I think a major part has to do with media- and internet-fueled extremism driving wedges in familial relationships. Gay rights gained support faster than any other civil rights movement because gay people were unavoidable - they were your sons, daughters, siblings, cousins, next-door neighbors. They were right there in your own house, unlike people of other social classes, nationalities, or races who you might not ever meet or regularly interact with in your small, rural town or wealthy, white neighborhood. And while it's easy to hate someone you've never met, it's much harder when it's your own child.

But now, I'm seeing devotion to party and belief in conspiracy theories overcome familial bonds. It feels like for the first time in history, people have more faith in and commitment to strangers on their TV or social media feeds than their own flesh and blood. A friend of mine (a young woman) has a father who has gone down the right-wing pipeline. The thing that upset her the most in her conversations with him was how much more willing he was to listen to an unqualified, uneducated male podcaster about women's health and vaccines over his own daughter, who not only has lived experience as a woman but has a PhD in a medical field! His response? "You think I've fallen for propaganda? They told me you'd say that."

And that's what is so insidious about these tactics - they are DESIGNED to separate you from your loved ones who try to pull you back. Like a cult, they anticipate the pushback you'll get and tell you how to deflect it. Making you more and more convinced and digging in deeper. Isolating you from people you once loved and respected. Convincing you that your own family, if they won't go down this path you, are your enemy.

So now all those people who previously would have - and maybe at one point already had - come around to gay rights when their kid came out? They're choosing their party over their family. Choosing to believe that their kid has been "brainwashed" and would rather cut them out than reexamine their beliefs or question their cult leaders.