Call her cable company and cancel Fox News.

From what I've read...

It's hypothesised we become more fearful as we age and this defines our outlook and political opinion, and there may be a physiological component at play too - a physically enlarged amygdala; the primitive part of our brain that controls fear.

How old is she? These may be signs of dementia. I know because my mom had it and before she got bad, she would never say anything bad about someone but started to. It was mind blowing and shocked us. She was not the same person. I hope this is not the case.

I've seen it go other way too. My once racist ex-father in law gave bags of groceries to homeless people of all colors before he died. My grandmother used o say "the older you get, the more like yourself you become"

Personally i have grown less bigoted the older i get. I am much more accepting and tolerant now than I used to be when i did not know any better.

It’s related to age but I think factors like fear of mortality and increasing cognitive impairment that also increases fear of mortality. Sometimes people also lash out at easy targets to relieve the fear and disappointments people feel when life isn’t what they had hoped for. Love, forgiveness, and lots of hugs help.

Well I'm probably older than your mom. If anything I have become much more tolerant because life has been a learning experience for me.
I must say though that I am a lot less tolerant of dumbasses in our society.

I'm with the other player who mentioned how your mom was at a younger age. If that's how she was raised she could be reverting back to it as her mind diminishes

I have two observations here. The first is that some people's expressions become less filtered as they age. What they feel deep down comes more easily to the surface. The second is that older people feel more fragile and vulnerable. So they become paranoid about people deferent than themselves. I see one or the other or a combination of the two influencing what they say.

I don't think it's age so much as financial security. I personally have become far more leftward leaning than I was when I was younger. I'm 36 now and Lennin seems a little too centrist for me. The only group of people that I have anything like an ism toward are the white christian creationist rapture types. There's just so much crazy in that ball that I can't even.

I don't think so. Of course I can only speak for myself. I used to be a religious jew and now I'm an Atheist. I never had black friends before, and now I have many and distrust white people. So as you travel through life things change along with perspective.

I think you are onto something. I've seen it in my demented step father and others as well. It may be surfacing because of Trump and the idiocy he has set lose since becoming POTUS. His ideas cause hate and opinions to come out like never before. Now that Trump is in the WH and tweeting out his nonsense, people left and right are saying how bad it was under Obama. Bad? Was it because you were aware a black man was in the WH? Trump is bad, on the other hand, because he appeals to your innermost base feelings and you start putting yourself first in everything. The only thing important is YOU. This is how Donnie thinks and he doesn't mean you. He means HIM!
Such a bad apple rubs off somewhat on everyone.

It can go either way- the older people get the less they care what other people think of them so they can be quite vocal/outspoken in what they believe or think is right clinging to a nostalgic and and unrealistic view of the past and blaming all and sundry for what they disagree with-the longer you live in your made up identity the harder it is to break free-on the other hand younger people especially teenagers worry about peer pressure and wanting to fit in with the consensus as some get older this is less important to them and they become more open minded/liberal about some things-it can depend on their life experiences as well and who influenced them. people are often contrary and complicated - just look at how common cognitive dissonance is!-There is always an exception to the rule but not everyone likes that because it complicates things-indeed you could argue that by saying is" this an age thing?" it's your own cognitive dissonance giving your mum a get out of jail free card because you really don't like what they say but still love em anyway-like any good non-judgemental person would-or you could be worrying like mother like daughter.Just a thought

I think most older people are products of their time. They have outdated mindsets about most things. They just don’t realize that over the course of their lives things change. That is why you hear them talk about the ‘good ol days’. If she goes on rants about certain things ask her why she thinks that way. A lot of people get pissed about false information they consume.

I guess some people do, thankfully I am not one of them ?

I think it depends on the person. I have become more accepting of people the older I get... I think that society has changed over the years and generally a lot more people have become more accepting. I also think that some people are opposed to people becoming more accepting, they are afraid that they have lost something, this leads to bigotry.

Most people do NOT become more bigoted with age. Usually, the bigoted person has become so by late teens to early adulthood. They then tend to identify with and associate with others of the same angry, irrational, hate-filled, and fear-filled ilk -- forming a self-reinforcing culture. In effect they give over theair thought processes to the irrationality of the bigotry of the group.

For some reason, he same thing is now happening to your mother. She has given control over who she is and what she thinks to the culture of bigotry.

I'd be willing to wager that it's always been there, now the filter is gone.

I've found I've been getting more liberal as I get older. I used to have some terrible opinions about poor people and LGBTQ (I thought I was straight) and was afraid of Muslims. Or maybe I just grew up.

No. Just her true nature coming out.
Lucky you.

Actually a good many people young and old will agree with her .

You are where you were when- it sounds like at one time she was “cutting edge” as an agnostic and into LGBT rights. Social Psychology has identified a few related things, as we age we often become less “open” and more institutional in our thinking. You want the “system” to work and be out friend. We want our retirement and medical systems to work, and external threats to that unconsciously effect our attitudes and behaviors. The other is society is always progressing, most of our beliefs are formed and fixed in our heads charitably by the age of 25, most site 18. So what was liberal in her 20’s can end up pretty mainstream after a couple of decades. My mom was the same way- early into ecology, was in the ERA, supported civil rights. She would haves croaked if one of her kids actually dated a minority, but she supported the right to lol. As she aged she become downright nativist. Some of that is she grew up from the depression through the rise of the United States as a global power, only to see so much of what she saw as the social contract unfulfilled and broken, and worried about the ability of Americans to achieve and hold onto a standard of life. We always talked about illegal immigrants as a symptom of other things... she mellowed a little, but hung to a more by today’s standards conservative track until hear death. Finally as we grow up we learn certain filters, we may think something but we won’t say it- as when age in “senior” life we all seem to get the “fuck it” mentality and end up with quasi Tourette’s- saying more of our instant random thoughts instead of knowing to reserve them. It’s not malicious, it’s human progression through the lifecycle. You are on the right course, the only thing you get to control is how you react to her, and unless she is in a place for an open adult to adult mind, view,discussion- friction argument and contention is probably not worth it. Someday you might get to apply the same to yourself- never say never! Stay open and remember- it’s all in where we come from! Welcome to aging lol.

It could well be her age..don't they say that for the most part people lean towards a more conservative or more right wing outlook as they age ..??

"If a person is not a liberal when he is twenty, he has no heart; if he is not a conservative when he is forty, he has no head.". Daniel Greenwald

This is utter rubish by the way