One of the things I noticed about Covid was the greater isolation into silos of folks who they surrounded themselves with. I remember as I am sure you do, that this whole Covid thing was going to disappear as soon as Biden was elected. No shit, my BIL said these exact words. The scary thing? I have no doubt he believed this bullshit, in large part because there were no contrarian (actually factual) persons to balance the misinformation they WANTED to believe. And that's the key thing, the desire to believe something that is not true, and then cling to that lie no matter what. Because to turn back to truth, would make them look exactly like the dingbat idiots they are.
The isolation of Covid allowed this stupidity to breed and be affirmed again and again. Its as fucking dumb as Obama was Lazy because the played golf, but Trump was not lazy playing 5 times the golf and bilking the taxpayers to boot! Or Obama who went to church every week for years was not a Christian, but the porn star fucking 4 times a decade church attendee was a Christian. These are lies that Republicans told themselves and reinforced over and over.
The GOP has become a party where honestly the best campaign is a campaign of lies. Think back to the tea party wave of 2010, that brought in the initial round of republican loons. The big GOP issue that year. Obama's health care plan would have.... wait for it.... "Death Panels" where the government would decide who would be given care. A lie out of whole cloth, and it worked. They tried the same thing this year with another big round of mis and disinformation. Honestly it would have worked again, but for the pesky fact some folks are actually patriots and love Democracy.
Now let me be clear here. I almost never start talking politics. Inevitably some Republican relative says something that is completely factually inaccurate, and I feel compelled to respond now. Because to not respond, is to tacitly pretend that their bullshit has some validity. Will my strategy piss some folks off in the holidays? Most certainly, but again, I will not be the one bringing this up, but I will respond with FACTUAL information. We have come too close to having our way of life destroyed due to the GOP embrace of lies and misinformation and a dominant political strategy. When you believe lies, you can believe anything, like a guy that lost by millions upon millions of votes actually won.
I think most of your Republican relatives will keep their mouths shut about politics, but many will not. And if you are a true patriot it's your duty to point out lies, and try to save our Republic.