I feel there is very little we can do individually to change people’s minds or turn them away from fascism, or even to get them to stop turning their own brains into soup, but you can still show them there are consequences to their actions.
Telling my own friends / relations what I think of them and cutting ties with them has done nothing to bring them back in line with normal human values, but at least I am not burdened with the guilt of my association, and maybe one day enough people will cut them off that the loneliness gets to them and they begin to re-evaluate their lives.
It is literally the least I can do. Any sadness I felt was heartbreak that they could be so shitty to begin with.
i haven’t exactly ‘cut them off’ but i visit my pat robertson/700 club watching grandma a lot less since i’ve had (and subsequently lost) a boyfriend. i think she’s just honestly stupid more than hateful, surrounded by other people with awful views and alone in her house most of the time watching nothing but emotionally manipulative psychological warfare in the form of Fox News and christian programming. she divorced my grandpa a long time ago and replaced one Old White Man Telling Her What To Think And Do with another whole set of them, on the TV. when we do visit my dad (a well meaning noam chomsky type ‘democratic socialist’ liberal) tries his best to gently correct her when she starts talking about politics and regurgitating fox news talking points, but the next day shes back on fox news alone at home and nothing sticks.