We’re talking about parents and relatives of a wide span of ages, who behave in a variety of ways — cognitive decline is not the issue, so much as a huge swathe of the American public having values that permit or promote bigotry. This is also not about these relatives saying offensive things (though some do) — my conservative relatives are unfailingly polite and conflict avoidant. In fact, many of the parents described in the pieces I cite also don’t want to talk politics with their kids. So a lack of a filter is not the salient issue here. A willingnes to vote for hate is.