MAGA women want a Hallmark "home for the holidays" fantasy — but their votes run their kids off
MAGA women want a Hallmark "home for the holidays" fantasy — but their votes run their kids off
Trumpism promises to a return to a time when kids lived close — instead, young people are fleeing to blue states
Remember when boomers complained that their "shitty kids" won't come for Christmas?
And their "shitty kids" were actually 35yo millennials who were sick of their parents' toxic behavior around their grandchildren? And now the boomers get to die alone because they "fucked around and found out"?
Just replace boomer with MAGA.
I haven't seen my parents in over a decade. Born in '50 & '51 they check all the boxes of the worst stereotypes.
Republican ✓
White ✓
Racist ✓
Bigoted ✓
Ultra-Religious ✓
Limited education ✓
Entitled ✓
Narcissistic ✓
Physically and emotionally abusive ✓
Depended their parents assistance until their mid-30's, kicked their kids out at 18 (17 for me). ✓
I honestly have no clue if they are MAGA or not. I suspect they are because my older sister was pictured in the news at the orange cheetos inauguration.
It's the Republican MO: everyone needs to suffer from everything I've ever had to deal with at a bare minimum. More is fine, but anything less than every single issue I had to deal with (whether I really did, or just think I did, thanks to a healthy victim complex) is unacceptable.
In practice, it looks a lot like the socialism they claim to hate, but only for negativity. Hoard everything good, distribute everything bad.
kicked their kids out at 18 (17 for me)
One thing that constantly surprised me on reddit was in the personal finance sub, there was a post about this about once a month, give or take. It's just shocking how often it happens. It was in the FAQs because it happened so often.
Can we not generalize entire generations to make it about division? Yes, it's about Maga parents, that's what this article is about. There are good people and really shitty people in every generation. No, I'm not a boomer. Don't fall for the propaganda to have every generation fight instead of going after the real issues.
This. I've seen my share of awful people in every single age bracket. How old is that Fuentes guy, anyway? Or Richard Spencer? Same with a lot of the doofs that threw an insurrection. Many of them seem Gen Y or younger. The incels that fall for the likes of Jordan Peterson or the Elon fanbois - I don't think too many of them fall into the "boomer" category.
I seem to recall the "Greatest Generation" complaining about boomers in the same way, often for the very same reasons. I'd say being a teabagger spans many generations, all the way down to the youngest of Gen Z. Give it time, and they'll be whining about Generation Alpha or whatever and how they are not coming home for xmas, and all because of the teabaggers' behavior.
They're dreaming of a white Christmas.
It's definitely not just their votes running kids off, it's their shitty attitudes and small ignorant minds.
It's absolutely exhausting to talk to them.
You can just be sitting there and they bring up a hot topic. You can say, "Well the data/research/stats/the internet you told me to look up" and they still call you a liar.
They're not interested in the convo. So why bother?
I've noticed many of them just want to re-enact whatever they just saw/heard/read on Faux/hate radio/Nazi-adjacent websites and want a captive audience, ideally.
My father in law was terrible about trying to crowbar politics into every discussion. Everyone could be talking about baking cookies and he'd start whining about how trump is being persecuted (this was before he was being prosecuted) and how it's illegal to be christian (his house is crawling distance from two churches) amd whatever else fox news told him to think. He finally burned his last bridge and told my wife (his daughter, of course) that he didn't want to see her again. Her "Oh thank god, bye" reaction isn't what he expected.
I’m not a woman, but I left the “bucolic utopia” I grew up in for the “crime ridden dystopia” of a major city in a left leaning state and will never go back. All I have to show for it is a walkable city, focus on education and arguably the best education in the country for my kids, TRAINS, the US’s only “high” speed train, healthcare for all, government policies based on compassion, diversity, very well paying jobs, leadership on climate action, free speech, acceptance of whatever and whoever you are, etc
I do miss the cheap land and housing, and I miss family, but there are so many things wrong with that place, and getting worse as the population ages, educated young people have left
The notion of moving to a city fills me with anxiety and dread. Thankfully there's plenty of rural areas in blue states. The neighbors are just as bad as in the red states, but you don't have to deal with a conservative government. At least above the local level.
I spent 20 years in a red region of NY. It's absolutely miserable. Yeah you have a liberal lean at the state level, but at the local level everything is a constant fight for basic rights. There's also almost no job prospects, no social mobility, no community, and no diversity. Not to mention if you're a minority you're constantly at odds with the police, even if you didn't do anything criminal.
The area I lived in cost almost as much as NYC to live in but with half the income and literally nothing to do.
It's not worth it.
Wow! I live in a red, economically depressed rural area of a blue state. It was booming when there were some Democrats in local offices but the locals fell for the right wing propaganda. Most smart kids moved away when they graduated. Now there are lots of drugs and drunks with big trucks. I learned to fly, SCUBA dive, garden, graft trees, hunt, hike, forage and build things. "Nothing to do" is a state of mind no matter where you are.
Rural NY is much more rural (with everything that entails, including sundown towns) than people expect. Nearby, Vermont, Massachusetts, and Connecticut all have very rural (and cheap and economically depressed) areas with fewer crazy neighbors. Still not much to do unless you get into outdoor hobbies, but doable
It's way better because the crazies don't feel as empowered as they do when they're surrounded by their own kind.
"Over 70% of the Hallmark audience is past 50 years old. This breakdown of the most popular Hallmark Christmas movies shows they're mostly a hit with the Medicare crowd, with over half of the audience aged 65 and up. "
Mostly a hit with Medicare crowd. A quick Google search shows mental decline can start as early as 45.
I wouldn't be surprised if these people thought they were living in a Hallmark movie at any given time.
Their generation has way more lead in everything and it shows. They probably have "memories" of things that happened in the movie but they would insist actually happened to them.
Anecdotally i can see the validity. My sister and I moved multiple states away from our parents.
My city def has a lot of young 30+ meetups. And 90% of them has a story about them moving as far as possible because family/parent drama.
Honestly I think a lot of these people raised their kids under the "my house, my rules" mantra where they tied their authority to their home out of laziness and expedience, basically choosing rather than explaining themselves to their kids, instead just quashing any opportunity for a conversation (that in many cases may have revealed how poorly thought out their beliefs were) based on, of all things, economics.
Basically: I work and earn the money in this dynamic, so because of that, I'm right and your opinions don't matter.
Shock of all shocks when kids raised with that noise grow up, enter the work force, and get a place of their own, they now remember that shit and make the short step of logic from "my house my rules" to "I'm not in your house anymore, I'm not following your rules, and you have to respect that because you have no other choice".
I've heard stories of this getting so bad that basically the parents of adult children still were trying to impose their politics and ideology on their adult children when they came to visit...then being all surprised Pikachu and playing the victim when... spoiler alert...their kids quit visiting.
I bet so much of their Karen persona is caused by how much they drive others away, thus going into a feedback loop that ends up with them adopting the full teabagger lifestyle.
Don't forget the alcohol. I don't think I've seen any Karen/Kevin video without some kind of substance abuse, usually alcohol.
Republican women only have two looks in my eyes: younger blonde women, or fat middle-aged brunette women.
The arrogance of beauty and the anger of beauty faded.
[off topic] Ross Thomas was a Washington political reporter turned mystery novelist. Most of his books are about government corruption, crooked elections, and/or insider wheeling-dealing.
In one of his books he has a hit man nicknamed 'Hallmark.'
The killer you send 'when you care enough to send your best.'
Some great skits about this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYQM1NESLsc
Less applicable but still great:
As Timothy Noah wrote recently in a cover article for the New Republic, the increasingly authoritarian policies passed by Republican leaders are leading to what he deems the "Red State Brain Drain": "an out-migration of young professionals" from GOP-controlled states to the more welcoming pastures of blue state America.
Thus empowering the electoral college more and more and ensuring our descent into fascism.