Summary
Recently terminated federal workers face not only unemployment challenges but also hurtful reactions from family members who support the government cuts.
Luke Tobin, fired from the Forest Service, and Kristin Jenn, whose Park Service job was frozen, describe relatives celebrating their job losses as necessary to “make the government great again.”
Former Park Service employee Riley Rackliffe encountered social media comments calling him a “glorified pool boy” despite his Ph.D.
Some workers report family members unfriending them on social media or dismissing their positions as “waste.”
The same people celebrating that Obamacare is gone, and being shocked when Affordable Care Act which they depend on suddenly disappears.
Wait until they lose Medicaid… Most of them probably have no fucking idea that their health insurance is even funded by it.
The stupid is coming from inside the house
This is just me, but if I was fired by some felon rapist traitor trying to appease a bunch of neckbeard losers, and anyone in my life voted for that felon rapist traitor, after he made it clear he was going to do so, I would probably never speak to them again.
Your family has to earn and maintain your respect, just like anyone else does.
While I agree, that’s not usually how ‘Merican families work.
One of the harder things in life to accept is that your family can be scumbags.
I accepted it when I was a teenager. What’s difficult is getting people that grew up in loving families to comprehend that I’m not anti family, and would love to have a family I could talk to, but the one I was born into are unempathtic narracisstic Nazis.
‘Have you tried x? Have you tried y? I don’t think you’re trying z enough’
One close friend recently married into a similar family and it’s been super eye opening for them.
People unfamiliar with narcissistic abusive families really do not know, cannot conceptualize, how bad the trauma is for those who have lived inside them.
Agreed. My parents died last year. All I felt was anger. I’ve had to hand two people to the rear view mirror because they can’t accept they are ignorant of the situation.
The Sunset Tree captures those feelings in a way no one else really has. It’s a concept album about being in the hotel room, the night before your abusive stepdads funeral.
And this is why I have no faith in the recovery of this country. After everything that’s happened, these people are cheering on the destruction of the country.
And they have been conditioned to think the exact same thing about you (or Democrats in general).
We need to take the same approach with family that the country should be taking with red states: ignore their existence and make them pay for their stupidity and mismanagement. Make them admit wrongdoing, be accountable, and prove they’re progressing in the proper direction(s). Perpetuating their mental health and disinformation campaigns or engaging them to provide their petty platform is a similar enabling of addicts. Make them live what they’ve constructed and ignore their perceived issues. Once these people turn inward, on a large scale, then perhaps healing can begin but the country can’t heal with a bunch of mental issues baked into a large amount of US lives
I think that’s the opposite of what’s needed.
well at least now they know who they shouldn’t give their new phone number and address to
If i had family like that I’d slash their tires
Start insisting that they help pay your bills
I don’t talk to those relatives anymore. It’s done wonders for my mental health.
Growing up, I had always heard “brothers fighting on opposite sides of the battlefield” types of stories from the American civil war. I always wondered how people could let it get that bad. Nowadays though…
I wonder what the long-term fallout from this massive fracture is going to be… even if we somehow manage to avert catastrophe…
I don’t think there’s really a way to come back from this whole thing for, like, most people…
We are marching towards another civil war.
It’s disappointing that these are my countrymen. These people that don’t see the value of conserving our lands, yet call themselves conservatives.
We collectively need to STOP using the term conservative to define the regressive party.
Make the government great again?? Why sshould normal people have an interest in that? The government should serve the people and not its own „greatness“…
I’ve cut out all of my maga family. Fuck 'em. I don’t depend on any of them for anything so the can pound sand.
Disown your republican friends & family
Amen. They don’t live in the same reality as normal people anymore. My mother passed away last summer, and though I wasn’t surprised that she’d supported Trump, working through her belongings and mail and email, it was eye opening how disconnected she was from reality. She had a bottle of whatever the dewormer was that Trump was shilling. She has a ton of Iraqi, Venezuelan, Vietnamese and Zimbabwean currency and her email go down rabbit holes I’d never heard of. All while living in genuine squalor. Unable to take care of herself and living in real filth. True diehard Trump supporter.
However, recognize that grief may result. It’s a loss of the fantasy of people who love you. That hurts.
You’re absolutely right. It’s been 7 years for me. I grieved them and still do occasionally. It’s just not worth it to let them be a part of my life anymore.
MAGA is going to end up very lonely.
“They can’t separate their ideology and their politics from supporting their own family and their own loved ones,” says Tobin.
I can’t say I’m surprised at that trait from those that hold these politics in the first place.
