Politics and the Family

I am one of seven kids plus several step-kids. Three of us remain, all girls. My older sister is almost 20 years my senior, and we are very close. Thanks to her son's daughter, I will be a great-grand aunt again this winter. Just so you can do the calculations, yes, I was an aunt before I was born, multiple times.

My sister and I do not exactly see eye-to-eye on politics. I registered as a Dem the day I turned 18 and while I feel free to vote my conscience, I have never actually voted for a Republican candidate, though I'm not committed to anybody in the current race. She knows this, which would be why she sends lots of badly-written anti-Dem drivel to my e-mail. Much of it isn't even terribly coherent; what is coherent is mostly a matter of taking an occasional sound bite out of context and running with it. Her oldest son does the same thing -- frequently the same e-mails.

So: I am presumably too ignorant to know what's going on in the campaign, to be able to research the candidates myself, or to have any opinions of my own (which I don't share with my extended family by e-mail, I might add). How's that again? A professional historian who can't read? It's enough to drive me directly into Obama's arms.

Nor is it limited to my first family. My FIL, who was a dedicated Dem in his younger days, is now a die-hard Rush Limbaugh fan and spouts whatever Republican catch-phrases he's heard lately, apparently without much (read "any") analysis. He picks up trivia all over the place but not substance, and uses the trivia to support statements he doesn't even mean.

He knows I'm a dedicated feminist, so we never visit without his lobbing a few well-aimed barbs at feminism. The only problem? He doesn't know diddly about feminism -- hasn't read anything, hasn't gone to a single lecture, doesn't even know what its goals are or what it stands for. His knowledge began and ended with The Second Sex. He still thinks it's about women joining his beloved Rotary club (the current president is a woman, the past president is a woman ... let me see here ... seems to me they're pulling their weight). The last time I was at his house, his target was the "Marxist feminists" who are ruining society. I asked him to name a single "Marxist feminist" or the title of a Marxist-feminist book. As I guessed, he couldn't. But we feminists, especially the Marxists among us (which somehow includes all Democrats, just to be reasonable) are destroying society, doncha know. Boy, how I look forward to family Thanksgiving!

Maybe it's just because this is an election year that so much of this is coming to the fore. Not with my FIL: we can fight in any year, and of course, I'm always the logical, right-thinking one of the two of us. But I think I understand why my dh has been steadfastly registered as "Decline To State" for the past 25 years or more. He still gets e-mail from well-meaning people who want his "opinion" on the election, but at least they don't presume to know what he thinks. Great evasive maneuver, that.

I'd like to propose a moratorium on all politically related e-mail until after the election, and another on all political discussions throughout the holiday festivities while families are enduring -- oops, enjoying -- each other. I'd like to get through one holiday without simply leaving the house and going for a L - O - N - G walk because I can't stand it anymore. Not because someone disagrees with me: that I can stand. Even enjoy. But because someone totally uninformed disagrees with me without evidence, but insists on shouting me down anyway. Someone who can't think for himself and merely spouts what he hears, out of context, and then makes up crazy answers when I ask him why his responses don't make sense.

It's too bad I don't drink. And in the dictionary, under "dysfunctional," you'll find our family portrait.

Have a nice day.