19 People Whose Loved Ones Drastically Changed Their Political Stances Are Sharing Their Stories, And It's Strikingly Relatable
We asked members of the BuzzFeed Community to tell us about their loved ones who they've watched change politically over the years. Here's what people noted:
Warning: Submissions contain racist, anti-LGBTQ+, and generally hateful rhetoric, as well as mentions of sexual assault.
1."My dad was always conservative, even up through Trump being elected in 2016. However, around that time, he read the book Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town by Jon Krakauer. This book seemed to be the catalyst for his political change. Suddenly, he realized that girls do nothing to 'ask for it,' which made him question other things as well. He also began disagreeing with Trump's policies around this time. Now, in 2024, my dad is a hard-core liberal, but he still lets Trump rule his life. He is constantly talking about how awful Trump is, which everyone else in the family has always known! I am glad he's learned and grown, but I would be happy not to continue with the Trump conversations whenever I go home."
—Anonymous
2."My brother has always spent most of his free time online, but he started getting into Joe Rogan's podcast over COVID, then continued further down the conservative rabbit hole. Now, he's an anti-vaxer and a die-hard Trump fan. He also showed his true colors when I referred to incels (not calling him one), and he told me it was a 'derogatory name invented by sluts who think they're too good to have sex with actual good men.' He hates anyone in the LGBTQ+ community and blames immigrants for all the problems of the world. He claims to be religious (we were raised going to church pretty much every Sunday, but not overly religious), but I think he just uses it to excuse his prejudices. He's the quintessential young Trump voter, and I don't even recognize him anymore."
3."My parents moved to the South from the West Coast several years ago, and their personalities have changed significantly. My dad told me not to follow the crowd, and my mom always told me to dance to the beat of my own drum. I think their younger selves would be disappointed that they've turned into Trump super-fans and, from the outside, look and sound like cult followers. They can't give me coherent answers on why they have shifted so dramatically. I went to their house one night, and they were glued to Fox News, and I couldn't stand it for five minutes. I started calling it the 'brainwashing channel.' I love my parents, but I'm sad they've lost themselves in groupthink. I've slowly stopped visiting and am uncomfortable leaving my kids with them because they parrot all the strange stuff from Facebook and the news."
—Anonymous
4."My dad was non-political and a generally progressive person when I was growing up. The pandemic changed everything. A combination of fear and social isolation led him down the rabbit hole of online conspiracy theories. Since then, he's become a very hateful MAGA keyboard warrior who spews nonsense at any given opportunity. He spends all of his free time glued to the computer, consuming brain-rotting conservative content. It's impossible to have an intelligent conversation with him anymore. Our relationship hasn't been the same since and probably never will be."
—Anonymous
5."My uncle, who is a lifelong Republican (of sorts), says that this is the first time he's voting for a Democrat. He was a judge in our suburban Missouri county for several years and just retired from running the Children's Division. He didn't believe judges should run on parties but had to so he could serve as one. He's one of the most eloquent and intelligent people I know. While it wasn't a big shift (he was never MAGA and can't stand the guy), it was still a shift nonetheless."
6."My dad was a moderate Republican and ran for (and won) public office for years on the Republican ticket. He also admired many Democrats. One of them was Thurgood Marshall. When George H. W. Bush picked the unqualified, unstable Clarence Thomas (who was quite likely a sexual harasser) to replace Marshall, he voted for Bill Clinton. My dad got more and more liberal as the years progressed. He came to despise the Republican Party and never voted for their candidates again."
7."My sister and brother-in-law were always Republicans since he was in the Army during Vietnam. During a recent lunch for her birthday, my sister revealed that she was worried about what would happen if Trump won. I was shocked but happy, as I had been trying to tell them for years the Republicans are chasing fascism and catching up."
8."My grandfather refuses to vote for Trump again after the continued lies, dangerous rhetoric, January 6, and being found guilty of several crimes several times. He's been a lifelong Republican and is voting Harris-Walz."
9."My stepmom spent her career as a public school teacher, a Democrat, and a huge union supporter. What changed? She retired, married my father, joined two private clubs, got a large sailboat, and scored a lakefront house. The saddest was when we were at the peak of COVID-19, and she would go on rants about how schools should be open and how teachers were just lazy."
10."My mom was a Republican until 2016. When Trump started to gain traction, she realized that a lot of the rhetoric from that side of the aisle became more and more extreme, and she finally saw how the party's views on immigration and rights for women and minority groups didn't appeal to her values. We are also Arizonans, and she didn't like how Trump mocked John McCain for being a prisoner of war."
11."My mother was a staunch anti-LGBTQ+, anti-abortion, anti-immigrant, no physical affection before marriage type. A series of events over several years had to occur for my mom to change. I, the black sheep, had a child out of wedlock (the horror!). Said grandchild became the light of my mother's life. My youngest sister, my mom's favorite, came out to my parents. While pregnant with my second child, we learned that I had placenta previa, and after consulting multiple doctors, we chose to terminate the pregnancy for my safety. My dad was diagnosed with cancer, and my parents just about lost their house due to medical bills. The church was nowhere to be found during any of this. The doctor who took a chance on my dad and saved his life was, you guessed it, an immigrant."
"It took huge, horrific life events for my mom to undo the brainwashing and ignorance her family passed down for generations. There was a time when she would have worshipped Trump. Now, she can't stand the sound of his voice."
12."When my sister was in high school, she was president of the Young Democrats club. Now, she has a giant Trump banner in front of her house 😩. I think the shift started when she dated more conservative men and started adapting to align with their views. It got worse when she moved to a rural area for several years. She works in healthcare and initially wanted to provide free care and work in public health, but I think some things she saw in her internships solidified her conservative beliefs."
"She saw so many people who just didn't care for themselves and only came in for help when care was past due. She also encountered people who didn't take good care of their kids. While this would make me want to dive deeper into public health, I think it jaded her. She didn't want to deal with people she thought were taking advantage of the system. She saw them as opting to rot rather than better themselves. I don't agree with her views at all, though, and I'm shocked how someone so smart and well-educated could fall prey to such absurd lies, fake news, and conspiracy theories."
—Anonymous
13."My mom used to be a moderate Democrat and now is a big Trump supporter. She explains that she believes two things: 1) Trump isn't actually racist or dangerous and is just being disparaged by the media, and 2) the parties have shifted in their positions. She thinks the old Democratic Party used to be more populist and the old Republican Party used to be for the elites and that now they have swapped places."
14."My husband was a Trump voter because of the economy and foreign policy; he would also say he thought Trump was a horrible human being. Trump was the 'lesser of two evils.' We got married knowing we voted for two different parties, yet we understood we both wanted the same thing but had different ways of getting there. However, while we were talking, I told him how upset it made me he would vote for someone who was a convicted felon, sexually assaulted women, and looked out only for himself. He was the antithesis of everything I stood for. At that moment, my husband said he would vote for Harris because he loves me more than any politician. He said he would trust me if I felt that strongly against Trump. I'd never felt more loved and seen than in that moment. I bawled like a baby."
15."I have a disgusting uncle who went deep down the racist rabbit hole while Obama was in office and is now a die-hard Trump devotee. He has signs in his yard warning Black people to stay off his property, or he'll shoot them. He had always been a Republican, but now he's old, and he has just completely lost it. He's a sick man."
16."My brother-in-law and I are both 24 and live in southeastern VA. He's never been overly concerned with politics and usually leaned more Democrat. My husband and I visited a few weeks ago, and I casually asked if he was registered to vote at his new address. He then went on this tangent about how both parties are evil, and he doesn't want to vote for either, but if he is going to vote, he's going to vote for Trump. He somehow got it in his head that Democrats were planning on trying to repeal the First Amendment right to freedom of speech, which is not true. My husband and I tried to figure out if he had just misunderstood something he saw online or where he heard that from, but he kept saying he couldn't remember a specific source but said he saw it too much for it not to be true."
"My husband mentioned to him that voting for Trump was very dangerous, especially since we're both teachers and Project 2025 mentions dismantling the entire Department of Education. My brother-in-law didn't care. I told him he was worrying me, and he didn't care about that either. He's fallen down the rabbit hole of MAGA incels who have convinced him that as a white, middle-class, generally overweight, and unattractive guy, he's the one being discriminated against. I guess he likes the reassurance that he has been mistreated rather than having the empathy to learn/care for the sake of others."
—Anonymous
17."For me, it was my grandfather. He passed a year ago, and I miss him dearly, but my heart breaks thinking of his views in his final years. For as long as I can remember, he was a card-carrying Republican and proud of it! He even ran for office a few times while I was in elementary school 30-ish years ago. He was never elected, but I think his pride in running for office as a Republican painted the rest of his life. It's like he felt that he MUST support the top Republican at all times, or he'd be betraying his party. Somewhere along the way, he lost sight of his beliefs. He had a daughter, my aunt, who is a lesbian. For most of my life, I remember him being nothing but supportive, loving, and proud of her, to the extent of doting on her at times."
"In the years leading up to his passing, while Trump was in office, he began expressing support for measures that would limit the rights of the LGBTQ+ community, despite knowing that these ideals could and likely would hurt his daughter if they were to pass. It caused a rift between them and others in our family as well. My grandfather also married a woman who was the daughter of Mexican immigrants. Before his passing, though, he and his wife became estranged. There was fault on both sides, but I'm sure my grandfather's increasing racist views on immigrants did not help their relationship in any way.
The single incident that really sticks out for me came a couple of years before his passing while Trump was in office: the Thanksgiving right before COVID-19 hit the US. We gathered at my parents' place, the usual place for the holidays. Four generations of our family were gathered around the table eating good food, having a good time, and trying to avoid politics (the number one rule of Thanksgiving dinner, right?). My grandfather wanted to keep bringing the conversation back to politics and his fervent love for Donald Trump. Most of us around the table had not voted for Trump, but we all tried to keep the conversation civil and light. I forget exactly how, but the conversation came to a boiling point, and my once even-handed grandfather exclaimed, 'Look! If you voted for that bitch Hillary, or you don't like Donald Trump, then you're an asshole!' The whole room went silent with shock. I was sitting next to him, and all I could think to say was, 'Well then, I guess that means you think I'm an asshole?' My grandfather looked me right in my eyes and said, 'Yes, you're an asshole.'
At that point, my dad had had enough. He stood up and said, 'That's your grandchild. You are a guest here. I will not have that. Apologize or leave now.' My grandfather stood up and left. He later said he didn't remember what happened, just that Thanksgiving ended abruptly. But he also never really apologized. Our dynamic was never the same, and our relationship was never repaired. And that's how I saw firsthand the damage that blind faith in a political party can cause. It wasn't one thing, not one trigger, but a lifetime of putting party before everything else."
—Anonymous
18."My mom's cousin, born in the Philippines, voted for Trump in the 2016 election. However, some Trump administration policies forced her to return to the Philippines for a long time. Some people in our family got some lawyers involved, and she was eventually able to come back to the US. In 2020, she did not vote for Trump."
—Anonymous
19.And: "My parents are good people — smart, loving, and generous. They stood up to my grandfather, who didn't want Black people at their wedding. They threatened to elope if they couldn't invite their friend and her family. They instilled these values in me, which is why this breaks my heart. The catalyst was Reagan's rescinding of the Fairness Doctrine and the rise of right-wing radio. My dad likes to hunt. He's very pro-Second Amendment and has always been a responsible gun owner. But it was the rest of the hideous propaganda that seeped into them. Then, Fox News emerged, and now, it has gone deeper and deeper. They're still loving people, but underneath it, you can hear the Fox News talking points about illegal immigrants, Muslims, and the big boogeyman: socialism. It's like they can't see how these points are at odds with their own beliefs. Keep feeding them fear and misinformation, and you can control the masses."
—Anonymous
Have you ever watched a loved one undergo a major shift in political beliefs? What inspired the change? Tell us in the comments or share your story anonymously using this form.
Note: Submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity.
