Morgan, Georgia (1/07/21)
In the wake of Trump supporters desecrating the Capitol, I eavesdrop on my parent's conversation. I want to think they are good people, maybe just a little misguided, but after listening to a conversation that would never be spoken in public, I can no longer, with confidence, say that they are good people.
A few days ago, I was in the car with my mom. We have had heated conversations before, but after a short trip to Trader Joe's, her disgust for individuals waving Raphael Warnock signs was apparent. She said, in her most southern voice, that she'll pray for them, and that they are dumb. She hates to say it, but that's what they are.
She knows I voted for both left-leaning candidates. She knows I voted against Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election, and yet she sits behind the steering wheel, calling, by extension, her own daughter dumb and brainwashed.
Fast forward to a few days later, overhearing her on the phone. I was not even trying this time to hear what she was saying, but yet her voice carried itself into my room. She says, "Vice President Mike Pence knows the election was rigged and he's doing something about it, I heard it on NewsMax." NewsMax.
My parents no longer watch Fox News because it was infiltrated by the liberals, as they say. This is where my ears perk up, I stay quiet, knowing that a fight never ends well because of my evidence, fact, and logic fall on deaf ears.
Today, the day after terrorists attacked the Capital of the United States after their leader told them to fight. I stand in my room close to the door. I am eavesdropping, however disrespectful it may be, I still have my head pressed to the crack in the door, hearing what my father is saying.
My dad and I used to get along so well, he was a hero to me. In the past years, 4 years to be exact, the image of a kind-hearted, ever-concerned man is replaced by an angry, hateful man with a facade of care. He says that the terrorists were right, he touts off falsities as facts, and as I stand by the door in my room I think to myself, how did it get here.
How can my parents confidently say that they love their neighbor but condemn BLM protests, but cannot and will not condemn terrorist in the US Capital building? How can, after being provided mounds of evidence, still insist that there was election fraud?
Then I think, I think to the many times I have been told to be careful around those different than me. To make sure that I stand by what I believe in. That the United States of America is the best country in the world and if I don't like even one thing about it, instead of speaking about my dislike I should just leave.
That everything Trump says is fact and truth, but others who speak out against him are traitors to America. That they won't even watch Fox News because they are brainwashed into thinking that it is somehow the new liberal media.
It's sad that I can't even try to find common ground with these people I love dearly. My mother being the true victim of compliance. It is with exhaustion and true, deep sadness that I know my parents are lost causes and victims of the right-wing extreme media. It's truly heartbreaking to hear the hate spewed from them. It is heartbreaking to know that if I was not their daughter that they would see me as an enemy, even being their daughter, they do quietly see me as one.
I hope one day this cult-like mindset will dissolve and the ever-present, in the past 4-years, the brainwashing of those close to me will end, but with no end in sight, I am heartbroken and sadden to see that my parents have ultimately become the victims.