My dad is a typical "Reagan Republican" who supports the GOP as long as he can keep his taxes low because he's rich. He's also a whiny old white man who thinks the world is out to get him, but generally he's probably towards the center of the current Republican spectrum.
The same can't be said for my three brothers. Like thousands of other young white men in the United States and abroad, they've been slowly brainwashed by a steady diet of extreme right-wing content on Youtube and social media. All three of my brothers are younger than I am, and they don't respect me (my dad always shit-talks my left-wing politics) or care about my input, so they're beyond my help. My brothers idolize my dad and view his conservative worldview as gospel.
One of my brothers, who recently graduated from college, is training to be a cop. He's been on the Trump train since the summer of 2015 and was the original Trump devotee when my dad was still staunchly a Never-Trumper. Not previously politically active, I'm not sure how he came under Trump's spell. Another of my brothers, soon to graduate high school, is even more extreme. He's reclusive, has few friends, and spends all day in his room on the computer. He often makes extremely offensive, violent, and disturbing "jokes" about PoC, LGBT people, etc and is basically a 4channer. I sometimes find myself afraid that he'll snap one day and shoot up a school, because he fits the profile to a T.
My third brother is in his mid-teens, and is the reason I'm making this thread. He's always been the friendly, outgoing one, and had a gentle heart. We had a good relationship for a while, and I felt like I could exert some influence on him to point him in the right direction regarding respect for women and all the other difficult things that young men are having trouble with in today's toxic masculine world. But when he started going through those typical teenage mood swings, he pulled away from me and fell under the influence of my brothers and dad, and soon enough he was watching Ben Shapiro and other right-wing garbage on Youtube. It was too late for me to reach him.
One day a couple weeks ago, my brother got annoyed at me over an incredibly minor and petty issue. His preferred solution to this issue was to get in my face and start screaming at me. Obviously, my brothers are all much bigger than me and while I wasn't necessarily "afraid," this was very uncharacteristic behavior that was totally disproportionate to the perceived slight. He learned from somewhere that the appropriate resolution to a problem is to physically intimidate the person. My eldest brother (the cop) decided to go speak with him on my behalf and apparently my youngest brother went on a rambling tirade about how "people like [me] are destroying this country." This was very heartbreaking behavior from my baby brother who has now been turned into some roid-raging macho asshole by the extreme right. My dad is unconcerned, obviously. I warned him that he needs to teach my brother that this kind of behavior directed at a girlfriend or co-worker will get the cops called on him, but he still seemed largely disinterested in believing this was a larger problem.
What do we do about this shit? You have impressionable kids who are confused about their place in the world and don't understand rapidly shifting social, economic, racial, and gender divides and are having their minds warped by psychotic, bigoted adults via the internet. By the time their parents or family can intervene, it's too late.
I don't know. Monitor your kid's internet usage, I guess. Try to sit down and talk with them from time to time about their thoughts on the issues of the day. Teenagers are more politically aware than you give them credit for. Give them an outlet to speak with you about their views and concerns. If you don't have these conversations with your kids, some right-wing psychopath on Youtube will gladly do it for you.
The same can't be said for my three brothers. Like thousands of other young white men in the United States and abroad, they've been slowly brainwashed by a steady diet of extreme right-wing content on Youtube and social media. All three of my brothers are younger than I am, and they don't respect me (my dad always shit-talks my left-wing politics) or care about my input, so they're beyond my help. My brothers idolize my dad and view his conservative worldview as gospel.
One of my brothers, who recently graduated from college, is training to be a cop. He's been on the Trump train since the summer of 2015 and was the original Trump devotee when my dad was still staunchly a Never-Trumper. Not previously politically active, I'm not sure how he came under Trump's spell. Another of my brothers, soon to graduate high school, is even more extreme. He's reclusive, has few friends, and spends all day in his room on the computer. He often makes extremely offensive, violent, and disturbing "jokes" about PoC, LGBT people, etc and is basically a 4channer. I sometimes find myself afraid that he'll snap one day and shoot up a school, because he fits the profile to a T.
My third brother is in his mid-teens, and is the reason I'm making this thread. He's always been the friendly, outgoing one, and had a gentle heart. We had a good relationship for a while, and I felt like I could exert some influence on him to point him in the right direction regarding respect for women and all the other difficult things that young men are having trouble with in today's toxic masculine world. But when he started going through those typical teenage mood swings, he pulled away from me and fell under the influence of my brothers and dad, and soon enough he was watching Ben Shapiro and other right-wing garbage on Youtube. It was too late for me to reach him.
One day a couple weeks ago, my brother got annoyed at me over an incredibly minor and petty issue. His preferred solution to this issue was to get in my face and start screaming at me. Obviously, my brothers are all much bigger than me and while I wasn't necessarily "afraid," this was very uncharacteristic behavior that was totally disproportionate to the perceived slight. He learned from somewhere that the appropriate resolution to a problem is to physically intimidate the person. My eldest brother (the cop) decided to go speak with him on my behalf and apparently my youngest brother went on a rambling tirade about how "people like [me] are destroying this country." This was very heartbreaking behavior from my baby brother who has now been turned into some roid-raging macho asshole by the extreme right. My dad is unconcerned, obviously. I warned him that he needs to teach my brother that this kind of behavior directed at a girlfriend or co-worker will get the cops called on him, but he still seemed largely disinterested in believing this was a larger problem.
What do we do about this shit? You have impressionable kids who are confused about their place in the world and don't understand rapidly shifting social, economic, racial, and gender divides and are having their minds warped by psychotic, bigoted adults via the internet. By the time their parents or family can intervene, it's too late.
I don't know. Monitor your kid's internet usage, I guess. Try to sit down and talk with them from time to time about their thoughts on the issues of the day. Teenagers are more politically aware than you give them credit for. Give them an outlet to speak with you about their views and concerns. If you don't have these conversations with your kids, some right-wing psychopath on Youtube will gladly do it for you.
