I think you did the right thing with the voicemail, leave it at that and move on. You can’t fix everyone. Surround yourself with people who are thoughtful and supportive, and be the same for them.

I do think a lot of the people who swung right were not trying to hurt anyone, they were misinformed on purpose by targeted propaganda. But again - you are unlikely to be able to get through to them. I stop helping people when it becomes obvious that the help is not helpful. They may come around, they may not, but you cannot personally do anything to make that happen.

And the nonsense about the world not being ready for a woman president is utter twaddle, there have been plenty of them, just not here. Fucking Margaret Thatcher was elected in 1979! Your aunt is off her rocker.

Your mom and aunt don’t at all get that voting for someone that wants to harm you as much as possibly is extremely different from disagreements on tone or policy foreign and domestic. They at used to an easy world back when politics was largely insignificant to life changes. I’m facing ethnic clensing after Trump’s win. This isn’t a joke, he’s very open that he’s going to denaturalize Hispanics, you know, remove their legal status that can take up to 30 years to achieve, and deport them anyway. There’s a lot of families being torn apart by this election, my wife is furious with family that voted in favor of ethnicity clensing her spouse and kids, stopping women from having a right to medical treatment in exactly the high risk pregnancies she wouldn’t have survived if these laws were in place in that time. It’s sickening. They are voting for fascism, racism, sexism, and hate.

They don’t get it, they’ve never taken politics seriously. And they think nothing will happen to them because they’re white women who have never faced abuse they can’t get out of. If you need peace from them, do so. Protect yourself, and I hope you live in a blue state.

Mature mentally stable people do not hate another person because of who they voted for.

Set all of the politics aside for a bit.

People can be more than one thing. Humans have an incredible capacity for psychological incongruity. Your mom doesn’t see the straight line between her politics and loving you. Your aunt doesn’t see how the person occupying the White House should directly create a rift in personal relationships.

Your mom probably thinks she is doing what is best for you while not supporting you in any meaningful way.

It’s your choice what sort of relationships you want to have with your family. Your mom is not perfect, and you should not expect her to change. But also, neither should you feel the need to change who you are for anyone, including your mom.

You can choose to be as guarded with her as you need to be, hoping that simply existing in her life will improve her outlook on social issues, but any efforts to make her understand what you’re going through would be wasted effort.

If having a relationship with your mother causes you anxiety and distress, the healthiest option may be to have no relationship with her. Going low contact/no contact isn’t going to prove anything or win any argument, but it might make your life markedly happier.

Don’t engage in the political argument. There’s no cheese down that hole. Be honest and sincere, and never apologize if you don’t mean it. Relationships are built on trust, and if you cannot be honest with your family, then don’t speak with them.

You exist, and you matter. You deserve happiness and serenity, and so does your mom and so does your aunt. Live the life you want with the people you want in it. And remember that you can leave the door open, but it’s up to them to walk through it. If they choose to cut you off, accept it and walk away.

The world isn’t ready for a woman president

…so I went back to the well and voted for a known rapist for president. Long history of that, so no worries!

FUCK THAT. ditch them both. Chosen family wins.

Family is usually everywhere in your life. Not everywhere-everywhere, but everywhere for you. The ways it’s fucked up aren’t obvious from that perspective because there’s no contrast from inside the system.

Your aunt is displaying a pretty gross and spineless “genes over well-being” attitude present in a lot of families. It can be very useful for getting through lesser hard times together, but it’s poison when used to excuse treachery.

It gets used to excuse treachery like your aunt did because not excusing it implies seeing how awful it is, and the realization could break her conception of the family, which could break her. While your aunt’s words are dumb as fucking bricks, the thing to picture here is her nervously texting you, trying to cobble together some victim blaming horseshit as a way of not having to make eye contact with the Madness Demon staring at her from across the room.

A lot of what gets labeled as (and is) “complicity with evil” is fueled by this. People blame victims because they don’t have the strength to see that the victim is actually just in that bad of a situation. They can’t handle the heartbreak of seeing it, or the fear that it could happen to them. So they blame you because that means (it doesn’t but they tell themselves) you could have done something to prevent your own awful situation, and by extension, so can they. Your crappy situation dispels their illusion of control; victim blaming scotch-tapes it back together. They don’t see that they’d be safe without it; they think if that illusion of control goes, the universe ends. They’re scared. Very tense, no way to live.

I don’t have advice, I can just tell you for sure that you’ll see this much more clearly, if not more simply, with distance, by seeing the family system from the outside. But that does mean leaving the family in some sense, which isn’t for everybody. So maybe reading this can give you some sense of what your own eyes would probably tell you if you could get the angle on it you needed to verify it yourself.

Don’t think that things like “rescinding your apology” are necessary - just be done. If you can support yourself, and have friends or other people you can emotionally rely on, I would just simply “stop” with your family. Why “rescind your apology”, that will just start another argument for the sake of trying to give yourself some sort of moral high ground, which it aounds like your mother will not acknowledge.

You don’t need to make a statement about it, you don’t need to announce to them some big decision, just move on. Live a happy life. Be you. Don’t include them in that process if they are not going to be a positive part of it.

I’m gay. My nephew knows this. We are the same generation so he is more like a little brother to me. When he told me he voted for Trump I was so angry. I have cut him off. He and I were just beginning to get closer these last couple of years. This election wasn’t about different fiscal priorities. It was about our very survival. I guess we couldn’t overcome the propaganda thrown at us. If you are not dependent on your family for anything, I would cut them off.

Objectively, we can only recommend that you find a good therapist. In person, not on the wild wide internet.

This fight between you and your relatives is unreal. I’m not going into it any further, just this: No ‘side’ can ‘win’ anything from it unless people change attitudes thoroughly.

This reads like you and your mother have had a longstanding negative relationship. I don’t believe you or she are in the right place to discuss the extent of your disagreement or the source of it, based on what I’m reading here. Until you are, I think it might be healthier for both of you to walk away for a few years. I don’t know her, so I don’t know if she’s an objectively bad person. What she said, and the actions you’ve described, sound a lot like someone who doesn’t know how to consciously process the emotions around having someone they should love making choices that they find morally reprehensible.

So I don’t know if she’s a bad person. I can tell that the relationship you have with her is bad, and you should focus on your happiness and coping mechanisms.

Patrick Teahan has helped me a lot I watch his YouTube videos I was raised by immature adults and when I recognized my trauma I was told “but those are your parents” and shamed into keeping toxic people in my life. I’m in my 40’s, my dad is dead and I’ve gone almost full NC with my Mom. It’s lonely sometimes but it’s better than being neglected, abused and invisible!!

(Patrick Teahan is a Licensed childhood trauma specialist, fellow survivor, author, educator, and advocate for the Relationship Recovery Process. I teach childhood trauma survivors to love, heal, and find themselves.)

she is knowingly acting against your interests. you responded with some mild disrespect. it’s on her

Really sounds like you need to grow up. Republicans dealt with Biden for four years, now it’s democrats turn

You’re the ahole here. Politics has gone to your head.