Thanksgiving Dinner

They don't think we're open minded and understanding.
They think we're ignorant of how the world works, condescending, and irrationally judgemental.
I'm not saying this is how we ARE, this is just how they view us, and because they view us like that from the very start, there is no opportunity for meaningful dialogue.
It is bi-directional prejudice, and only by acts of understanding and patience and wisdom can that be overcome.
- Agreed, for the most part. I'm never going to be impartial and seek understanding with a racist Nazi. They will have to understand my fist.
  
  That's fun to say, but where they balk is they think you draw too big of a circle around groups to label them "nazis."
  So to them, you may as well think anyone who likes guns is a nazi.
  
  What if the angle would be that you understand the underlying needs and feelings that are being expressed as support for Nazism?
- Pretty true, obviously most racist biggots don't see themselves as racist biggots. They don't see us as "open minded" they see us as close minded to their views.
  
  Depends on the person. I've been told to my face without a hint of irony that "you're so open minded all your brains fell out".
  
  And, their views typically do not include the things that most of the people I know hate the most about the platform that they ascribe to.
  They just think being Republican will make them wealthier or fix problems in the country or make the world a better place.
  The single issue voters have an opinion on a single issue and everything else doesn't matter compared to that one thing.
  They don't care about all of the bad as long as the single bit of good can be accomplished, and they don't care if you think that single bit of good is a bad thing.
  They don't care to talk to or be dissuaded by their family members who are not approaching them with a spirit of love and care for them.
  Beside that, it's not mentally or emotionally healthy to live spring-loaded with ontological traps that can be fired off with a single phrase to bring down judgment and the fires of hell on the people you meet.
  They're not going to want to hear you if that's what you're bringing to the table.
- Yeah, 'compassionate and nonviolent' is translated to "judgmental cuck" in their language.
- They think we're ignorant of how the world works, condescending, and irrationally judgemental.
  Lol. Yep Though in fairness, I am genuinely judging them so fucking hard.
- Hi,
  Person struggling to still call self conservative. I don’t like lefties either - they hear the world “conservative” and thing MAGA Nazi shitheads immediately. And they are constantly condescending and judgmental, yes.
  But that doesn’t change the fact that if you voted for Trump, you are either a piece of shit or you’re stupid.
  It also doesnt mean that we who can understand Trump has now determined he can and will abuse his power shouldn’t try to dialogue with Trump voters without being shitty to them. You’re not going to turn a vote (if there still is one next time) by being an asshat. Just make sure they’re not hardcore Trump diehards because time is precious.
  
  Hi!
  A while back I myself made the sometimes painful journey from a conservative to the progressive I consider myself now. I know you didn’t ask, but here’s some stuff to keep in mind.
  The internet has no place for subtlety. People desperately want the dopamine rush that comes from righteous fury, defending one’s viewpoint and crushing those who disagree. It’s true of a lot of people, and I’ll be honest, I’m guilty of it on occasion. It just feels so damn good to be right.
  But in my experience, most people in life don’t really act that way. I mean, in high school I occasionally got shit on by people who were “lefties,” but I was usually asking for it. More generally, people were much more likely to ask me questions and discuss our differences. They may have been judging me, but I never got that vibe. It’s just easier to see the person you’re talking to as a fellow human in person. And those people were integral in helping me realize that a lot of the stuff I was seeing online about feminazis and whatnot was simply more rage product, designed to get that part of the brain pumping and let me feel good and superior to someone else.
  Removed from the left vs right rage online, I found that it became increasingly difficult to call myself “conservative.” Not because I was worried about how people would think of me, but rather because the more people I met and the more I learned about the world, the harder it was to reconcile what I knew with the views I had held. And when I would try to provide context or data to my fellow conservatives, they refused to listen. Anything that didn’t reinforce the views they held, they didn’t want to hear.
  So much of what I thought I knew about “lefties” was from online takes and screenshots that others shared, but none of that matched my experience with real people in real life. And I’ve been so grateful I had the chance to spend time with people with significantly different lived experiences from my own who didn’t shun me for my views but were friendly and helped me become a more empathetic person.
  Of course, this goes both ways. The average conservative doesn’t want to kill gay people or black people. They aren’t represented by the extremes either. Generally speaking, people just want to live their lives. I truly think one of the biggest differences between progressive and conservative mindsets is about how many people whose lives are different from your own you’ve gotten to know. It helps us be less afraid of one another. It’s part of why densely populated areas tend to be more progressive, I think.
  Anyway, I wish you luck in your journey. Hope you didn’t mind my musing here!
  
  Here's my problem with the "not all conservatives" mind frame: Nazis and maga have security attached themselves onto conservatives, and conservatives who "aren't those guys" aren't doing anything to eradicate those parasites.
  If you have 10 conservatives and 1 Nazi at the dinner table, you have 11 Nazis.
- It is bi-directional prejudice, and only by acts of understanding and patience and wisdom can that be overcome.
  Those acts need to be bidirectional too. And guess what?

Replace the second panel red with “woke and gay”
- Just "woke" actually.
  
  that's why the word was invented, to replace the obvious intolerance for openness
  
  I still haven't looked into what "woke" actually means, but from what I can tell, it seems to mean anything far-right people don't like.
- Hey buddy! I may be woke. And I may be gay! And... What was the third thing you called me?
- Also there is no way the second dude isn't going. He's going and hes going to bs and eat and drink beer and belch, no matter who else is going to be there.
  
  If it's anything like my brothers family they'll be the first ones in line for food and the first ones to leave too.
- That’s probably being kind compared to what would be said if it actually were a problem.
- Is that this generations version of "fake and gay"?
- Yup they think they are the open minded ones or whomever doesn’t immediately fall down to them and refer to their words as gospel as not open minded or interested in ‘a discussion’.

Be me
Liberal uncle in conservative/ trump family
Fly to red state for family member’s funeral
Get made fun of by all family members in public at the funeral reception
- My grandma never met you. She lived to be 103, and died last October (2023).
  My grandma loved you. She wanted you to do well, and be happy. Just as she did with everyone on earth. It's physically impossible for her to host a dinner big enough to feed everyone on earth. But the logistical impossibility is the only reason she didn't do it.
  My cousin is a lesbian. She had been married to a decent man, had two kids. Good family man. Married for nearly 10 years before she discovered she was lesbian. The breakup was civil. He did nothing wrong. They both still loved each other, and loved the kids. He was still welcome at the table, as was my cousins new partner. My cousins mom was NOT accepting. When my aunt tried making a scene, my grandma said "Melinda.......I won't have hate at this table. You love your daughter. I don't ask you to agree with your daughters lifestyle. But I do ask you do not bring hate into my home."
  My grandma was a teacher in her 20s. She lived in a small but growing suburb, and essentially raised the whole town. She got promoted several times as the years went on. Eventually being the district superintendant. She LITERALLY was responsible for raising thousands of kids, who were everywhere from the boomer generation to the millenials.
  She had a simple philosophy. Which was that she loved you. She would put aside the world to hear what you had to say. My grandpa used to joke that when WWII broke out, she was having tea with the neighbors and helping raise their kids. Just discussing the day. Choas and war breaking out across the globe, but she was determined to hear about you. And for the kids, she would teach them that everybody was different, and we need to love everybody for who they are. Not who you want them to be.
  And she loved everyone. Even you. Even though she never met you. She always said "Everyone is welcome in this home, as long as they take off their hat at the dinner table, leave hate out of their hearts, and tell me about their day."
  The only time I ever remember her saying anything negative, was somebody had said during trumps first term something he was doing in office.
  Her reply was "I just do not like that man."
  AIRHORNS!!!
  I know that sounds so non-aggressive, but for her to say she didn't like someone would be like a world leader declairing WWIII. The room literally went quiet.
  So I try to live my life to keep making Gram proud. Accept everyone, even if you disagree with them. You can't just accept those you get along with, and not create an echo chamber.
  So if you're ever in Cleveland, you can have a meal with me. And maybe when you fly out of state to be with family, you can teach them about letting the hate go.
  
  Your grandma sounds like a wonderful human who lived a wonderful life. I hope you are doing well.
  
  Your grandma sounds like a terrific human being. Sorry to hear that she has passed. Thanks for sharing.
- Ugh, everyone has that non-racist uncle nobody likes to see at family gatherings!
  
  He always stays sober and doesn't join in the violent and racist tirade
- You can, in fact, choose your family. You literally do not need them in your life.

Don’t you just hate it when people are compassionate and nonviolent? Hand me my gun
- FAFO will include some people learning that compassionate doesn’t always imply nonviolent

Non-conservarives: I don't want to associate with people who voted for a bigot.
Conservatives: Wow, so much for the tolerant left! I guess we all were not fam in the klerb!
This was basically a Facebook post o saw someone post. Like, how can you, with a straight face, say shit like "I guess we aren't all fam in the klerb" when you voted for the one kicking people out of the damn klerb?
- What's a klerb lol
  
  Nm, what’s a klerb with you?
  
  Redneck for club. Similar to "they're stealing our jerbs!"
  
  A recently viral line from Broad City. https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/in-da-clurb-we-all-fam
  
  about tree fiddy
  
  Klerb deez nutz ex-dee

I for one don't like associating beards with racist and sexist Americans.
- I wholeheartedly agree, don't let those duck dynasty fucks ruin beard culture.
- Amen brother, nearly all foundational leftist theorists had gnarly beards.
- It's kind of fueling some self hatred in me.

It's weird, in my family the black sheep are the ultra conservatives whereas everyone else leans from Liberal (at the most Right Leaning) to "Let's burn down a mansion and eat the first non-servant who runs out alive!"
I was kinda glad that the uncle who was "Always trying to be my friend, always hip and cool and with it despite actually being none of those things and instead coming off as an annoying asshole." basically stopped talking to me or even acknowledging my existence beyond telling his son/my cousin that I was possessed by Demons that made me cut off my dick and that's why they gotta get the Mexicans outta America before they teach Evolution to white children (Barely an exaggeration), and his son/my cousin was smart enough to basically say "My Dad says you're evil, but I'm actually going to be somewhat nice although still an annoying little bible thumping shit, because if you're evil you have all the Satanic Video Games in VR!"
and I said "Well at least you have some level of thinking for yourself, here's my Occulus (I'm not calling it a Meta), go nuts."
Lately only my Aunt has been coming to Thanksgiving Dinners while the uncle and cousin have been staying at home, apparently she's starting to get sick of their Right Wing Christofascist Bullshit.
For the record, she's Anti-LGBT, Pro-Trump, and believes they eat dogs in Ohio, she's just sane by comparison to her husband and son.
Like it's the difference between "Trump's racist, but at least he's not a Democrat" Vs. "Trump is literally the Messiah, We're gonna send the infidels to Christ for Judgement!", Far Right Vs. QAnon Shit
We're very civil about it in the hopes that she and hopefully the son too, can break away from her husband's nonsense.
For the record: My aunt is the one related by blood, not the uncle.
I will say this, I hate Reddit Atheists; the kind that jump on your case for shouting "Oh God!" when you're scared and worship the Sacred Texts of St. Hitchens. But if every religious person I ever met was like my uncle and his son, I'd totally get why Reddit Atheists are the way they are...
Last time the kid came to Thanksgiving, he was talking to my sister about Jurassic Park... Then during dinner when I was just making conversation, (Everyone eats at the same table, we don't have a separate "Kid's Table" sides they were in their late teens anyway) I made the mistake of treating dinosaurs as if they were real and not an elaborate creation of Hollywood.
He kept chanting "The Big Bang is a Faerie Tale, not a theory!" until I "apologized to Jesus for my blasphemy."
They actually had to take him out of public school and put him in a private Fundie school because he kept failing his classes due to trying to claim most of History and Science didn't actually exist on his assignments.
I'm deeply worried; one day that guy (He's an adult now) is going to leave the bubble created for him by his Church and his father, and he will not be even slightly equipped to begin to comprehended the world outside.
- What makes you think he'll leave? I know plenty of adults 40+ that are still like the...
  
  Mom and Dad have to die some time.....
  It may happen when he's old and grey, rolling outside on his futurstic hover wheelchair wondering why people say it's the hover-servos that make his chair fly and not Jesus.
- Tell me about it, I don’t like my mom’s transphobia. I also don’t like the fact that she likes trump. At least she’s not a Christian Nationalist yet.
  My dad is pretty chill at least and I try to be on good terms with him.
- Tl;Dr?
  
  TL;DR: My family’s “black sheep” are ultra-conservatives, while the rest of us range from liberals to full-on anarchists. My uncle, a cringy wannabe-cool guy, stopped talking to me after declaring I’m "possessed by demons" and blaming Mexicans, evolution, and Satan for everything. His son (my cousin) is a Bible-thumper but is at least polite because he wants to borrow my VR gear. My aunt (related by blood) still shows up for Thanksgiving but is only sane relative to her QAnon husband and son. We’re trying to civilly help her and maybe her son escape the culty nonsense, but the son is deep in Fundie school denial of history and science. Honestly, I’m worried for him when the real world eventually hits.
  ChatGPT is good for something, amirite?

In my family, the more conservative guys are the clean shaven ones. Weird.
- Also, GenZ men voted for fascism more than millennial men so this comic really is backwards
- puts his personal Bible on the table at family gatherings
  looks back at it every now and again to see if anyone notices it
  ...I know the type. We have one or two.

"but if you were so open minded why won't you listen to Joe Rogan?" Actual point made by Trump supporting relative

If they don’t kill you for being too open-minded and compassionate, you might live long enough go see yourself become the racist uncle
- Nah. The "old age makes you conservative" adage is bs. I may not always be precisely on top of current trends, but I'll never be a racist, hateful shithead just because I lived a bit longer.
  
  Me in my twenties - mocked for my idealism and the related accessories on my car and person that proclaimed such ideals.
  Me in my thirties - starting to feel a little beat down by life, really hard to get myself to care about more than keeping a roof over the family's head.
  Me in my forties - starting that stereotypical rightward slide, spent a few years listening to some folks I shouldn't have, which didn't help.
  Also me in my forties - started to realize on topics I knew something about, those people I was listening to were full of shit. Stopped listening. That idealism of my twenties was quietly going "Hey I'm still here, I just need a little attention!" I couldn't hear it for a long time, but it never stopped tugging.
  Me in my fifties - I'm not sure what fucking happened, but I started to feel more like my twenties than I had in a long time. Still struggling, still paycheck to paycheck. But more believing in the good people around me. More believing in those ideals from my twenties. More mentally flexible than I'd felt in a long while. Peace and love for everyone.
  Me still in my fifties - eat the rich, fuck Republicans, and fuck Democrats for pretending to care all these years. I need to find politicians who represent me, because it sure as hell isn't these donor-controlled far-right and center-right assholes.
  
  I'm old enough to understand that every time you think "this will never happen to me" it's DEFINITELY going to happen to you.

When I drive, i think about how often people are traveling to places they don't want to go. If only we could all stay in our basements. If only we could be free.

My family all gets along great - no obnoxious relatives, no buried conflicts surfacing, etc. I always wonder how many people's Thanksgivings are like the extremely overworked sitcom trope and how many are just happy get-togethers.

That's why conservatives use terms they cant define as insults: woke.

thats a buff uncle = bufuncle

Attitude like this would make the problem worse, this is not how they see it and if they were to see this comic, it would push them away more.
- Yeah, you're right. We don't want to offend any racists.

Haha this meme is so Lemmy. "me good guy you bad guy".
- Correct, triggered racist.
  
  Ya got me.
- "but have you considered my racist opinions?"
  
  If you guys keep thinking you've won every debate, always have the correct opinion on everything, and don't prove it because you think you don't have to defend any position because all you do is demonize your opponent, that's how you lose elections to orange reality TV stars.
  Keep up the smugness. Enjoy republican rule.

Ah yes. Calling those who disagree with you racist as a knee jerk reaction is truly the mark of an open minded and understanding person.
- The uncle has a confederate flag, indicating that he subscribes to racist ideas.
  What don't you understand?

Open-minded and understanding?
This is an ironic comic. I'd say it's making fun of both sides, but you know that's not the intent so it's just super cringey.
Edit: Oh, it seems I've upset the open-minded and understanding. Perhaps the irony has flown over their open heads. Enjoy distancing your family this Thanksgiving and not understanding why you grow less tolerated and heard by uncles.
- Paradox of Tolerance
  
  Reminder: there is no such thing as the paradox of tolerance.
  The rules of tolerance only apply to the people who abide by them.
  Therefore, you are tolerant of tolerant people if you abide by the rules of tolerance. You are intolerant of intolerant people if you abide by the rules of tolerance.
  It is very straightforward, the only pathway to paradox is from a lack of lexical understanding of the rules of tolerance.
  
  That's exactly my point.
  It gets thrown around like any flavour of the year amongst American blues, but I am starting to realise most people have no idea what a paradox fundamentally is. Rather they think it's some sort of guiding idea because everyone keeps saying it and something about a philosopher—the entire premise whooshing over the heads of whichever tribalists "gotcha bombs" it entirely out of context.
  Two comments of it here and I imagine at least one of you have never comprehended what it is and where they fit into it. Someone's the chicken; someone's the egg. A true idiot thinks they know the solution to that.
- Yes, yes, we should totally be understanding of the people who want to see my cousin dead and my uncle run out of the country.
  /s because there are sadly a lot of people who legitimately think this way
- What aren't we understanding about, eh?
  
  Any possible reason why anyone could have voted for Trump besides being racist or an idiot. That blanket labelling half the country as Nazis wasn't effective last time and isn't effective now. That a large portion of the populace feels so desperate for change that they were willing to vote for the fucking cheeto supreme.
  I voted for Harris, and I completely believe Trump was the worst fucking choice the voting populace could have made, but unless you're actually calling for the extermination of roughly half the country there has to be some attempt at understanding or bridging the gap wherever it can be bridged.
- I saw several variations on this exact meme over the last days, and it is so insanely idiotic I'm halfway to thinking it's some sort of psy-op. Personally, I like shitting on conservatives as much as the other guy, and... do I really need to explain that one can't simultaneously talk about Haha How Dumb Those Guys and also call yourself open-minded? The moment you do the former you have given up on the latter.
- Bro thought he could speak freely here lmao 🤣
  
  Haha, I can. Thats the beauty of it. I can express an opinion. I'm well used to this place fallaciously assuming that a single opinion against the grain must mean an all out attack against the tree.
  It's a funny little tree that thinks itself the centre of the forest.

For the record: My aunt is the one related by blood, not the uncle.