NOT A CULT: At Reuters, ‘You are no longer my mother’: How the election is dividing American families.
When lifelong Democrat Mayra Gomez told her 21-year-old son five months ago that she was voting for Donald Trump in Tuesday’s presidential election, he cut her out of his life.
“He specifically told me, ‘You are no longer my mother, because you are voting for Trump’,” Gomez, 41, a personal care worker in Milwaukee, told Reuters. Their last conversation was so bitter that she is not sure they can reconcile, even if Trump loses his re-election bid.
As Mark Krikorian tweets, “If your politics ever lead you to utter the words ‘You are no longer my mother, because you are voting for Trump’, you need to change your approach to politics.” Of course, as Noah Blum suggests, “I’m sure he’s still on her health insurance.”
Further thoughts from Rod Dreher: Hating Your Mama Over Politics.
Smartphones were introduced in 2007; social media soon followed. Whenever I talk to middle school and high school teachers, I hear the same thing: there is nothing that competes with the power of social media to socialize young people (or rather, un-socialize them) — and it is tearing these kids up inside.
That’s young people — but what about the elderly woman who leaves her husband because he voted for Trump? What’s her excuse? What about the man in his twenties to cuts his mother off because she voted for Trump? What about the middle-aged man who turns family members against each other by going to holiday gatherings and not shutting his big fat mouth about how the “Demonrats” are going to be the death of us all?
What do we do about a person like this?:
Bandy X. Lee isn’t some nobody. She is a Yale University psychiatrist and holder of a master’s of divinity degree from Yale. And she believes that Trump supporters can only be persuaded to abandon their support for the sitting President of the United States by having some immense trauma visited upon them, along the lines of the firebombing of Dresden.
How does someone come to believe that their countrymen need to be treated that way — need to see their cities leveled! — because of their politics? Again, I remind you: this isn’t some fringe nut, but a Yale-trained psychiatrist and religious thinker. This is the kind of elite figure who will usher in soft totalitarianism because she does not think her fellow Americans are simply wrong, but evil.
Interesting analogy – and possibly projection – coming from Lee (who’s certainly been redlining the Godwin Meter as of late) considering this week’s headlines: NYC businesses board up shops ahead of 2020 presidential election. “Meanwhile, shops in other cities across the US, including San Francisco, as well as in the nation’s capital, have also placed boards over their storefronts in anticipation of election-related chaos and turmoil. It was reported Monday that crews at the White House will build a ‘non-scalable’ fence around the entire complex ahead of the election.”
Earlier: CNN’s Don Lemon Brags About Abandoning His Friends for Disagreeing With Him.
Related: Media’s favorite ‘resistance’ mental health quack goes full Hitler apologist.
h/t Ed Driscoll