#please keep an eye on your local conspiracy theorist lest they become like this

[twen-nee6]

How Trump Changed My Dad

tw: racism & all the prejudices

Last weekend, I saw my father, and, for the first time in my life, I heard him say racist things about Chinese people. In fact, this was the first time I heard him say anything this openly racist at all, except against “reptilians who call themselves Jewish.”

This isn’t some story about us uniting after a long period of time and him being a racist. My dad has always been in my life, and I love him very much. This is a story about how he has changed since Trump became president.

This is pretty long, so get the rest under the cut!

TL;DR: My dad has had his worldview skewed so radically due to conspiracy theories that he thinks that everything Trump says is true, and that has become a seed for racist remarks and ideas that are in direct opposition to viewpoints he had even last year.

It is interesting, and tragic, to reflect upon what Trump’s presidency has done to my family-- or, well, I suppose, my father. Before I really begin to get into this story, I am in no way condoning is point of view in any sort of way or trying to make excuses for him, because he is a grown adult who can make his own decisions. That said, he is also incredibly gullible under the correct circumstances. Unfortunately, Trump has kind of become those “correct circumstances.”

Before I get completely into this, I’d like to give some backstory on who my father is, because I think that’s important to realizing how absolutely floored my sister and I were to hear him say racist shit about Chinese people.

My dad grew up in a Jehovah's Witness family. If you’re unfamiliar with that sect of Christianity, they are a cult. My grandfather was excommunicated from the church when my father was young, and my dad (and all his siblings and my grandmother and my grandfather’s parents and brothers-- you get it: the whole family) was forbidden with interacting with him. To interact with my grandfather-- my dad’s dad --was to meet the same fate. No Jehovah's Witness is allowed to talk to someone who was excommunicated.

Despite this absolutely bizarre-ass rule, children are allowed to communicate with these people, so long as they’re not a full part of the church. My dad and his siblings were just not able to speak with my grandfather because my grandmother (and the rest of the family) were not allowed to interact, not because they were fully a part of the church. Thankfully, my father avoided the ceremony that would make him a true Jehovah's Witness throughout his life, so I have been able to correspond with my family who are still a part of the cult due to this loophole. 

This loophole also made it possible for him to escape from an abusive situation with his step-father, and he moved in with my grandfather when he was thirteen.

I know this is exposition-heavy, but bear with me here. I want you guys to see the person I grew up with, not the guy that he is now, so you can understand why I am so confused and upset.

My dad is a fucking fantastic musician. He has so many good stories, but here are some highlights from his life:

* A close family friend who is a Native American taught him a lot about his culture. My dad likes to talk about how sacred nature is, and he also loves to talk about the very odd experience he had following the man’s meditation instructions. According to my father, he was teleported (in his mind) to a library where every book is the book of someone’s life. When the Librarian asked him if he wanted to read his book, he said no. This experience rattled him.

* He moved to the South Side of Chicago in the early 90s to chase his dream of music. He worked in a diner that was at an intersection where gang violence was common, and he lived even deeper south in the city than the diner. He recalls with horror what he saw, but he is quick to explain that there is a duality to people: people in gangs, he always likes to say, are just as human as the rest of us, and he always tells us he met “a kindness I never saw in anyone else,” in the people who came into his diner (especially the gang members).

* He also lived in Austin, Texas in the 90s, and played music with a band with an incredibly diverse background. He was on TV a few times (I imagine it was local, lol), and he loves to tell the story about the time that he ended up playing guitar at a Latinx club because he did a good job putting electricity into some guy’s house. He uses his story there to explain how to be humble-- he always tells us that everyone in the club was dancing to the salsa tune, then his dumbass had a guitar solo and he played the blues, which killed the vibe. “Always take in your surroundings.”

* When getting a tattoo, the tattoo artist mentioned in passing that a biker had paid her with his soul for a tattoo. My dad and his friend were drunk, and they bough the guy’s soul for $20 and planned to use it “to get big.” The next day, they were sitting at the table with this guy’s soul contract, and my dad said that something came over him-- “I knew that if I did what I wanted to do, I would get famous, but I also knew it wasn’t worth it.” He burned the contract. The karmatic repercussions of using some poor guy’s soul to become famous just isn’t worth it.

My father also taught me how to respect life. I lack empathy. I feel like I would have a much harder time with my life without my father’s patience in my earlier years. He taught me how to be socially appropriate in a way that wasn’t demeaning, unlike the rest of my family who berated me (and continue to do so) when I did something they viewed as wrong. One particular story sticks out:

When I was about nine or ten, we were camping with his side of the family. I caught a crawdad (crayfish for you non-Appalachian folk) out of the creek, and I was very curious what color it would turn if I boiled it. So, I did just that. 

I’m definitely not proud of that. 

My dad had always tried to explain to me the sanctity of life and how we shouldn’t just kill things prior to this, but that time he really seemed upset. He told me how disrespectful it was to the animal, and then told me to think about what it would be like to be boiled alive. He then told me I should at the very least eat the thing, which... I told my cousin to do because I am a picky eater.

That lesson definitely stuck with me more than, “Don’t kill spiders.” or, “Hunting for sport is wrong.”

Throughout my life, my father has been the level-headed one. He has been the one with useful life advice who actually knows how to have friends and talk to people. He has been the man I looked to to be socially appropriate and a “good person” because my mother has been chronically unable to keep any sort of friendly relationship for anyone longer than a year or two. She isn’t a very good social role model.

So, imagine my surprise last weekend hearing my dad talk about how much he hates the Chinese.

His basis? The time we went to California, and “they were way worse than the other drivers.”

I looked him dead in the eye and said, “Dad, everyone sucks at driving in California. It isn’t just Chinese people. White people can’t drive either.”

Now, I know he doesn’t hate Chinese people because of their driving. We went to California in 2004. He has never once mentioned a goddamn thing about Chinese people not being able to drive (or Chinese people in general regarding that trip), so it’s pretty fishy he would suddenly bring it up sixteen years later. 

This is especially odd since I’ve only ever heard him sing words of praise for Chinese immigrants, or, honestly, immigrants in general-- up until about a year ago, but we’ll get to that in a minute.

When my parents split-- and I know this may seem like another unnecessary deviation, but hold with me here --my dad’s obsession began. He moved in with his father, my grandfather, the man who hadn’t seen any of his family aside from my father and me for thirty years. My grandfather was a doomsday prepper. He owned something like 300 acres of land in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains down in what is known as a “Holler” here-- a small community of people who are very close to each other, live on the same road and are usually pretty friendly toward each other.

My grandfather also deeply believed in the corruption of the government, and how that would inevitably be the downfall of everything. While he wasn’t spouting anything about Hollow Earth or the sky actually being a projection, the man was distrustful of all things establishment. This kind of thought process definitely didn’t help my dad when he was going through a divorce, and I remember he really got into learning more about the 2012 Doomsday at the time.

To back up a bit, my parents have always been conspiracy theorists. My mom claims to have prophetic visions and that she is in contact with a Gray alien, which, yes, is probably just the schizophrenia, but my dad never questioned her and honestly, believed her. He was all about aliens and Area 51 and “Bush did 9/11″ when my parents were still together. He only got worse when he moved away, taking up the Doomsday stuff and digging deeper into 9/11, and then kept falling down this fucking abyss of a rabbit hole when he moved from my grandfather’s place into an apartment in the suburbs.

There, he didn’t have things to do after work. He didn’t need to attend to the horses. He didn’t have the hills to walk through. He had himself and oh dear god, man

The release of the first Assassin’s Creed was where the decline became noticeable. We bought the game, and the next time I saw him, he was telling me about the Knight’s Templar. As the years wore on, he only got worse. 

If you guys have seen the “Q Map,” that shit is all shit I can explain to you. Yes, I can tell you about the Draco-Reptilian Nazi Fleet, the Space War, and how Draco-Reptilian Nazis live in Hollow Earth. I can tell you how the Vatican relates back to the Knight’s Templar back to Moloch back to Egyptian Pharaohs back to Ishtar up to modern-day banks.

Look, I myself am gullible. I have the same kind of trait that makes me very paranoid and distrustful of people, especially authority.

My dad was spouting shit about “Kh****ian Jews” and how they were actually reptilian people (not real Jews!) who owned all the world’s banks and were trying to manipulate the populous into a One World Government, and, I’m sad to say, I believed it. Then, thank god I met my partner who shut down my bullshit really fast and has been a wonderful person to ground myself with.

(For those curious, my dad has asked for my partner’s bloodtype because they’re Jewish, and was visibly relieved when I told him it was B- instead of “an RH bloodtype” because that means that my partner is human... yeah.)

All that to say that I have an open mind. I’m willing to at least humor the idea of Nazis in Antarctica based on Admiral Byrd’s papers. Hell, I even humored my dad’s Flat Earth bullshit for a little bit, until I watched that Netflix documentary of Flat Earthers trying to prove the planet is flat, but only further proving it is round.  I’m totally willing to listen to alternate ideas, and I definitely find a lot of merit in many conspiracies.

This isn’t about aliens visiting Egypt or civilizations predating Sumeria, though, this is about my dad tripping on conservative conspiracy theorists and falling into a tailspin down the wrong fork in the trail.

This started with him listening to what he describes as “an underground conservative news channel.” He originally began being wary of the Democrats because he believed Hillary Clinton was a reptilian, but he originally was like, “Yeah, all politicians are these reptilians.” I honestly have no idea when that changed. The man didn’t even care all that much about politics until around the time of the 2016 election.

I’m assuming this is because Clinton was running, and he felt invested in not letting a reptilian become president? I swear, this man has a whole section of his brain dedicated to “Why The Cintons Are Bad,” and that only got worse as the 2016 stuff ramped up.

He started watching Alex Jones. I lived with him during this time, but I was going to college so I wasn’t home with him very often. I’d come home to the TV on Alex Jones practically foaming at the mouth every night and my dad asleep on the couch. Around this time, he started talking down to Democrats, which, hey, that’s fine, both parties in this country suck, and he honestly was interested in Bernie as a candidate.

He does still like Bernie, for the record. He even said this year that he wouldn’t mind Bernie as president.

The election rolled around; Trump got elected. Then, a lot of stuff happened.

* My dad was working for my uncle (his brother-in-law) and also renting from him. My uncle was barely paying him enough to live, so he decided to take his old job back.

* Shortly thereafter, my uncle sold the house my dad was living in. He didn’t even offer it to my dad. He fucking sold it under his nose. Not to mention, my dad was the one who put in all the flooring, bathrooms, wallpaper, etc into the house.

* My dad moved into a small farmhouse in the middle of a corn field. His old house was in a town, so he at least had interaction with other humans outside work. There are so few houses on the road he lives on that it doesn’t even have the ability to buy internet if he wanted to.

Living very much alone in the middle of a goddamn field has really impacted him.

My dad surrounds himself with what he believes to be unbiased news, but outright says are “underground conservative news outlets.” I mean, the majority of his time is spent listening to this fucking bullshit, playing old video games and jamming on the guitar.

Since the election, my dad has come to view Trump as an absolute force of good. He does admit that he does not like Trump as a person, and that he thinks that he’s honestly pretty gross, but he has been more-or-less brainwashed to believe that Trump is going to “save this country.”

Why?

* Trump is weeding out “the people the Clintons put in.”

* Trump is “going to make sure people who committed treason get what they deserve.” He points to John McCain and how Trump evidently tweeted something nine months before McCain died that eluded to the date?

* Those people who are committing treason are also part of a child trafficking ring and drink the blood of terrified children. I mean... maybe minus the blood drinking, but at least this one makes some sense, I guess.

* Trump is disbanding the Federal Reserve, which means that he is “taking the reptilians out of this country!” as well as putting the US dollar back onto the gold standard-- as if we have that much gold.

These were the original reasons why he liked Trump. He really thought, and continues to think, that the fucking orange in office has the best interest of America at heart just because he isn’t a politician. Anybody who ran for office who wasn’t a politician and got elected would have my dad’s praise, but it just happened to be Trump.

And what does that mean? It means my dad began by not agreeing with all Trump’s policies. It means my dad had a fucking brain, that he drew those conclusions himself with some aid of “”news”” (conspiracy) outlets.

But, because of the trust that he has put into this man, and the trust he has put into his “underground conservative news,” my father has allowed his perception of reality to become so incredibly skewed. For example:

* “Trump’s tweets are encoded by a quantum supercomputer to give news to the masses! Every misspelled word, random number and incorrectly capitalized letter means something, and it changes every time!”

* Dad says he doesn’t mind immigrants, but he constantly talks about how the people who want to get into America “aren’t actually struggling.” He pointed to something that happened in Mexico a little while ago and said that the people trying to get in weren’t starving, and he said that was all because they were a distraction hired by the Democrats to pull news from the trafficking of children over the border to contribute to the “adrenochrome market.” This is where some of his racist shit started.

* He believes all earthquakes in America in the last four years have been due to the Democrats “blowing up underground bunkers” to hide the fact that they are “conducing illegal human research.” He believes there is a whole world underground full of clones, and claims that ships docked on the West Coast exist there to help people that they take out of these underground cities. He also, of course, believes Trumpy-poo is the whole reason why “those poor people” are being liberated.

* According to him, there are Chinese tanks in the Amazon, and China is mounting an invasion on America. Believe it or not, this isn’t where he started talking shit about Chinese people.

* Trans* people do not exist. He also has become worryingly fixated on who he thinks is trans*? Literally any concert he sees on TV with a female lead singer becomes him pointing out “why that is actually a dude.” He’s also very fixated on “Michelle Obama is actually a man.” When we ask him why the hell that matters, he says it’s dishonest because “no man wants to be a woman.” Christ.

* On that note, he told me point-blank that women have more rights than men. I am AFAB. I fucking bluescreened.

* The BLM movement is just a way to deter from the election. The Democrats are busing in people to start riots and make cities shut down. “It isn’t a natural escalation of things to destroy your own neighborhood.” He also thinks the whole movement is shit beyond that because, “Everyone gets treated like shit by the police. I’ve been held down and beaten by a cop-- it’s just part of living in a city.” I... moving on

* “COVID-19 was created by the Chinese for the Democrats to skew the election.” He then points out all the sicknesses that broke out around other elections, like SARS and H1N1. This is where the sudden hatred of China comes from.

There is also just... so much more, but it is so incredibly tiring to try to think of all the things he tells me. Every time I look away to edit this anecdote, I remember more bullshit, so this is going to be the finalized list.

So, all-in-all, my dad went from being a very empathetic, compassionate man to having those traits used against him to believe that being racist is okay. My dad got sucked into politics because he was worried about the country being ran by reptilians, and now he believes that wearing a mask during a global pandemic is “unpatriotic” despite spending the majority of his life complaining about patriotism.

My sister and I try to set our dad straight. Any time he says something racist, we counter it the best we can, and it usually comes down to, “I’m not talking about all of them. I’m talking about the ones the Democrats paid off to do this stuff.” Unfortunately, there is no convincing him otherwise on that part, because if we try to show him anything regarding it, he deflects by saying that we got it from “a mainstream news source.”

I feel powerless as all hell because my dad has become something very distressing, and Trump / conspiracies are all he ever talks about.  I can only hope that his absolute bullshit “underground conservative news outlets” either get shut down so he has to look elsewhere or that he somehow finds some news source that he trusts that isn’t sucking Trump’s dick. I don’t know.

#anecdote #personal #trump #xenophobia #racism #homophobia #prejudice #conspiracy #conspiracy theory #please keep an eye on your local conspiracy theorist lest they become like this #writing #article