No Compromising by DU'ers!
After a shout out with my father in law yesterday, he was the straw that broke my back. When he asked me if I was happy with the election (he knows we vote Democrat), I of course replied, Yes, of course. Then it started!
He said he wasn't happy about it because "look at who voted for Obama, all those takers," He was referring to the Black, Hispanic and Asian blocks. And then he told me that "Obama was stupid and never did anything good, all he did was hang around with that Jeremiah Wright guy for 25 years." He was actually livid!
I reminded him that his daughter and I voted for Obama along with a majority of women and young adults, as well as his grandchildren and that Obama was a state senator (his reply was "for only two years"
, a constitutional law professor (his reply was "so what" and that he accomplished much in his first term after inheriting a financial fiasco from Bush (his reply was "there you go again blaming it all on Bush"
My father in law is 84, his catholic upbringing, a lack of education, his backwards view of who he thinks America is, has made him an intolerant, bitter old man who relies on FOX NEWS because they support his opinion and the Roman Catholic Church who tells him what to believe, while his wife listens to Rush Limbaugh because he supports her opinion and the same pulpit.
Both of them in the past twenty five years have never discussed politics with us. They are very private and avoid any confrontation.
They have never shown any interest in asking us why we vote the way we do. They don't want to hear our views. Because we are college educated they feel defensive with us and possibly inferior, which only adds to their GOP bias. We're the elitists, the ones with money and the ones who know it all. Sorry to say, we have done well, we are Jesuit educated, but we are not elitists and never demonstrate our knowledge. But that's what lurks under the surface in our relationship.
My in-laws are why Romney and Ryan and the pollsters thought the GOP would win going into Tuesday's election. To them it was inconceivable to accept the fact that Obama, a black man, could win this past election, and for a second term.
The problem is this. 50.3% of all children under age 1 in the USA are minorities. They are still holding to a belief in the old, all white, America, which is past. They will soon pass away, and the GOP will lose two more of their angry white voters.
My in laws have been living exclusively on their monthly Social Security checks and Medicare for the past 19 years. They have had major, multiple diseases requiring significant medical expenses.
The only statement I made that shut them up and made them think was when I told them, in a fit of anger, that Social Security and Medicare are Democratic programs and if they didn't have them today they would be living in a spare bedroom of one of their kids, if their kids had a spare bedroom and wanted them, or under a bridge. And they voted for two men would would do away with both programs for their children and grandchildren. After they recovered, he said.....how do you know that Romney and Ryan would do that?" I had to tell them that that is what is in the Paul Ryan budget that every GOP member voted for. They still couldn't accept ti.
I think my in-laws are very representative of who the GOP appeals to. They and our other right wing family members and friends, are incapable of accepting anything other then what their faded vision of America is and they will only double down on their beliefs.
There is no possible way they will change, adapt or modify their beliefs. They have no cognitive dissonance because they have no cognition about why things are the way they are instead of the way they want them to be.
The only way to counter this group is with a hard nosed approach, without compromise, doubling down on our Progressive and Liberal principles, to make sure we vote in every election and make sure our representatives including the President are held to OUR principles.
This is a class war. A war between the illiterate, under informed, willingly ignorant, dupes of the GOP machine and the people like us that visit, post and comment on DU. I'll bet on our side!
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