My parents have this excellent defense for their political views: they haven’t read anything.

There are no sources or statistics to undermine. Nothing. It’s impenetrable. They just weather the storm, give you a personal anecdote and say ‘Well, that’s just what I think’.
The ‘best’ you get is ‘I saw it on the news’.

But they can’t remember WHERE on the news or what channel. Just ‘somewhere on the news’. Apparently, the news they saw was so impactful and eye-opening they’ve completely forgotten the act of watching it.
I get the impression there’s a general drip-drip-drip of talking points they absorb while cleaning the kitchen, like spores that float in your ear canal.

So, because of this, there are too many immigrants and Margaret Thatcher was great, apparently. According to them.
And they doubt the effectiveness of the EU. Never mind that they can’t tell you what the EU does or that the party they keep voting for every time has destroyed the country with austerity and undermined the NHS. None of that hits their radar! They’re immune to it.
And these are retired older people who need medicine. It’s unreal. And they plan to vote Tory again. My mother even accepts my arguments and has no rebuttal, but it doesn’t change a thing.

Lately, she’s been going on about abortion. Slowly moving against it.
She gets upset about abortions now. Never cared before. And my dad thinks weed makes you insane or otherwise destroys your life, despite never having smoked it, knowing no one who smokes it, having no statistics to back up his views, and not knowing what marijuana even is.
If you go to the realm of anecdotes with it, he doesn’t know ONE person who’s messed themselves up with weed. He can’t even name one dumb actor or whoever - one celebrity from the news - who has. His ideological fuel is ‘general vibes about shit’.
I have to go and see them next month and I know how the arguments about politics will go:

1. They’ll say something weird
2. I’ll refute it with about seven fucking sources, statistics or just a pure attack on their logic
3. They’ll say let’s agree to disagree and go get a drink
They don’t even get angry. That’s the worst part.

There’s no epiphany born in the heat of conflict. I’m sure they just think ‘We’ll that’s James with his new-fangled STATISTICS and FACTS and INFORMATION and PROOF.’

I actually think they pity me or something.
From my mum in particular, I get this sense she thinks I want to vote for the wholesale destruction of the world. Like things are going so well as it is. Like the status quo politicians she supports are a safe pair of hands or some shit like that.
And they’re both so nice about it. They keep giving me food and saying it’s nice to see me. I get all these sincere and lingering hugs - tearful hugs where they physically crush me because I live in Japan and we hardly meet - while the ecosystem collapses outside the window.
They even admit things are going to shit and the hospitals are worse now. They admit the government is handling Brexit like a forklift truck in a game of Jenga. But they still want to vote the same people back into power. They tell me that’s what they’re gonna do then play...
...with their grandkids like there are zero stakes involved. My theory is that if you’ve got a bit of money and you’ve voted the same way more than about three times you’re near-unstoppable in your determination to re-evaluate precisely jack shit.
Anyway, that’s my rant over.

I love them to bits but they vote like they relish throwing gutter balls. No change in thinking or technique. Just years of gutter balls while the roof falls in.
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