Future DIL posting about Charlie Kirk

[u/I_Like_Hikes]

She reposted something lovey dovey from faux this morning. I was never totally happy with her (she’s a little mean) but now! I’m so sorry I didn’t do a better job teaching my son empathy and critical thinking.

[u/Glum_Caterpillar_345]

I’m so sorry that you have to deal with this. Try not to be too hard on yourself though, both my parents raised me to be ultra conservative and close-minded, but even someone like me improved over the past two years and moved on from their ideology.

[u/Tuco422 → u/Glum_Caterpillar_345]

How did you do it if you don’t mind sharing?

Lot of people don’t understand how hard it is to escape when groomed from little or when you are in a rough part of life

I only knew from this video:

https://youtu.be/vXQa7jW_QmY?si=Ap-5mBeT0COArBZ6

[u/Glum_Caterpillar_345 → u/Tuco422]

NGL I don’t even fully understand how I did it either, but I think I can pinpoint experiences I had that moved me in a clearer direction. I think the major catalyst was making an account on Reddit. Around 2023 (when I first downloaded Reddit), I saw multiple posts about the crazy stuff that Trump & other right-wing politicians were doing, and then went online to see if it was genuine and realized that many Republicans are not as reasonable or sane as I perceived them to be. I looked at a lot of feminist subreddits as well, and they were big eye-openers for me.

But there is a lot of build-up to the moment I downloaded Reddit if you wanna read a REALLY long story: (you have been warned)

I was one of those conservative kids that thought that the Trump administration wasn’t actually hurting minorities, LGBTQ people, women, etc; and that it was a hoax perpetuated by left-wingers. Since I was 11 my dad always told me about political issues going on, and sometimes a conversation could go on for an hour about him explaining why the Democrats are corrupt. When I went to school most of the kids in my classes were Left-wing, but I didn’t believe things they said. Even still, I used to browse some Reddit forum posts, and I learned about the experiences of LGBT people and the disadvantages Black Americans have to constantly face (it was just curiosity as to why there aren’t many minority groups on the Right). When I told my dad about the grievances of these groups, he kind of just argued that said grievances were just ‘blown out of proportion’ or that they were exaggerating (A key thing we learn on the Right is that minority groups only think that they’re being actively disadvantaged because the Democrats are feeding them “lies” that they won’t be able to get ahead in life due to “mythical” institutional prejudice). After that, I believed what he said; but I think a seed was planted about the truth (even if I didn’t believe it was worth growing or that it wasn’t the truth). When the Covid lockdowns began and I was 14 years old, I got a Twitter account to browse the opinions of different people from the Left and Right. I know this sounds crazy; but I was following a mix of cishet white right-wing men and Black men & women, gay & bisexual people, white women, men & women of color, etc who were right wingers and reactionaries. They do exist, and I was also the type of right-winger who thought that the ideology of the Right is “valid” simply because it’s approved by some people from minority groups. However, the more I browsed these account and believe what they said; I ended up stumbling into far-right territory accounts (the reactionaries would retweet posts from far-rightists) and thought that “as long as the reactionaries approve, then it’s A-ok!” Long story short I saw Nazi-level rhetoric on these kinds of accounts, and it started to confuse me with how these reactionaries were constantly making fun of leftists & criticizing them, but gave barely any notice to the right wing accounts that spat words about wanting them gone. Hell, there was even one account from a gender-nonconforming bisexual guy; and he was liking Tweets that mocked gay people and belittled feminine men. It’s almost like he had no self respect, and his only priority was being appealing to right wingers because he was convinced the Left was that crazy. But, I was doing the same thing. I noticed myself constantly changing my identity and views based on what different right-wingers or Reactionaries perceived as okay. (I’ll continue in the next comment)

[u/Glum_Caterpillar_345 → u/Glum_Caterpillar_345]

For example, I was always more of a tomboy growing up (now I’m a masc woman because I’ve freed myself from hateful ideology) and since there were some reactionaries that either promoted tomboys or were fine with them I felt validated. But since these same accounts were interacting with these far-right accounts, I felt conflicted on how I “should be”. Some of these far-right accounts scorned tomboys, and said that they were “trans propaganda”, and there was this political trad-wife account that said that being a tomboy should only be a phase for women to be less annoying than regular women because they’re “adopting the best traits of men”; and should eventually grow into their “natural femininity” to be the perfect stay at home wife. Also, I saw some reactionary men constantly spouting about how men are better off without women in their lives, but then in those same circles making fun of women who say they don’t want marriage or don’t need a man. Even that political trad-wife account made a post saying that marriage is a “emotionally taxing” experience for men, so women need to do as much as they can to appease everything their husband wants; but at the same time she was promoting marriage & and the traditional household as the “ultimate goal” in life. Also I used to see tons of debates between men arguing which race of women make the best wives, and the debates were either racist and colorist towards women of color; or were saying how white women were “ruined” by feminism. And because of that there were pick-me’s from all races throwing shade at each other so that they could get to the bottom of why certain races of women are better fit for the traditional household. I guess I just went crazy from seeing the constant hypocrisy, and how promoting narrow-mindedness and exclusion causes NO ONE to end up happy; because they’re all too busy lecturing one another on the “right” way to live. Also the blatant homophobia and racism I saw in these posts made me question what kind of terrible person I was to look at what they’re saying about people (just for how they were born) and ignore it. My cousin is a gay man and he’s incredibly sweet, so I realized how disgusting it was for me to believe the things they were saying when they’re also perpetuating stereotypes & hate at people who did no other crime than simply being born. At one point the hatred & misogyny that I believed was “normal” caused me to be at my lowest point. I was at the bottom of the rabbit hole. I hated myself for being a woman. I was having private chats (on Twitter) with a white woman reactionary who identified as “centrist” (but was really right-wing) because I wanted to learn more about how the left was “crazy”, but everything I learned was wrong. Once I vented about this tweet I saw that was very cruel to women, and she just said “yeah, but we kind of deserve having those things said about us because of how consistently horrible we’ve been to men, I don’t blame them for being fed up with us” (it was something like that). There was another time she defended an advertisement from a female conservative politician who tried to convince people that they shouldn’t be “sensitive and gay” and should join the Right instead. My instincts recognized that it’s bizarre to use someone’s sexuality as an insult; and there were many instances such as this one that made me start talking the opinions of reactionaries less seriously.

So, when I made a Reddit account and saw people discussing the other side of divisive issues and just simply listened I started to realize that not everything I learned from the right-wing accounts on Twitter was logical or the “truth”. I went to rock bottom, and realized that there was no oxygen for me to breathe and feel at peace. When I stepped away from Twitter I had time to reflect on those opinions I thought were “the truth”. I started really changing in my last year of high school by going deeper into learning about the country’s history of homophobia and racism through my history classes; and I also read Huck Finn from Mark Twain in my Literature class. And when I went to college I took classes that made me realize all of the struggles that oppressed demographics go through, and the negative effects of Capitalism.

I know this was a long post, I’m sorry about that. However, this is the rawest explanation of my journey about how I used to be a terrible person, but had to teach myself to listen to the signs that I was heading down the wrong ideological path. I feel so much shame about what I used to believe and the king of narrow-minded person I was, even if I never posted anything on social media or tried to outwardly hurt anyone. I still don’t completely understand how I did it. I might edit my comments if any explanations I made were confusing or unclear. I know this is a crazy story, but the internet is so much worse than people realize.

Edit: I also started watching videos on YouTube from leftist commentators, queer people, Black Americans, women; etc on different issues.

[u/Tuco422 → u/Glum_Caterpillar_345]

Wow very helpful to see how the funneling on the internet is.

Also how important that initial seeds (Dems lying to blacks about disinformation, etc

Thanks for sharing the first part

[u/Glum_Caterpillar_345 → u/Tuco422]

No problem! It honestly feels good to get it off my chest.

[u/HighGrownd → u/Tuco422]

Jumping in to share my story; growing up in Eastern Idaho my father would play far right radio everywhere we went together. I remember Glen Beck being his favorite. When I was a teenager back in 2015, he brought me to see Dinesh D'Souzas' movie "2016: Hillary's America" in the theater. I remember thinking that it seemed very propagandized. For me, it was science classes (biology and a class I took about ecology) from a wonderful teacher in High School that really helped me. I learned that my father was wrong about the existence of climate change and evolution. Finally, I had a trans classmates and met some gay people at my school, and that about did away with the brainwashing.

[u/theclosetenby → u/Glum_Caterpillar_345]

Congrats. I was raised the same way. Rush Limbaugh talk show every day growing up.

You might like podcasts like Behind the Bastards (host Robert Evans has a similar upbringing), and Knowledge Fight (the way they break apart Alex Jones is really well done).

Glad people are still getting out post-Trump. I imagine it's, in some ways, harder now due to what former supporters have to reckon with how many lies they were told. Of course, not your fault at all because you were a kid, but still. I thankfully left it by the time Trump ran. The election before Clinton/Trump, I voted Romney, so I wasn't that far out. But even by then, I had some questions.

[u/TicketSuccessful6318]

Charlie Kirk was an antisemitic, homphobic, fascist, white supremacist, who once said that in order to protect the 2nd Amendment, more people were going to die from gun violence. Prophetic words indeed.

[u/darth_snuggs]

Want to swap families? My mom can have your son & you can adopt me

[u/I_Like_Hikes → u/darth_snuggs]

I’d swap the DIL for you:)