To go LC with PILs because FIL voted for Trump?

[EachotherAndAnother]

I've been married for 18 years, two primary-aged DC. My ILs are American. They live about 20 mins drive from us (in the UK). For most of my marriage we've gotten along fine-ish, although I've often felt like they cross a lot of boundaries and have learned to be judicious about how much I open up to them. But they're hospitable and generous - have helped us financially when buying our house, help with the DC in the holidays etc.
They've occasionally made comments that have rubbed me the wrong way, but I've dismissed them as typical boomer nonsense - e.g. the idea that poor people are usually poor because they've make bad choices. They also cautioned their other son (DH's brother), who was planning to (and did) marry a Black woman, that any time a "minority" has married into the family it's ended up causing problems and division. But by and large I keep my conversations with them superficial and manage to rub along ok. The DC adore them.
But - I recently found out that FIL voted for Trump. Any time a controversial issue has come up regarding politics in the US, the conversation gets shut down very quickly, but I had my suspicions and these are now confirmed. And maybe it's ridiculous but I just can't stomach being around them anymore - I'm disgusted that he felt a man like that deserved to be elevated to the role of president and I'm furious about the havoc that is unleashing in the States and elsewhere. I don't want my daughter (in particular, but also not my son) spending time with them, I just feel like they're completely different people from me, with completely different values.
They are oblivious to how I feel and would feel blindsided if I brought it up. We would definitely not be able to have a productive conversation about it. So AIBU to just quietly stop accepting invitations, offers of help etc and gradually distance my family from theirs, or is that a massive overreaction?

You can think what you want, but the reality is he is still governed by chambers of commerce and Supreme court, with midterm elections coming up I expect his power will be reduced.

He is clearly causing issues in the US, trading and tariffs, and Greenland, but your view of his powers I would argue are exaggerated, there will be no invasions/genocide like your orignal comparison.

i will say it again, she is overreacting all because her FIL voted Trump...

I'm glad that you still have faith in the constitutional checks and balances that the US is supposed to have in place. I am not so confident. I sincerely hope that you are right and I am wrong.

Time will tell.

Well for a start I don't assume for a moment that I would be mentioned in their will - why would I? I assume any inheritance would be split between their 4 DC. DH's share will be his business.
And secondly I don't think there's likely to be any significant inheritance anyhow. They're not wealthy and what they have would soon be used on care home fees. My parents are the same; I don't bank on receiving an inheritance from them either and would rather the money is spent on them receiving decent care when they need it.

Your kids are going to spend time with lots of people who don't share your values. (One day, your kids may BE, in at least some respects, people who don't share your values - DH doesn't share his parents', presumably? Will you stop seeing them?). Raise your kids the way you think is right, and hope they agree with you.

It’s also probably why a significant number of life long Conservative voters will vote reform in the next GE. And the modern day Liberal, just like in 2016, will never learn, they’ll just dismiss them all as, let’s see, racist, bigots, stupid, poor, uneducated etc etc.

YABU, op.

You are absolutely not being unreasonable. People have always had varying political views, but this is an entirely different situation. Anyone who can support and vote for Trump cannot be a good person, given he’s a convicted rapist/sexual offender, a racist, a misogynist, a narcissist, and the fact that he is currently orchestrating a fascist overhaul of the US and executing peaceful citizens who protest. And then lying about it, calling them violent terrorists. Supporting a man like that is not compatible with being a good person, it’s that simple.

What is happening in the US is terrifying, and Trump is the driving force behind it. My MIL likes Trump but fortunately we live in the UK so she can’t vote for him. But it does make me think considerably less of her. Sorry about your PIL, they don’t sound like good people.

You're definitely not being unreasonable to cut contact with them if you disagree with their politics(🤣🤣🤣🤣) but,obviously, you need to reimburse them for their contribution to your house.

Of course you must stick to your principles and convictions OP, but you have to weigh up the cost of sticking to YOUR convictions against the cost to your family. I do believe that we should treat family differently to friends and acquaintances because of the knock on effect within the family.

My mother, who is now in her nineties, has always held views different to mine on race, religion, homosexuality, and now we don't discuss it. She is also a loving mother who adores her grandchildren. While I would no longer see friends or acquaintances who held her views, I would not for one moment consider cutting contact with her.

With situations like this, I think it's always useful to ask whether they are accurately describing their experience. Is it in fact the case that when people in their family have married outside of the family's culture it's caused problems? t's not impossible, inter-cultural marriages can have complications, much like inter-religious ones can. What has their experience of that been?

And while the way you've described it they weren't very nuanced, I don't necessarily think that it is wrong for families to share thoughts on stuff like that. Of all the people who can say, you know, cultural differences can make marriage, which is already difficult at times, more complicated, it's your family. And some people are kind of blunt in their speech - (actually it's a real cultural difference between wc and mc families that the former tend to use more direct language about many issues so if that is a differernce between your family and your dh's you might keep that in mind.)

Unless they're trying to brainwash your kids into being racist, homophobic etc... YABU and a total drama queen to keep your kids away from them?.Wtf does your husband think of that idea - very controlling!

We have some very anti-immigration people in our family that can be quite vocal at gatherings. I've taught my own DC aged 11, the reason these family members are anti-immigration, BUT we also teach the counterpoint and at home - we dont speak badly of these people. As such, they brush off the "send the boat back" flag shagging attitude as just typical Gammon behaviour to laugh at in private.

Your friends notwithstanding, this is a far more complicated issue than that.

And the first thing to understand is that the UK is in a bit of a bubble about Trump and has been all along, and so are people in the US who mainy use left wing media. You may remember that two of the most senior people at the BBC had to resign over not only showing misleading media about Trump, but actually constructing it. They also have curated what they have shown about the Democrats heavily.

And at the same time, the media on the American right is showing totally different things about Trump and the Democrats.

Both are spinning the narrative, and the left and the British media are not doing so less. So no wonder people are coming to quite wildly differernt conclusions.

People have already pointed out that the Democrats have been pushing policies that many Americans find really toxic, notably trans stuff, but also in recent years there has been stuff on defunding the police, and they are associated with some terrible administrations at the state level and city level. And the Harris was an unpopular VP, and very unpopular when she tried to run for the Democrat nomination against Biden previously.

But one of the biggest issues is that directly before the election, the Democrats were caught trying to cover up that they knew that Biden was not mentally competent, and in fact probably hadn't been for some years. That covering up was a huge scandal and raised a lot of other questions, like who was actually making decisions, why wasn't her removed?

Because of that, a lot of people felt they could not vote Democrat and had to go the other way, and even more just didn't vote.

She’ll accept their money and childcare though…

YABU. It's a total over reaction imo.
They are kind, generous and help with childcare and you now want to write them off purely because the voted for Trump, without even talking to them about why, which of his policies initially appealed to them, whether they are still happy with his performance, what they feel about ICE or any other policies. A large % of the US population voted for Trump. Are they all bad people? That's a v simplistic and foolish way of looking at things. We need to be able to disagree and talk about disagrements without running away or screaming and shouting.

Can you honestly watch any of Trump's rambling, narcissistic speeches and tell me that you believe the President to be mentally competent?

The Democrats fucked up over Joe Biden, no doubt. But it's laughable to suggest that anyone really believes that Trump is any more fit for public office than Biden was. Patently he wasn't, and isn't.

You obviously have your own agenda, and you can try as hard as you like to claim that the left wing media is misrepresenting what's happening, but the problem with that argument is that we've seen it all for ourselves. The president speaks and we hear the words that come out of his mouth. Whether it's on the BBC or his favourite Fox News, Trump is far better at making himself look unfit to govern than anyone else possibly could.

We've seen the videos from Minneapolis. We've seen that the rhetoric from the Trump administration doesn't match. You can choose to believe that it's all part of some left wing conspiracy to paint the president in a bad light, but the evidence simply doesn't stack up in your favour. Or his.

Personally, I wouldn't be relishing social interaction with Trump voters and if I had impressionable children I'd certainly be inclined to keep them away from such people, regardless of family ties.

My Boomer mother and her partner are as racist as they come (Reform, Brexit, apartheid, etc.} and even they hate Trump.

Probably just because he's orange, tbh.

You are answering a completely different question and not understanding @TempestTost's points.
The Democrats were hated by many after the many mistakes they made. Many people in the US, as in the UK, have become gradually poorer and poorer and so wanted to vote the incumbent governments out. Sure, Trump sold them a lie but that is the reason that many people voted for him.

The poster literally wrote that all forms of media are biased but you have decided that she 'has an agenda' for daring to state that the left wing is as biased as the right.

It is pretty ironic that some posters on here, predominantly British posters with a different cultural perspective, accuse Trump voters of all being thick. It's far more thick to decide that half the population of the US are thick, without even trying to understand why they may have voted for Trump.

I live overseas with a lot of Americans. Many from Texas, and I know for sure that a lot of them voted for Trump. Twice. They are great people and we get on very well, I just avoid discussing politics with them. When it has come up the conversation goes along the lines of "I have always voted Republican and always will, end of discussion" .... which is a reflection of the two party system, as others have pointed out. I also live with a lot of Israeli, Iranian, Russian and Venezualan families, and my child goes to an international school. In the UK, I hail from a northern ex mining community area that voted for Brexit and now have a Reform majority council. Fortunately, I can see people for beyond their vote and teach my child the same (which can be tricky!) so it hasn't really caused a problem in my life. I respect people more for voting than not using their vote, then complaining about it. My dad definitely voted for Brexit and Reform. He is an excellent grandad and my child adores him - why would I deprive them both of that relationship?

I am not failing to understand anything, I simply don't agree. And I don't think that all Trump voters are stupid - I have not said that at all. Some of them are almost certainly stupid. They are the ones that I might be more inclined to forgive.

The scenario that you describe is no different really to the situation in which many British voters will choose Reform. It's pretty much the same playbook. And I judge them in the same way that I judge Trump supporters.

I do totally understand that they hated the Democrats. Just like many people hate the Labour Party here. I simply can't understand why anyone would think that voting for a bunch of fascists would be better.

It isn't that I haven't tried to understand. I have tried very hard. And that's when you realise that it isn't simply a difference of opinion about which form of government will produce the best outcomes, it is about a fundamental difference in people's basic values and morals. I can understand that the people who voted for Trump wanted to vote out the incumbent administration. I can understand that they may have believed that the economy would do better under Trump's policies. I can understand that they might have wanted a tougher stance on immigration. I can understand that they wanted the US to get less involved in foreign wars etc. What I cannot understand or accept is the horrific price that they were willing to pay for those changes. Perhaps they could have pleaded ignorance when they elected him for the first time, but the second time around, everybody knew. And they voted for him anyway.

'My dad definitely voted for Brexit and Reform. He is an excellent grandad and my child adores him - why would I deprive them both of that relationship?'

Exactly. I'm sure you can understand why your dad and many others in your Northern ex mining town voted for Brexit and Reform and sympathise with their views, at least to some degree.
It doesn't make any sense to me to go LC with someone kind, thoughtful and generous simply because of their voting preferences, when you don't even know the reason they voted in this way. If they behaved terribly, that would be a different matter.

I does come across as if you have failed to understand the other poster's points as your reply is a straw man argument.

'I can understand a,b,c, etc. What I cannot understand or accept is the horrific price that they were willing to pay for those changes.'
I would suggest that this lack of understanding comes partly from being from a different culture and partly from a position of privilege. A lot of these voters are really struggling economically. They are dejected. They are struggling financially. They are desperate. Most people vote for the party they think will be better for them financially, in just the same way that poorer people from Northern ex mining towns tend to vote Brexit and Reform (see post above).

Presumably you don't particularly care about politics and the ethics and principles involved.

Those who do take such matters seriously are not going to find it so easy to shrug away such concerns.

I don't actually agree that most people vote for the party that they think will be better for them financially without any regard at all for the bigger picture. But I do agree that some people vote for their own financial gain without giving a shit about who they might sacrifice along the way. I guess that's how the Nazis got elected in Germany.

And yes, I do absolutely understand that a lot of people are really struggling financially. It's quite offensive though to suggest that, just because people are struggling, they will be quite happy to toss their morals aside and throw their neighbours under the bus. Many people on low incomes do actually have a conscience. Indeed, some of the poorest people I have ever met have been amongst the most generous.

You keep talking about the different cultural context in the US, and I acknowledge that it is very different of course. But I also acknowledge that there are just as many people in the US who are as appalled by the current situation as we are in the UK.

And as for those people in the old English mining towns voting for Brexit. Yes, many of them did, because they were persuaded into believing that immigration was the cause of all their problems. Brexit didn't work out too well for them, and it didn't fix anything, so now they're looking to Reform to fix things instead. It won't. Some of them are just too stupid to see that they're being manipulated. Others are driven by hate. I don't know that they're that different from the Trump voters in the US. What I do know is that there are plenty of struggling people in those communities who don't believe that the far right is the answer.

Actually, I do care deeply about politics and ethics but having lived across the world in very international environments (plus in the UK in several politically different areas) I also have the view of "it is a bit more complicated than that" hence my points regarding my current living arrangements - more than 50% of Americans (who cast a vote) voted Republican, more than 50% of Brits (who voted) voted for Brexit and I view part of being a world citizen as being able to be civil to those who you disagree with. I can see why people I grew up with decided to vote for Brexit, BNP and Reform (and back to the OP: Trump, in the case of my American friends) but I am not going to just stop interacting or have a family relationships with all of these people because they have opinions that I disagree with, am I? What lessons does that teach my child? That they should just ignore people that do not share their views and only mix with people who have the same opinion? I want my son to question beliefs (at suitable moments!) but also respect that ultimately everyone is entitled to an opinion, and a vote.

Yes I think for many people, "it's a bit more complicated than that" makes it much easier to go with the flow and overlook all the uncomfortable (or even rather disturbing) aspects of living in a world that increasingly favours fascism.

I'm just glad I'm not so "tolerant".