I'll be honest.  I don't think I am an asshole at all for this, but several family members have started to give me shit for this so I figured I'd check in with you guys.

During the winter holiday season my family gets together a lot.  Like we have a mini Christmas party every weekend between Thanksgiving and Xmas, and those holiday get togethers tend to be an overnight kinda thing.  So for about  2 months out of the year I spend the majority of my free time with extended family.  I love this, but as many of you can sympathize (I hope) this also involves a lot of my relatives getting into heated drunken political "debates."

I am incredibly uncomfortable being around my family when they get like this so I recently started leaving the room and finding something to do elsewhere while they fight so I don't end up an anxiety riddled mess watching it unfold in front of me.  It worked great until a few days ago when an argument about immigration started up and I stood up to excuse myself for a bit.  My cousin and uncle sitting next to me asked where I was going and I explained I was gonna head outside for a bit.  Got some weird looks, but that was about it.

Next day I wake up to find a bunch of texts from that uncle, my father, and a different cousin saying it was "rude and disrespectful" to leave for long periods of time during "family time."  I responded that I didn't like sitting around listening to them yell at each other over politics, but they say that is "just what families do" and I should "get over it and stop being a snowflake."

I'm honestly considering either skipping the rest of the holidays with them or only showing up long enough to see my younger cousins and my nephew that I love to pieces.  (He is so goddamn cute it kills me.)  I enjoy the majority of these events, but as soon as the alcohol comes out I feel like the odds of it staying pleasant go down dramatically.

I am 99% sure I am not the asshole on this, but if there is a legit chance I am just missing some social norm here I would love to know.  Is this "just what families do" or am I in the right to remove myself from the situation when it does nothing but make me miserable to be around?