First interaction with a conservative dad

[dorchadas]

And I could have done without it, to be honest.

So fortunately my father is a lifelong Democrat who once deliberately drove to Washington so he could sit in on a day of the Nixon hearings, but sashagee's father isn't. Her stepmother usually shuts down any discussion of politics, but the most recent time we went to visit them he was very interested in talking about them. He's currently without a job--he used to be a master carpenter, but decades of doing that has taken its told on his body, and he was doing ride-share but not not anymore--so he's been watching a lot of YouTube and you can probably see where this is going.

The first time he said anything objectionable, sashagee's stepmother shut down him pretty quickly. Last time, while sashagee was getting a haircut, he started spouting some of the usual conservative bullshit that I'm sure I don't need to repeat because if you're American, you've already heard it. I pushed back on what I was confident about:

• The reason only a tiny portion of the recent COVID-19 bill was dedicated to coronavirus relief is because it was an omnibus appropriations bill.
  
• Cops are not even in the top ten most dangerous jobs in America. The two most dangerous jobs are lumberjack and ocean fisherman.
  
• A private company banning people, however worrying it is, is not violating free speech, and as a member of a minority religion I'm not really interest in an intellectual debate between "All Jews should die" and "I want to live."
  
• The one person of color and one gay kid in his school in the 70s might not agree that they were treated the same as everyone else and no one cared about their differences from the majority.

There was other stuff but misinformation doesn't need to be spread.

sashagee is worried about him--she says he's turning into someone she doesn't recognize. On the plus side, apparently he's willing to accept pushback and doesn't get angry about it...yet. And he's not a QAnon cultist or a Proud Boy or something similar. But the algorithm on YouTube is pretty much tailor-made to produce neo-nazi terrorists, so I'm not sure that I should be celebrating yet. I'm also not sure what to do--I've only met him a few times, and if sashagee thinks there's reason for concern...

I'll have to see what happens but I'm a bit pessimistic about it.

Comments

[dorchadas]

I guess one major problem is that I don't consume any liberal media so I don't actually have anything I could recommend. I don't listen to any political podcasts or anything.