I (21M) live in an Ohio household of hardcore Trumpers who, unfortunately, found out that I voted for Kamala Harris.
My father and brother are fascists. They believe in killing anyone who disagrees with Trumpism. My mother is not violent, but drank basically all the QAnon Kool-Aid and is batshit insane.
I am disabled. My cognitive ability suffers severely if I sit up or stand up for more than a few minutes. I also have another condition that requires me to avoid bending my neck, so I have to keep it straight. I also can’t safely lift anything that’s heavier than a few pounds, so anything more than that is very risky. I can push and pull fine.
I am also financially-dependent on my mother at the moment.
We moved to a new house recently, and the walls are very thin. That allowed me to overhear a private conversation between my father and brother.
My brother said that he hates Harris supporters so much that he wants a day of retribution where he goes on a violent rampage to kill everyone he knows who supports her, especially gay and transgender people. When my dad asked if that included me, he did not hesitate to say “Sure.”
My brother is in peak physical condition. He owns guns and has military training. I had long suspected that he is the biggest potential threat to my life, but gaslighted myself into thinking I was overreacting. Today, he confirmed it.
My brother isn’t the type to throw out threats of violence willy-nilly. He has also physically abused me in the past when we were younger and has major anger issues. I believe that I have to take this threat seriously, and that means that I need to evacuate ASAP. I think the most likely day for him to act is on election night or shortly after, which would give me just over a week. But then again, I can’t be sure. Maybe he is planning a surprise.
My mother is too unreasonable to take any of this seriously.
I have a few thousand dollars and Democratic relatives from the South who might potentially take me in, though I don’t know for sure if they will, since we’re not close emotionally. I also don’t know if my brother will go out of his way to target them once he notices my absence. He is going to an out-of-state Trump rally this week, so I know that he doesn’t have much trouble crossing state lines.
I don’t know where my birth certificate and social security card are, other than that my mother has them somewhere. My father is home the entire time and stays in one spot where he can see everything. Even if I knew where they were, there is no way for me to retrieve them without him noticing.
Fuck fascism. I was born to a family of vile abusive sociopaths. It was hell the whole time. I won’t miss any of them. Fuck them. They are a disappointment to the rest of my family line. I spent my entire life learning how to become a decent human being in spite of it all and now the fuckers want me dead. FUCK. THEM.
The thing that separates me from the rest of my family is empathy. I refused to hate the people they wanted me to hate. Instead, I listened to their stories and befriended them. I care about everyone, not just straight white Christians. I voted for Harris because I wanted the best for everyone, which means preventing the installation of an authoritarian regime. And for that, I must pay the ultimate price.
I may never get to experience love or deep friendship, but no matter how this all ends, I vow to spend the rest of my days pouring out as much love and joy as I can out to every last ally I meet.
Any advice would be helpful. I don’t want to wait, but I also can’t do this without some kind of plan. I have no idea what the fuck I’m doing, so any input is appreciated.
Thank you.
This reads as a shitpost, but I’ll advise on the chance it isn’t and you’re in a crazy deadly situation.
Make a show of applying for remote Jobs ASAP, do it tomorrow. Dress up nice for the “E-meetings”, and then hop in discord or something with a friend and have an “Interview” that goes well.
Then, explain to your family that you need to submit documents to HR to complete onboarding. Get ALL your personal documents in hand, and then ride off into the sunset away from them.
At the very least it’s a copy paste from a popular reddit post, and it indeed reads like a shitpost that combines every single trope…
First, you need to know, you did NOTHING wrong. Your family is the problem, NOT YOU.
Second, when you say you are “financially-dependent on my mother at the moment.” it’s quite likely the other way around. If you’re as disabled as you say, you should be getting disability benefits, paid to YOU, not them. Likely they were collecting before you turned 18, but at 21 those benefits are YOURS, not theirs.
Third, don’t sweat the birth certificate or SSN. Those are just paper and there’s a process to replace them, a process you can’t start if they harm you.
GTFO. Now. While you can. Take your benefits with you, cut them off and let them hang.
Absolutely agree with you, but one thing to note is the existence of what’s called representative payees. OP would have likely had to sign a form for it at 21, unless they were verifiably incapacitated at the time, but a rep payee is, for an intents and purposes, the beneficiary as far as the social security department is concerned.
Which is NOT to say don’t leave. It just means that OP needs to contact social security the instant they are clear of danger or being overheard.
The moment you’re safe, contact the SSD and ask them to verify your status as the primary on your account. If your mother (or someone else) is not the rep payee, then you’re clear. If they are, you need to ask for the paperwork to transfer your benefits back to yourself, which may involve having to go through a judge. That said, keep a record of any communications between yourself and whoever the rep payee is. Ohio is a one party consent state, meaning you are legally allowed to record your phone calls as long as one party is aware and consents, namely yourself. Text based communication is easier, though.
If you are able to contact anyone (guessing you can since you’re posting this) I would suggest contacting progressive organizations in your area. Women’s shelters, even if you’re male, may be able to help you, or direct you to someone who can help. Gay organizations often have some resources in place for teens who have disowned. The DSA, the episcopal church, the metropolitan community Church, the United Church of Christ, any Sikh, Buddhist, and often Hindu community centers are also notorious for being home to progressive members. Sadly, they likely don’t have anything in place for such a rescue mission already, but they may well be a member willing to assist.
Best option is if there’s an anarchist mutual aid org near you, but that’s unlikely.
I wish you all the luck and success in there.
This also ended up longer than I anticipated going in, so posting it as a full comment in and of itself, too.
Here is my advice. When someone tells you who they are believe them. Get out. DO NOT contact police or any kind of law enforcement until you are gone and safe. People like this will escalate if they feel threatened.
You can get new documents, clothes and items. Even if you only escape with the clothes on your back, wallet and phone. Make sure your family cannot track your phone. Make sure any communication you have with your helpers is locked down. Use an app your family doesn’t use or understand, like Snapchat or Discord. Have your helpers or uber pick you up a few houses down in the middle of the night if you have to.
You would be surpised who still cares for you. Reach out to family, to old friends, to anyone you think could help, either by giving you a ride or taking you in for awhile. I haven’t talked to my best friend from collage for over a decade, but if she called me needing help I would drop everything and head her way.
Also, I live east coast and hell, maybe I could give you a ride to somewhere depending on where you are going.
Lastly, please take this seriously. You are not overreacting. Your life may very well be in danger, and just like with any other abusive relationship, leaving is the most dangerous part. Nothing you own outside of your ID and medications are worth dying for.
Use an app your family doesn’t use or understand, like Snapchat or Discord.
Nah, use Signal, they definitely won’t use it, cause it’s “woke leftist crap”
Signal posted this on Twitter a few years ago:
And this is what the Trump cultists had to say about it:
So you can definitely be sure that they don’t use it
It’s also much more private and secure than Snapchat or Discord. I would avoid Discord, since it’s not encrypted and your chats are saved to your account. If someone gets your password, they can read all your chats. Signal only saves them on your device, so you’re safe.
@sprigatito_bread@lemmy.world
How can they say that when Truth Social is a fork of Mastodon lol
There’s a pretty easy explanation for it. In fact, it’s just one simple word: stupidity
Absolutely, Element is fine too. Signal is easier to use tho
Your comment feels like it’s replying to the title of the thread and not to the context of the post.
OP is disabled, literally struggles to move on their own, and is financially dependent on their mother. Most of your advice is boilerplate and unactionable for them.
My brother said that he hates Harris supporters so much that he wants a day of retribution where he goes on a violent rampage to kill everyone he knows who supports her, especially gay and transgender people. When my dad asked if that included me, he did not hesitate to say “Sure.”
Isn’t that already a case for the police or FBI or something?
My first thought also. I get people not wanting to get the police involved (i.e. some officers may share the sibling and father’s sentiment), but this is definitely a situation where authorities should be contacted. This really feels like we’re going to hear in like two months a local TV reporter say the words: “from a FOI request, we’ve learned that the two suspects were on police radar for months.”
Isn’t that already a case for the police or FBI or something?
Yes
Where the police are also trumpers? Hell no.
FBI would be federal officers, no?
Correct, and this sounds like it’s crossing state lines which means it’s federal jurisdiction.
You need to call your relatives. If one of my second cousins whom I never met gives me a call saying that they are in your position and don’t know where to turn I am driving out 4 hours to pick them up at the drop of a hat.
It is going to be be hard but there are means to get free. Explore your options once you are safe but right now job one is get safe.
If you’re serious go to the police immediately and remove yourself from physical danger, deal with the rest of it later
Having been involved in a conversation about this sort of family dynamic with police, I wouldn’t recommend it. Unless OP is in a gigantic city, he is not going to receive any help from the police that actually protects him. What will happen is the police will listen to his story, then go talk to the other parties involved to get their story.
If an officer believes him right off the bat, they can/may hold off on talking to the rest of the family and tipping them off that OP is making these claims, but even in that case OP still may be stuck in the house. They might be able to connect him to a shelter. Might. The problem is that he is male. Male domestic violence shelters are almost certainly going to be a shit-show at best, and 95% chance there isn’t a shelter for males of domestic violence within any distance that the cops would help him get to.
The best bet for OP that involves cops is to follow Chonk’s advice: https://links.hackliberty.org/post/3089471/5115602
Use the cops for what they are actually good at: protecting you in the exact moment they are there. Anything else is going to be a time-consuming investigation, unless the brother/father literally admit to planning to kill OP.
Pigs are also more likely to side with the fascists.
The cops are not good at protecting you, wherever they are, but sometimes they’re good at protecting themselves.
I agree that going to the cops probably wouldn’t keep OP safe. But it would give the cops a starting point if a dead body turned up. They would know exactly where to start looking, and they probably would do so. But couldn’t lead to more harm than it is likely to prevent? Yes, possibly. It’s hard to make that determination without knowing more details about the city.
I have to agree, local cops cannot be trusted to totally be impartial, and may be sympathetic to their ideology.
A bus ticket to a large city or college town should get you back to the real world, where you’re more likely to be safe.
Record and document everything.
Murder threats are always serious. EDIT: When the victim thinks they are not - the most. It’s a protection mechanism or something, if a person receives murder threats and waves those off, it means the situation is really serious. When a threat alarms them, it may or may not be serious. But if it doesn’t, then run. Cause it means that the threat has been preceded by something less direct to desensitize them to threats from that person or group.
Sadly, the local police/FBI likely aren’t going to do shit for you and will only increase the risk of you getting found out by the people you’re living with. I’d wait until you’re out to contact them.
Your non-crazy relatives seem like your best bet, provided they’re willing to put themselves between you and your potentially violent acquaintances should it come to that. Be honest with them.
Otherwise, people have suggested abuse hotlines and organizations, that’s probably a good place to start. If I were in your situation and I had nowhere else to turn, I’d probably reach out to the church I went to when I grew up. I’m no longer Christian but the church I went to was exceptionally open minded and left leaning and I would trust the leaders to understand and help me how they could. Maybe you know of or could ask around about a place like that in your region? I would avoid anything within your town if possible since word is likely to get back to the people you’re currently living with.
Really sorry you’re in this situation. I’m all the way on the west coast but I have a network of resources in central IL if you end up there. Reach out if you can think of more ways I can help.
My home church growing up was right leaning and as much as I hate them, I still feel like if I was in OP’s shoes it would still be a good bet. To be fair they were more center right than far right but still.
Contact the police and FBI once you are safe. You may very well save lives.
Doubtful either will do anything but maybe make a report that might be ready if they are murdered. Cops will say there is nothing they can do because nobody is hurt. I’d bet a field agent would never call you back or show up.
You don’t have family there. You have relatives.
Honestly I would report the threat to the FBI. He is planning terroristic murders across an entire population of the general public and across state lines.
Assuming this is real, and that you have a cell phone, I think your best resource is your not crazy relatives. Ask to visit. I find it more likely your brother is just boasting and full of shit, but if you are physically delicate, it could still end badly.
So call them and tell them what you told us, that you are worried. If they invite you, that will be an excuse to get your stuff from your mom. You need allies.
The absolute state of these lunatics, november is gonna be messy for us with either candidate ugh. Call the cops, leave, start over, etc im so sorry.
It’s terrifying. If you’re in a position to, and don’t already have one, I’m encouraging everyone on the left to get a decent gun. Cheapest option is an assault 12 gauge. These people are full on, insane fascists. Their “day of retribution” will be a lot harder to impossible if we’re armed.
Im not bothering to register and buy a gun for the first time this late in the game so ill take my chances. I live in california so im not that worried but its been unpleasant being around strangers the last couple of months that I feel like this charade of rat race late stage capitalism is making everyone a little more psychotic every day.
Yeah, that’s fair. Especially in somewhere like California.
But yes, it’s absolutely wild. Just yesterday, in a very blue state, there was an army of Trumpers blocking like 3 intersections in their lifted trucks with Trump flags. They were screaming at everyone stuck watching the charade. It’s gotten, like you said, psychotic.
I’d been trying to promote gun ownership and training among left leaning folks since early 2016. Took various friends and Facebook randoms to the range and taught them to shoot. Have had motivation issues with that project for a while though.
Cheapest option is an assault 12 gauge.
I don’t think I’ve come across any “assault shotguns”, but maybe you’re referring to the “tactical” variants? They’ll typically come in black rather than wooden or camo pattern, have shorter barrels, and hold more ammo when compared with hunting shotguns.
It’s important to note that shotguns aren’t super beginner friendly, though they’re probably the most financially accessible option for home defense. One piece of advice I would give is to look up what “cheek weld” is when using a shotgun (in additional to general safety and usage info). We’re also pretty late in the game here for those that are worried about election-related violence, since developing marksmanship skills takes time. Better late than never though, just try to get at least one range trip in so that you can familiarize yourself with the basics.
Not looking to turn this into a guns thread, since that wouldn’t be very useful for the OP. If anyone has any questions on the subject, you could make a post in one of these communities, and I (and probably others) can give advice:
Thanks for promoting responsible gun ownership. While I don’t believe in killing in any fashion, I do enjoy shooting. I’ve never been hunting and don’t even eat meat, but there’s something really fun about shooting all types of guns and improving your skills. It also made me a much better wildlife photographer. :-p
When it comes to shotguns, if you want a nice budget option, Mossberg Maverick 88 is a pretty good option, or if you’re willing to pay a bit more for higher quality Mossberg 500.
If you have a higher budget I’d recommend a rifle. AR platform.
You’re right. Tactical is the more common name. I see them listed both ways. But yeah, you can get those cheap as hell. While not beginner friendly, they’ll do the job if the biggest concern is cost.
And that’s true, but I think it’s important to note that Trump is a symptom, not the disease itself. The disease is his base, and the corruption of their belief in democracy. I hope I’m wrong, but I feel like we’ll see this level of politics for a while more.
But good on you for doing the footwork! And thanks for linking those instances!
And that’s true, but I think it’s important to note that Trump is a symptom, not the disease itself. The disease is his base, and the corruption of their belief in democracy. I hope I’m wrong, but I feel like we’ll see this level of politics for a while more.
It goes both ways, really. You’re right in that Trump couldn’t have gotten elected without the existence of that reactionary base. That’s always existed in American politics, though its strength has varied over time. However, his presence in politics energizes them, and inspires them to organize and spread their propaganda, while also serving as a powerful propaganda mouthpiece himself.
You’re also right that Trump’s exit from politics won’t calm things down right away. Hopefully his movement won’t find a new Fuhrer figure, though that’s always a possibility.
I really curious how they found out that you voted for Harris. Was the party dumb enough to send you a thank you letter with blue stickers or something?
That’s my question too, do they not have a secret ballot in the US? If they do (and I’m pretty sure they do) my advice to OP is to deny who they voted for until they can get to safety, “was just joking about voting Harris” is a perfectly reasonable lie if your safety is threatened, the family would have no proof or way of finding out.
In the US our actual vote is secret and anonymous, so it is possible to hide who you “pull the lever” for. When you vote in the primary however, (in most states) it is recorded which party’s primary you choose to vote in (but again your actual vote is secret) . This is a matter of public record (don’t ask me why) and campaigns use that info to target people based on their likelihood to vote for them. So if OP chose to vote in the Dem primary, their name would be on record as having participated in that Dem primary, and the local/state/national Democratic Party probably would have sent campaign materials to their address (not like thank you notes, but more like ads for Dem candidates and causes), and their family may have deduced that they had an “outsider” amongst them. Another scenario is that OP may have just been honest with them when they asked.
This is a matter of public record (don’t ask me why)
At least in some states it’s because it’s illegal to vote in more than one party’s primary. Can’t enforce that if you don’t know who voted in which.
You would think they could store that information privately, and have it be accessible privately, without it needing to be entirely public.
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Our vote is not secret. You should probably go read up on just how “private” our voting information js.
I would love to be proven wrong. Source?
The entire scenario sounds completely fabricated. Voting in the US is completely private unless the person asks for assistance. Also the amount of detail the OP provided reads like fan fiction.
Cards against humanity/Super PAC’s disagree.
Its actually stupid easy to get information about who you voted for.
That’s not who you voted for but that you voted in the election.
Do you really not know who your family likely voted for, or your roommates? People like this don’t need a registered ballot result to make an inference that lets them act violently; unless he’d had the foresight to play at being a Trump convert months ago, I think this story is extremely credible.
Some states will tell you just about everything about a voter with only their name and birthdate. Not that far feteched
It’s absolutely fake
I would wager an average US mail carrier could correctly assume who a household has voted for just from the correspondences delivered during any given election season.
For people who are worried about what their family members would think, probably they’re not donating or signing up for newsletters, so their postal mail is not going to give you much information.
A lot can be inferred. OP probably has talked about his political beliefs before with their family present (or eavesdropped). Either that, or OP had some arguments with his dad and his brother and they’re now taking leaps of faith thinking he must be a democrat.
It’s the latter.
Arguably a stupid mistake in retrospect, but all I said was that genocide against LGBTQ+ people is evil because genocide is evil, period.
I believed that opposing genocide was still in the Overton window and they hadn’t gone full fash yet.
But then they told me who they really were.
That’s when they began to constantly accuse me of voting for Harris. Because I opposed the mass killing of innocent people. I was already the oddball in my family for not spewing hateful rhetoric every day, so it was a believable narrative to them.
Maybe my brother doesn’t believe for sure that I voted for Harris and just included me in his hit list because I oppose the killing that he wants to do. Either way, the end result is the same.
Damn, I can’t believe how toxic some people can be. I hope you find a safe spot asap, OP.
Nothing to contribute to the conversation here, but fuck, I’m so sorry you have to go through this. Please do let us know if you get out of this alive.
You don’t need your birth certificate or social security card. They are easy to replace. A birth certificate is a public record: you can order it from whatever government agency handles vital records in the county of your birth.
Social security card is marginally more difficult, but if you know the number, it is surprisingly easy. Just go down to the nearest social security office with your story, and they’ll get it sent to you.
You can only do it like 6 times in your life, but you rarely need the card itself anymore.
Wait what happens at the 7th time?
it’s like failing a catchpa.
They determine you are no longer you and you have to just start a new identity from scratch.
Get off the grid with this one weird trick
Don’t tell the SovCits.
You can’t tell the SovCits anything. Maybe we’re supposed to have a sheriff inform the human being while we simultaneously address the straw man and thusly create joinder… then I think they have to listen to us based on Admirality Law or something… right?
I just don’t like giving them new ideas… although it is always good fodder for c/InsanePeopleFacebook.
Denial of service I guess? Either that or having to submit a very specific set of documents or forms to let someone somewhere know why you need just one more after already having seven at that point (First one being the one your parents are given at the time of your birth, followed by the 6 reprints they allow)
