Shame them back into the shadows
We are under no obligation to keep relationships going just because we happened to be born at a certain time to a person.
He’s also not a very good brother: I don’t need to worry too much about insulting him because he doesn’t even care enough about his only sibling to spend six minutes reading this column every week.
I have not cut off my brother from all contact. I just don’t go out of my way to initiate it anymore, and make a point of challenging the more heinous viewpoints he expresses when we do encounter one another.
Like Ezra Klein, many people are averse to politics coming between relatives. I think such people lack charm. I have many, many friends who have helped me out and who I have helped out much more than has been the case with my brother. I have many, many friends who I enjoy spending time with more than my brother. I have many, many friends whose decisions have not contributed to the deaths of millions of people due to support for Trump’s second-term policies, to say nothing of the countless daily nonfatal miseries his supporters continue to inflict. To spend extra time with someone whose company you do not generally enjoy, who you find overall to be an odious human being, just because you share some DNA, reeks of eugenics to me.
For the sake of my aging parents, I still try to pretend to mostly get along with my brother for the three or four days a year we see each other. I will never forgive him and all the other fake patriots out there for what I see as being a traitor to the country and the Constitution, though. I think it is the obligation of every real American to either try to deradicalize such people, or, if that fails, to shame them back into the shadows.
So, as Thanksgiving approaches, remember you are not obliged to spend time with anyone you don’t enjoy spending time with. You’re not helping anyone by just letting MAGA relatives think they’re getting away with it.