I’ve had several conversations/arguments recently with my brother making clear my system of values and my hatred for the wealthy. He is nearly diametrically opposed on all accounts and often makes light of their actions. He goes so far as to say that poor people and people in need of social services should have to figure things out for themselves. He often defends Elon Musk and champions him for being self made.
He is getting married in a foreign country soon and I have been able to put aside our differences and have been planning on going
…up until yesterday that is. I asked him of his thoughts on Musk’s seig heil maneuver and he sent a right wing meme of democratic leaders caught mid wave, saying that “they did it first”. He continued to be avoidant and didn’t respond to me calling it a strawman.
In this moment it feels necessary to cancel my plans to send a message that this is not ok. Am I the (or an) asshole for not going to his wedding because of this?
Yes, this would be an asshole move for sure! You should leave politics behind at least for a day.
Do you want the option to see your brother again? Mend bridges at some future point?
There are some things you can’t take back. I have a grandmother in law that skipped my wife and I’s wedding and we have not spoken to her since.
I don’t want right wing apologia in my life. I do not enjoy biting my tongue to avoid arguments. I understand why you wouldn’t either. But skipping a wedding is serious and maybe permanent damage to your relationship. If it will free you and leave you better off, don’t go. If you will regret it, probably go and do the best you can.
The brother chose that path a long fucking time ago when he turned to nazidom.
The brother is responsible for tearing apart himself from family, not vice versa.
As with all things, this can be solved by some healthy passive-aggressions:
I’d go, drink heavily, find a random corner of vaguely like minded individuals and strike up a hearty politics convo with them. Don’t mention your brothers views, or even assume everyone you’re talking with agrees with you.
When your brother and his bride come around to ask how everyone is doing, smile blankly and nod politlely, and wait for him to leave.
Then resume the conversation.
As far as the Musk thing goes: I won’t even get into whether or not Musk was really trying to do a Nazi salute. Personally, I don’t think he was, Musk denies it, plenty of Jewish people and Jewish advocacy groups also say they don’t think it was intentional. But the important thing is, your brother doesn’t think it was intentional. So, at worst, he has committed the crime of being naive, and there’s a very good chance that he’s right and you’re wrong. If he said, yes Musk did a Nazi salute on purpose and then defended that, that would be way over the line. But honestly he sounds like a pretty run of the mill libertarian/conservative. And I will die on the hill that the vast majority of libertarians and conservatives are good people, even if I disagree with them politically.
If it siegs, heils, and screams discrimination, it’s a Nazi. No ifs, buts, or copes.
That guy certainly isn’t a run of the mill liberal/conservative if he tries to cop out his way out of that.
Also, Jewish advocacy groups worldwide aren’t exactly a good one to consult – as they often have been shown not to be independent, but work together with Israel’s government, which has a habit of ethnically cleansing Palestinians, like the current genocide in Palestine. The victims are turning into oppressors there, and that saddens me – ideally, Israeli, Jews, Muslims, Palestinians, agnosts and all alike should be able to live together in harmony.
That said, concerning Nazi aspects: assuming all other conditions are satisfied, you don’t even need to hate only Jews to be a Nazi. You can hate Palestinians and be a Nazi. Or queers. The original Nazis did that too. We were put up in concentration camps for being queer. And Musk hates those.
And your answer is, “Noooo, I don’t think he was sieg heiling”?! Come on.
You cannot be a good person until you actively work for the liberation of people, instead of voting against their rights. And reactionaries (that’s what I call ““conservatives””) do the opposite: they want us to go back to the Middle Ages.
With due respect, but your opinion should be reconsidered immediately.
I do think he wasn’t zeig heiling. So do most people in the real world who aren’t hooked in to leftist social media 24/7.
Anyways you’re missing the point. The point is that OPs brother thinks Musk didn’t do it. So are you really going to cut someone out of you life for having the majority opinion that someone isnt a Nazi and therefore is defensible?
“You cannot be a good person until you actively work for the liberation of people, instead of voting against their rights.”
“OK what if you think fetuses are people”
“But they arent”
“But I think they are, so I think I am morally righteous”
“But they aren’t and therefore you are a bad person”
Just using abortion as an example… I am strongly pro-choice myself but I dont think people are bad just because they are pro-life. Misguided? Sure, but thats hugely different than being evil. There is a ton of space in society for good people to have different political views. The notion that everyone who disagrees with you politically is a bad person is childish.
Using “jews” as approval means nothing. There were plenty of jews that supported hitler. To noones shock, the wolf killed the sheep.
So according to you his brother is wrong. He made a mistake in interpereting a hand gesture. You would cut him out of your family for that?
If they are defending a Nazi. They are a Nazi.
No don’t you get what I’m saying? Let’s say my acquaintance Jim is a Nazi. I, mistakenly, think he is not a Nazi. Someone calls Jim a Nazi and I say, “no, Jim’s cool, he’s not like that”. That would make me WRONG. It would not make me a NAZI. People get fooled all the time, a fact everyone in this thread seems to be forgetting, and that fallibility applies just as much to Musk’s accusers as his defenders.
If they refuse to accept the overhwleming evidence, yes.
You would say there is overwhelming evidence that Musk is a Nazi? I’d like to see it.
In fact, the idea that they are using “Jews” approval here as some sort of defense is rather questionable tactic.
Are “Jews” some sort of authority on what a nazi is?
Do the rest of us need to accept whatever the “Jews” say
Shit is fucking sus
Didn’t read the post body. NTA.
Don’t let politics affect your social life, that’s the entire point of why they want us fighting culture wars.
Just ignore your brothers stupid takes.
Ps. Fedi comments are fucking based AF here.
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you’ll never be an asshole for not dealing with nazi apologists homie
Perhaps I should clarify things even further:
They are actually already married and I was at their first wedding. It was done at the courthouse during the pandemic so they could initiate her greencard application. This upcoming wedding is more of a celebration for the families.
I have two other brothers who are not going for unrelated reasons.
Not that these facts necessarily change anything, I felt they’re worth bearing in mind.
Yeah, you went to the wedding already. You did your part. Asking you to go to another country for something that’s already done just screams “give me attention” more than a wedding already does. That should be enough on its own.
That changes nothing. You need to decode whether you want your brother in your life and how much if the family ypu would want cutting off.
I think you should go and sarcastically call his wife a DEI hire/wife the whole time lol
DEI hire/foreign worker lmao
I think that does change things.
I was previously inclined towards something like, “He’s your brother, and I would try and say to him that while you disagree with him as fully as it’s possible to, you will still be there because he’s your brother, and that still means something to you” or similar. Something that might get him to understand that this isn’t easy for you.
However, if you were already at his actual wedding, and this is just a party in another country, nah - tbh, I think it’d be fair to give it a miss even if he wasn’t being a Nazi apologist.
In theory, it would be much better to keep debating calmly without personal attacks. Giving up on friends and relatives will keep polarizing society and lead to a civil war in the end. I know this is difficult, when there is no common ground, and neither facts not science exist anymore.
If we can’t say nazi what’s a better way to describe an authoritarian who supports far right German political parties and openly throws nazi salutes?
Ah sorry, I edited this out before I read your comment. I get what you are saying, but insults solve no problem. People will just feel insulted and hurt you back, pushing society further apart. Maybe we need to talk more about what we fear. And this might work better if you talk to your family than some random.
Maybe the Nazi needs to listen instead of vice versa.
Comrade, what you’re proposing is conversationally moving the goalposts. Nazis are pushing society apart, not us. We simply remained normal.
I cut my sister out of my life and didn’t go to her wedding for similar reasons. I don’t regret it one bit and it has helped my mental health tremendously. However, I didn’t do it to “teach her a lesson,” or “prove anything,” I did it so I could live with myself, and stay true to my values. We all only have limited time and energy on this planet, so think about the way you spend them and what’s most important to you. For me, my biological family is toxic. My chosen family is awesome.
I relate to this very strongly. And maybe it’s not an AITAH type question — I think of it as doing something for myself more than anything else. Sure I might lose relationships with family members but what will I gain emotionally and mentally? And will that outweigh the familial loss in the long run? … Lots to think about
Feel free to reach out to me directly if I can be a sounding board or anything. Best of luck…it’s certainly not easy, but for me, it was worth the introspection and effort.
Really? How hard is it to not talk politics.
With right wingers, it’s completely impossible.
Seems overly dramatic. I don’t think you’re an asshole, but somebody who should realize you don’t deradicalize your family by being emotionally unstable.
The emotionally unstable one is the Nazi :3
Wanting to have people die/suffer for being Jewish, Palestinian, queer, or whatever, that IS emotional instability. Normal people don’t want others to die. :3
I have recently nuked relationships over different values. It hurt but I know in my heart it was the right thing to do. I dont want to be the type of person that has a person like that in my life and covers for them.
Consider if this person is worth sacrificing your personal values and morals for.
“My brother calls me a moron and punches me in the dick every day and I don’t want to let him anymore, am I the asshole?”
“I waggle my dick in front of my brother and he punches it every time”
From OPs context, and they could certainly clarify, but it sounds like they just won’t shut up about class struggle, wealth inequality… For which for the terminally online there is an endless appetite for and you can find a cozy echo chamber to nuzzle up in.
So his brother doesn’t share the same views on Elon musk.ok. he obviously knows this by now. Why does he insist on asking about it? Why ask a question that has no bearing on either of your lives where if you don’t get an agreement on you’ll be so mad you’ll not go to their wedding when you know the answer ahead of time.
They’re both assholes. He shouldn’t go to the wedding but honestly based on the context as presented I don’t think the brother is going to be upset about it.
Maybe you should shut up instead of thinking someone is an asshole for disliking a nazi? What the fuck are you on?
He’s not an asshole for disliking a Nazi. He’s an asshole for deciding to spring a question he knows the answer to which apparently demands of him to boycott a wedding.
His idiot brother likes Elon Musk. The brother isn’t disinviting him. OP is the one who created and is enforcing a rule about Elon.
I have no idea what the family dynamics are, but if they’re otherwise good and you’re willing to burn your family relationships because they don’t share your views on Elon Musk, wowza.
If that was really the case and if I was OP I’d go to that wedding, get absolutely shitfaced in the least amount of time my liver allows me to and let the shitshow begin.
There is no point in peaceful confrontation when the world is burning.It’s amazing to me how willing people are to play the part of the shrill reee-ing blue haired archetype foil that Republicans created.
I’m going to get drunk and ruin a wedding. THAT will fix the world.
No, dumbass, it’s going to validate everything fox news has been telling their base about the left. You have absolutely no self awareness, and will ruin your brother’s wedding as if he was the CEO of Shell even though he’s a construction worker in rural Montana.
Be the strawman the Republicans want you to be!
How ironic.
“A nazi thinks people suck!!! So if I’m behaving NORMALLY, then I’m the problem!” Is essentially what you say.
Who then is the problem? If you can’t see that for yourself, I suggest you remove your profile from Lemmy.
You are projecting a lot of things I haven’t said: I’m not crashing a wedding for any sense of politics, this is beyond any political motivation. This is personal.
If I have a beef with my brother, or any other member of my family, and they invite me to their wedding, boy am I making them regret this decision.
Everyone at that party is going to think twice before sending me that golden print letter in the future. No one thinks you’re a “crazy liberal” when you’re puking orange juice and vodka you brought from home in the punchbowl and then shout out “Don’t worry everyone, it’s just gonna taste better!”
If your brother defending a nazi salute at a nazi inauguration isn’t reason enough for you to sit out his wedding, what on earth would be?
