You Absolutely SHOULD Cut Off Your MAGA Parents. Fuck Them And Their Hatefulness

Update: It should be noted that the NYT article I’m writing about is mostly about parents rejecting their gay children and how those children should try to reconcile with their bigoted parents.

I can’t really speak to that since I have not experienced that myself, first-hand or even second-hand. I would say as someone who has experienced abuse that it’s OK, even necessary, to walk away as a means of self-preservation until you are strong enough to protect yourself should you choose to reconnect, which is what I did.

My take on this was both broader and narrower. MAGA is hate and nothing else. I looked at the specific hate it directed at me and mine, but it applies to all of us who do not fit the “right” image of what a “real” American is to MAGA. Whether you’re LGBTQ or biracial or special needs or the “wrong” religion and on and on and on, our MAGA relatives hate us for who we are, and they do not deserve us in their lives. That is their loss. Not ours.

When I was young, my father was…not good at fathering. I’ve written about this before. At great length. I don’t really feel like getting into it again because it’s deeply unpleasant. But by the time I was 18 or so, we were no longer speaking.

That state of affairs persisted for over a decade, well into my thirties. Once I had children of my own, I had a decision to make: Would my children know their Abuelo? I thought about it for a few months and decided that my problems with him were not their problems, and they should, in fact, know their Abuelo. I didn’t know either of my grandfathers (one died before I was born and the other when I was a baby), and I didn’t think it was OK to cut them off.

In the process of building that relationship between my kids and their Abuelo, we reconnected on our own, and we muddled through our own stuff. It was not fun, and some of it was extremely public and extremely ugly. But here we are, 18 years later, and we’re still talking.

So when the New York fucking Times tells me that “Cutting Your Parents Off Isn’t The Answer,” part of me wants to agree:

“Going no contact is a kind of amputation. In my case, not only would it be an awful way to treat my father; it would also deprive me and my future family of a connection to the ideas and tradition that made me who I am. Cutting him off would be self-mutilation.”

That’s not quite how I would put it. Not for nothing; if someone is toxic enough for me to cut them off, I am not concerned about how I am treating them. They brought that on themselves. I’ll circle back to that in a minute.

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As for traditions and ideas, one does not need connection to family to pass those on. My mother died a full decade before my daughter was born. And yet, one of the absolute highlights of Christmas for Anastasia is going to see The Nutcracker performed on stage every year.1 A tradition my mother introduced to me as a child. My Puerto Rican father never quite got around to teaching me to cook proper rice and beans, but I learned it anyway, and it’s one of Anastasia’s favorite dishes. As I was taught to cook at a young age, so, too, did I teach Anastasia, and, to a lesser degree, Lila. This would have happened whether I had reconnected with my father or not.

I’m not saying the kids getting to know their Abuelo doesn’t mean anything (it does, obviously), but it wasn’t critical to carrying on family traditions. Anastasia has only met my aunts on that side of our family a few times, and she’s never met my long-deceased mother. Yet, somehow, she’s juuuuuust like them. Sarcastic, with a sharp tongue that can draw blood at forty paces. Some things are genetic, I guess.

On the other hand, being a racist, bigoted, ignorant piece of shit is not genetic. It’s a choice. No one forced my in-laws to be MAGA. No one forced anyone’s in-laws or parents to be MAGA. Being MAGA is a decision.

They decided to consume vast quantities of Fox News.

They decided to consume vast quantities of AM Hate Radio.

They decided to consume vast quantities of internet propaganda.

They decided to vote for liars and thieves and con men and sexual predators and pedophiles and traitors over and over again.

They decided to spew hate and rage and evil every minute of every day.

They decided to reject democracy and the rule of law and basic human decency.

They decided to embrace fascism and white nationalism and domestic terrorism and cruelty.

Decisions have consequences. Cutting off people this toxic is as natural as breathing, and I have zero concern for how I am treating them. I was an early adopter, so to speak, starting the day after the 2016 election, but I am far from alone. There has been a sharp rise in parents running to social media to cry big, sobby tears that their children are being unreasonable. How can they just abandon them?! How can their loved ones just cut them out of their lives?! It’s wrong! It’s hurtful! It’s…cruel.

Oh, the fucking irony.

The disconnect is not hard to grasp here. For MAGA, consequences are for other people. Thus has it ever been. No matter what MAGA says or does, or what sick and twisted crimes against humanity they commit, to hold them accountable in any way whatsoever is an affront to the very idea of polite society. Who the actual fuck do you think you are?

This only works in their favor, of course. One Black woman scams SNAP? All Black women are welfare cheats. One Latino immigrant shoplifts? All Latino immigrants are dangerous criminals. One gay man molests a child? All homosexuals are pedophiles.

But tens of millions of mediocre racist white people openly cheer for fascism? Well, don’t call them fascists! That’s just rude.

Tens of millions of mediocre racist white people lustily scream for concentration camps and genocide? Don’t call them Nazis! That hurts their feelings!

Tens of millions of parents and grandparents proudly voted over and over for a man who promised to destroy the lives of their children and grandchildren? We are not allowed to take offense or speak out or do anything at all. Why are we letting politics get so personal?! Why are we getting so angry?!

Consequences are for other people. Never for MAGA.

My in-laws voted, repeatedly, for a man who openly appeals to Nazis. Trump voters proudly march under the Swastika and eagerly talk about how they’re going to kill all the Jews. That would include me and my children. They don’t even use dog whistles like “Israel” and Zionist” most of the time. It’s just open racism and calls for mass murder.

Nazis are so deeply embedded in the Republican Party now, the legacy press has desperately latched onto the new “Red Scare” of Democratic Socialism so they don’t have to talk about how bad it’s gotten. After all, everyone knows socialism is JUST AS BAD as Nazism, right? Both sides, y’all. Both sides.

Yet, somehow, my mother-in-law continues to be absolutely baffled, a full decade later, as to why I will not even allow her to be in my presence, much less to speak to her. Why am I letting politics be so personal?!

It’s an eternal mystery to her why I, a Jew, will not speak to her, the woman who voted for the Nazi. It really is. She cannot comprehend it. It will be forever beyond her grasp because the concept of accountability for her actions is completely and utterly alien.

This is true for every single one of the parents and grandparents rending their garments online about how they’ve been abandoned by their loved ones. It is incomprehensible to them. They’ve never stopped speaking to their loved ones over THEIR vote! How is this fair?!

Again, the disconnect is not hard to grasp. Deep down, they know that when Democrats win elections, the threat to mediocre racist white people is not existential. Marriage equality changes nothing for them. Trans kids playing sports changes nothing for them. Reproductive rights change nothing for them. Poor Black kids getting fed changes nothing for them. Immigrant children getting an education changes nothing for them.2

Mediocre racist white people know no one is coming for their guns or to rape their white daughters. No one is eating their pets. No roving gangs are going to rob their house. No cities are burning to the ground. White people will not be put into concentration camps. Trans girls are not raping anyone in bathrooms.

All the imaginary threats they tell themselves they’re voting against? They know it’s all nonsense. They KNOW it. It’s all fairy tales they create to soothe their conscience as they vote to enable evil so they don’t have to think about what they’ve done. So they don’t have to be held accountable for the violence they’ve unleashed on their friends and families. They KNOW they are causing direct and immediate and immense harm to millions.

But to admit that to themselves would mean they would have to admit they deserve to be shunned. That brings us back to accountability, and MAGAland can never take accountability for anything it does. Ever. It always has to be someone else’s fault. They were forced to do this. They had no choice but to do that. The logic of the abuser has been so deeply ingrained into their psyche, they have nothing else. The buck stops anywhere else but with them. Thus has it ever been, long before Trump entered the scene.

So when the New York fucking Times tries to tell me that cutting off these people off isn’t the answer, my response is simple: Eat shit and die. Cutting them off is the only answer.

They cannot be saved. They cannot be redeemed. It’s been a decade, and they voted three times for a white nationalist pedophile. They still worship him. They deserve nothing but scorn and public shaming. When the regime falls, and Trump finally dies, they will not be allowed to absolve themselves of their complicity. They’ll try, of course. They’ll develop amnesia and demand we welcome them back. They will receive nothing but dial tones and unanswered doors, destined to go to their graves as pariahs. They will only find succor among others of their ilk. The refuse who tried to burn their MAGA hats but could not hide the stench of their hate and spite and diseased allegiance to America’s would-be Hitler.

They can lie in their deathbed, crying those big, sobby tears of regret and confusion over how their former loved ones could be so cruel. In their withered hand, they can clutch the 5,000th article from the New York fucking Times decrying the inhumanity of forsaking these poor, poor victims of Donald Trump.

I can’t think of a single reason to waste even a single moment of regret on them. Can you?

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There are 77 days until the most important midterm election in American history. The regime is afraid, and they should be. We are legion, and they are weak. Stay strong. You are never alone.