you what’s inhumane. The hoards of people languishing in a&e units and lining our hospital corridors is inhumane. Our local hospital has virtually transformed over the past 15 years, from a well run, readily resourced..clean & medically pleasant environment, to one where staff are literally run off their feet to the point of rude exhaustion, facilities are often filthy, the wards and access areas are overrun with far too many people, often with unruly kids who have no respect for where they are, and are certainly not the educated masses that perhaps Australia might readily welcome! And to cap it all off, language is often an issue. I’ve recently witnessed one woman with 6 kids, turn up to a kids ward, to get them vaccinated as they had just arrived. She couldn’t speak English, so couldn’t understand what the nurses were telling her. It took 2 hours to sort the situation and tell them they couldn’t just turn up to hospitals for vaccinations in that way. All this while other kids lay ill in their beds, with concerned parents watching on, while some of these kids ran amok around the ward, hurling shoes at one another!
I happen to be an extremely humane & compassionate individual, as anyone who knows me would know...but seeing this debacle on a regular basis, while struggling with stresses of our own, just makes me want to leave and run for the hills...

Oi, penny where have you gone? Come back, I was enjoying your comments! Whatever did you say to make MN delete 2 of your posts?

@AbsolutelyBeginning sorry didn't mean to make you feel I'm on a crappy old style southern rail train with no wifi I've only got 'E' for a signal not even 3G everything's taking 3 tines as long to load (first world problem)!

I know the threads moved on but...

I will pull them up on racist comments by asking for evidence.

You needed a mumsnet thread to figure that out?? 😂

well I love the cat gifs, they have given me a good laugh on what is clearly a wind up thread

Quite!

@Sparklyshoes16

Not at all! I quite understand and happy to oblige.

Haven't been on a train in years, but can remember the frustration of stuff not coming up. I don't want to ruin your experience. You need something to read to relieve the boredom of your journey

And having just read a few of these posts, what I think is really funny, is all these people who seemingly think they are humane/ethical/inherently wonderful people, because they think anyone who voted brexit or even considered it, are racist bigoted pigs.... Do they know actually what bigoted means?? Clearly not!

@AbsolutelyBeginning
I don't think this is actually about the set of views held, it is generally about the intellectual ability.
I have not met anyone from both extreme fringes who is very capable of critical thinking.
I made such a faux pas with my ex SIL once. She came to visit me, and I was so busy with my fussy newborn, exhausted from the lack of sleep (and not very fluent in English), that did not really pay attention to something she was passionately and angrily telling me about. I only caught that someone has been storming the supermarkets and wrapping magazines with women in bikinis in brown paper. "How awful", I said, "it's like Saudi Arabia". Apparently, it wasn't the right thing to say - it was something that was supposed to empower women. I was irreversibly branded as a fascist thicko then.

You do know people are entitled to their own views right, and they are not 'wrong' and YOU are not 'right?'

Views need to be based in fact. Where it is demonstrable that those opinions aren't based on any accurate perception of the facts, demonstrably they can be wrong.

How fucking rude and nasty to call your own family THICK.

Not if it's accurate. And, face it, if you take the Daily Mail at face value, it probably is.

Penny, you are a little aggressive..

Jeremy Hunt is to blame for the demise of our NHS!
I do agree the staff are obviously over worked/underpaid..

it isn't just jeremy hunt though, is it? It's the fact that due to an ageing population there isn't enough money to go around.

Pinning things on one politician isn't really the whole story.

You've got it all back to front. You don't challenge offensive remarks to change the other person's strident opinion. You challenge offensive remarks to signal to others and your own conscience that you do not share their opinion.

You don't have to make it about them being thick or racist or not socialist enough for you.

"Our Jimmy cannot get a job because of all them "

"I really don't think that's what's stopping our Jimmy getting a job Dad. Anyway, what's going on with his bad back these days?"

The "I think" is the essential part.

Also the change of subject.

If views can only be based on fact, should the population do some kind of standardized test before being allowed to vote? Who would decide which "facts" were the right "facts"?

One person's fact is another's fiction.

Personal experience has a huge influence on people's views, as does the media, here say, political leanings, upbringing etc, etc....

The OP believes that every DM reader is thick. This is obviously not fact, but her view stems from her own experience. The same can be said for many other unsavory views - why is the OP justified in her view, but the Brexit voter not?

In all honesty I have very few friends who are right of centre. The ones I do have, we just have to agree to disagree and sometimes to stay away from certain topics. I can discuss Brexit with my handful of leave voting friends as they aren't the type to do that silly "you lost get over it" thing and they aren't so insecure in their convictions as to be unable to acknowledged that things are not going as swimmingly as was promised. If they were that way, well, we wouldn't be friends, because I'd think they were both unpleasant and dim.

I have no time for the "you need to keep politics and relationships separate" approach. It doesn't work for me: I couldn't have a relationship with someone who voted for things I thought were appalling. I don't expect they'd much want one with me, either!

nobody votes for appalling things though, that's typical confusion of politics and morality. I believe economic liberalism helps the most people, I vote for the party that best represents that.

Nobody votes to hurt anyone.

I know exactly what you mean. My DF (who I love dearly) is a dyed-in-the-wool Tory voter and won't hear a word against their policies, even for a reasoned discussion. He's the only person in our family to vote Brexit and defends it using Farage sound bites - because he doesn't want 'unelected beurocrats in Brussels' making our laws and 'there's too many immigrants on benefits'

He's incapable of listening to the actual facts such as the fact that in the last twenty years the UK voted with the rest of the EU in 98% of cases and that our government already had the right to deport any EU migrants not in work after 3 months, they just didn't do so. He got quite shirty when I asked if he'd done any independent research at all in advance of the vote.

He also has zero sympathy for NHS nurses, doctors, those on disability benefits or low income jobs. Thankfully he's not racist but I think his privileged lifestyle has made him blind to the struggles of others. I can't have a 'political' conversation of any kind with him nowadays and it makes me sad that he seems to be turning 'hard right'

So the OP also holds the belief that all DM readers are thick? Geez...how bigoted can one post be?!
I know many intelligent people who have or do read the DM...not that I’d bat an eyelid at what anyone reads? What really has it got to do with you, or anyone else for that matter?!
I’m fairly well educated...got a good 1st class degree, postgrad & professional qualifications..and my reading choices are well & truly broad. I’ve probably read every newspaper there is out there. Even the SUN!
Because as far as I’m concerned, I’m not above reading anything.
Sounds to me like you’ve built yourself quite a lofty pedestal up there op...enjoy the view!

ChocolateRaisin09 I have similar family members. They are racist and that is definitely behind their reasoning to vote for Brexit. They “hate bloody smelly foreigners” who “can’t even fucking speak English” and wish to “send them all home” and that we should be “looking after our own”. The country is apparently full of “fucking illegals” and if they wish to have every inch of their house covered in England flags they will “fight anyone who tries to stop me”. Nothing but good taste is stopping you dear, calm down.

I just answer every single complaint they ever have with one line - you voted for it.

I can’t get a bloody doctors appt “Oh is the NHS down the pan? You voted for it.”
Pay freeze for front line services? You voted for it.
Your daughter going to lose out on that EU funded course she really wanted to take? You voted for it
Can’t buy that wine you really liked in Wetherspoons anymore? You voted for it
And so on. People like this only see what affects them.

Nobody votes to hurt anyone. This is extreme naivety. I believe there is a sizeable minority who vote to specifically 'hurt' other social groups such as immigrants, people on benefits, the disabled (as in get them out or give them less). In my experience they tended to be lower class working people (who were then affronted and beyond rage when the tax credits cuts came in and they were then affected). But I have also known very wealthy people who have voted (Tory) out of obvious self interest but acknowledging the detrimental effect it had on those less fortunate. But they remained firmly in the Im alright Jack camp. To suggest that these opinions dont exist is plain daft.

Nobody votes to hurt anyone.
I'm sure the vast majority of people would not vote to hurt people, but there are some - a small minority of - people who would with glee. I've had the misfortune of meeting some of those

One family member voted for the conservatives despite knowing they planned for years to close his council office and make her redundant. He then spent a lot of time protesting the closure and blaming foreigners.

"... refugees deserve to die"

Do they actually say this though? I think it is quite legitimate for people to take the view that it's simply not possible to eg remove everyone from Syria because it is currently a war zone and relocate them to Europe and that attempting to do so would cause a lot of problems. Equally, some people would say that it's racist not to let everyone in the "Calais Jungle" to enter the UK, whereas others would just say it is not pragmatic or desirable to do so, especially when France is a safe country.

I do have some older relatives who say very clearly racist things. There is one who we have bets about how many times he is going to drop the 'N' word whilst we are visiting. But we try and tell him every time why it's not OK to say that.

But if it's just political differences as in the first para above, I think you just have to accept that they have different views. Your views are not automatically right and theirs are not automatically wrong. You can try and discuss politics with them if you want and put your understanding of the facts to them, but ultimately if you are unhappy then you need to learn to change the subject.

hairycoo I believe you are entitled to your opinion, just like all the people on fb who post tory murderers stuff. I don't know anyone that has ever admitted voting to hurt a group, that's plain weird.

Who can say what people's private motivations are?

Most people vote for the party they think will make things better, however that is, which is why nearly all slogans are about hope and change for the better.

Interesting fact about The Daily Mail is that it has a higher proportion of women readers than any other paper.