"My Republican Dad Emailed Me This Morning. This Is My Response."

[babylonsister]

http://www.liberalamerica.org/2014/11/05/my-republican-dad-emailed-me-this-morning-this-is-my-response/


My Republican Dad Emailed Me This Morning. This Is My Response.

By Tiffany Willis on November 5, 2014


My wonderful father, who has always been a common sense Republican, has moved increasingly right in recent years. It’s my opinion that he’s been hugely influenced by right-wing media. My dad’s an educated man — he’s a physician and he’s also well-read and a lifelong learner. There’s just not a lot he doesn’t know. He takes care of his family. He is the solid rock in my life, and in the lives of everyone who knows him. And I mean a LOT of people. Not just his family. For this reason, no one ever questions his wisdom. Also for this reason, no one ever challenges him. I’m the troublesome daughter.



My dad is not a science denier. He is embarrassed by people like Todd Akin. He cringes at what Texas is doing to its history books. He knows the earth is billions of years old. He doesn’t really care what gay people do. He thinks the open-carry kooks may be doing more harm than good. He is a responsible gun owner. I guarantee you he’d fight for me to get birth control (ha).

My dad is not a crazy, ignorant tea-billy.

He began emailing me this morning. Well, not just me. Me and 46 other people. He has sent a few short emails just to me, and a link to this article. I won’t share what he emailed me here. No doubt it would be hella entertaining for you guys, but our relationship is one in which every major issue we’ve ever faced, every argument, every disagreement, has been done via written word. It’s our preferred medium. For a lot of reasons. So I won’t share his personal letters to me. However, I’ll share my response. I feel it’s important. Likely many of you have received your own gloating emails from right-wing family members and friends. Feel free to use and re-use my response if it works for you.

My email to my beloved republican dad is below.

more at link~

http://www.liberalamerica.org/2014/11/05/my-republican-dad-emailed-me-this-morning-this-is-my-response/

[riversedge]

1. Lovely. Thanks and I just may use it

[CaliforniaPeggy]

2. Thank you for this!

I have been unable to open this on facebook and I've been wanting to read it.

It was worth the wait. Superbly written, every point valid.

K&R

[Whiskeytide]

3. Well done. I hope you "replied all". n/t

[Trajan]

4. I love my children too much to 'ride hard' on this political nonsense

For the record - I cut the email cord on my brothers and sisters years ago ... the vitriol went way way beyond what is reasonable, and I drew a hard line against political emails ... they were poisoning our relationships ...

Poison is complete ... we do not talk anymore ...

[babylonsister]

5. The same

happened with me and my two brothers during the boosh reign. We haven't communicated since.

[LawDeeDah]

6. I've been feeling a little guilty not talking to a relative

that has too much teabag in her. It's coming up to a year. She also loves to humiliate people, she especially enjoyed doing it to me in front of my daughter. So I said bye bye, and life is beautiful again, I even shit better.

Sometimes I feel guilty because I've been trained from birth to feel things are my fault, when they are not. Going back to the same old would be like my soul walking into a running jet engine. It's not my fault I finally let my survival instinct kick in.

[freshwest]

24. Sounds like my teabagger sister. I only do my duty by sending her Xmas and birthday cards.

The vitriol and demands that I totally agree with the baggers and hate Obama and Democrats, is not how we were brought up. After a while I didn't call because it was always me trying to keep connected to my last full blood kin, and she carried on about my living on the left coast and my liberal ways.

Also went after my kid who is disabled and draws off my SS account as a worker, and his own little job that pays marginally but also pays for his living situation with my benefit, his wages, and Medicaid. Her husband's disability, though, is 'different.'

My dad was in WW2. He died at 51 because despite his being able to pay for health insurance, for a pre-existing condition he could not get coverage. When it came time for a vital surgery, he finally could not afford it. And went home to die.

Yet my bio-sister as I now refer to her, railed against Obamacare, which would have saved our father's life and us so much grief and dislocation and more important to her, a great deal of money.

But since she is not logical and is a firm believer in Beck and Faux news and the Tea Party, I guess it's to be expected now. This from a person who used birth control, has had an abortion, benefited from survivor benefits from my dad's Social Security earnings, public school and infrastructure, her husband getting great care from the VA where they live, his perks as a Vietnam vet with home loan coverage, disability payments from the VA and SS, and the latest was a government program that allowed them their present home.

I wrote of my adventures with her as she fell into media induced psychosis:

I have a bagger relation. Agree enthusiastically or they go nuts. I stopped talking to her because of the yelling.

And I actually said to her that I didn't call long distance to hear the latest thing Beck said, I called to see how she was doing. I've detailed a number of the conversations here at DU. Really wild stuff. Here are my posts about her:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1251216792#post107

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1251145022#post50

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021449535#post15

Hope you get a laugh out of it. This is how I feel after only 8 seconds of long distance with my bagger relation. The mindless regurgitation of Rush and Beck spew is acutely painful to hear. It's torture.



Glad you cut the toxic out of your life, but we still lose so much by this. They are the people we grew up with, kept up with, and they have been led astray. We need them as we grow older, yet they no longer see us as kin.

[lunasun]

55. it is very healthy to cut toxic relationships! Good on you feel accomplished , not guilty

[totodeinhere]

7. You have an inaccuracy.

What happened last night is exactly what happened in the last two years of every two-term president in my lifetime. Every six years, the party that controls the White House loses seats in the House and Senate and the president’s opposing party takes control of both houses. It happened to Reagan, Bush, and Clinton, too.

No, the Democrats gained seats during the 1998 midterm elections. You need to remove Clinton from your list.

[Bandit]

13. Democrats gained seats but not the Majority

Both Houses were under Opposition control Clinton's last two years and you can go back even further to Ike and the very same applies.

[markpkessinger]

32. Clinton still faced a Congress with BOTH houses controlled by the opposing party n/t

[alfredo]

40. Clinton was white, so Republicans didn't have to be traitors to their race to

cut a deal.

[alfredo]

48. That was because of the impeachment debacle.

[skepticscott]

8. Sorry, but WTF is a "common sense Republican"?

If such a creature ever existed, it went extinct a long, long time ago.

And if her father is so wise, why is she having to tell him all of this shit, and why does she think there is any chance that it sways him?

[lobodons]

10. One who comes to their senses

and switches party affiliation to D

[LP2K12]

14. That would be me...

Switched from red to blue and I haven't looked back...

[BlueCaliDem]

28. Me, too. :-)

I know I might get reamed for this, but once upon a time, when I was young and a political know-nothing, I voted for Reagan. In 1984. I voted for him because my father was a staunch Republican and a huge fan of the guy. He had received a letter in the mail from Reagan when he was governor of CA, that he had an excellent driving record and he wanted to congratulate my father on it.

I only learned about the difference between the Democratic Party and Republican Party when President Clinton ran for re-election in 1996. When I saw how well the United States fared under a Democratic president, I switched from R to D and never looked back. Well, that's not entirely true. I had voted for Steve Cooley (R) for Los Angeles District Attorney once (although Cooley broke a record and was elected for three terms as L.A. District Attorney), and only after the Gil Garcetti debacle during the Rampart scandal. I was disgusted with Gil Garcetti and didn't think Cooley would be such a bad district attorney. And he wasn't. However, in the 2008 elections, Steve Cooley went complete Republican when he ran against Kamala Harris (D - and recently re-elected) for California AG, complete with typical Republican lies and distortions of her. Needless to say I voted for Ms. Harris. Anyway, I haven't voted for a Republican for any other office since that first and last time for Cooley in 2000.

[alfredo]

41. I supported Nixon, but that was because I was taught to hate Catholics.

[LibMod]

46. Ummmmm....

Nixon wasn't a Catholic...

[alfredo]

47. But Kennedy was.

[nikto]

37. "Common-Sense Republicans"...

Are as easy-to-find as
flying Rhinos
and
singing slugs.

[blm]

9. Your dad and millions of other GOP voters haven't a clue that the RW propaganda media

they have been relying on for the bulk of their information about this nation and its governance was developed over the last 3 decades by a Korean cult leader, Rev Moon, who was later joined by Rupert Murdoch, an Australian extortionist. Both men were pro-global fascism allies of GHWBush who urged them to expand their media empires into the US market. Both expert propagandists.

Gee.......NWO propagandists sure knew what they were doing when they targeted the RW brain.

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/bad-moon-rising-john-gorenfeld/1102623743?ean=9780979482236

Bad Moon Rising: How Reverend Moon Created the Washington Times, Seduced the Religious Right and Built an Empire

What does it say about American politics when a famous 1970s cult leader publishes a Washington newspaper, dresses up in the U.S. Senate offices like King George III, and no one in D.C. seems to care? One night in 2004, at one of Washington’s most outrageous dinner parties, members of Congress bought a shining crown and robes to a billionaire mystery man who calls himself the True Father: the Reverend Moon, sushi mogul, conservative philanthropist, and publisher of the right-wing Washington Times. After Salon.com journalist John Gorenfeld broke the story of Moon’s coronation, the New York Times compared the scandal to an act of the Roman emperor Caligula.

[freshwest]

26. Damn, I remember all of that. Thanks for the link to one of the problems.

[blm]

35. This 'one' problem allowed all the OTHER problems to occur.

By undermining Democratic advances and crafting and catapulting the RW propaganda.

[marions ghost]

39. thanks

I had forgotten about the Moonies...

[blm]

42. When people wonder how the GOP voter base became so brainwashed this is

the fact of the matter.

[marions ghost]

43. Moon and Murdoch

Fux and Rush.

This is how it's been done. The master plan was brilliant.

And now we are paying dearly.

[heaven05]

44. I was a 'moonie'

deades ago, I ended up running from those crazy people. Geez...from bad to worse.

[blm]

49. And now they use those techniques to capture the mindset of the GOP voter base.

And they developed 'news' sources over the last 3 decades who now control the BULK of the RW propaganda media fed 24/7 to the American people targeting the RW mindset of an entire voting block.

No surprise to me that the Left Behind series was funded by Rev Moon for longtime crony Tim LaHaye. The RW base now sees every political issue with an apocalyptic viewpoint - their bunker mentality.

[heaven05]

50. yep

moon is the new jesus by the way, unless they changed the message.

[DawgHouse]

11. Well said n/t

[hfojvt]

12. I cringed at the beginning

"That women aren’t earning .78 cents for every dollar men earn for the exact same work."

Like you started out with the flat earth theory. How can anyone believe that is true?

Not sure I agree about the immigrants either, although I can see how that would be horrible for the kid. My own parents moved to my hometown when I was 2. Suppose they had moved from Canada when I was two and I am 16 and find out I am not a legal American citizen?

Of course, since 2000, I would be more than happy to move up north and claim my Canadian citizenship.

Republicans have no intention of trying to do the things that are important to you, and the people who voted them in would not want them to. Interesting that Reagan did get hammered in 1986, Senate went from 47-53 to 55-45 and Democrats picked up 5 seats in the Democratic controlled House, but 258 was still well below the 291, 292, 277 of the three Congresses before Reagan's election.

And wow, even Ike got hammered. In 1958, Republicans lost 15 seats in the Senate and 48 (!!) seats in the House. And so did FDR, losing 6 seats in the Senate and something like 80 (!!!!!) seats in the House. The country always turns on its second term Presidents apparently.

Doesn't make the loss in Kansas any easier. Brownback deserved to be refudiated. Who knows what evil he will render in his 2nd term? There is NO opposition.

[Andy Stanton]

27. It CAN happen here

Republicans have no intention of trying to do the things that are important to you, and the people who voted them in would not want them to.

Absolutely true. They will try to destroy the legal, moral and ethical foundations of this country. And replace them with - what? A right-wing police state? Don't think "it can't happen here" because it can!!!

[lunasun]

56. + 1

[SunSeeker]

15. Excellent reply. Thanks.

The political shit I get from my right wing in-laws is never in their own words. Although my response to them always is. They never think for themselves, they just forward hateful right wing GOP emails. They have yet to acknowledge that I have proven every one of those emails relies on incorrect factual assertions. They really don't care about the facts. They don't care that whoever is sending them these emails is sending them lies. As long as it says something awful about Obama or liberals, they're happy.

[SpankMe]

16. Great letter. I'm sorry there's this rift between you.

It's a lot like my wife. Everything was fine until Obama got elected and she's been on a downward slide toward conservatism ever since. We can't talk politics at all, now. Even when she asks me if I voted or sent in my ballot I get uncomfortable.

We need a special therapy group for those whose spouses/parents/children have gone kooky conservative in the last few years after a lifelong period of reasonableness.

[deurbano]

18. That would be VERY tough.

.

[maddiemom]

17. "More people have been married to Newt Gingrich than have died from

Ebola in the U.S." God, you're good!

[smiley]

36. that was my favorite line too.

[MFM008]

19. nice pic

Good e mail.

[PatrynXX]

20. The Brainwashing of My Dad - movie

Suggest you look this Kickstarter up. I hope it gets released soon. Dad is tea party crazy. Didn't used to be this way. ie there'll be a civil war next year or 2016 when Obama cancels the elections and gets rid of congress. yada yada yada. ie is dad drunk. well yes usually but thats just insane..

[thesquanderer]

21. I'd be really curious to see his reply to this! (n/t)

[reflection]

22. Outstanding.

Bravo!

[JuniperLea]

23. Well done!

My otherwise brilliant son is a climate change denier... and he has other RW tendencies too. I blame Tom Leykis... my son is treating women like shit too. Woe is me.

Love your reply to your father. Factual and well stated and kind.

[peace13]

25. You are a very kind daughter.

I have to visit with my right wing mother on Monday and I am afraid that she will feel obligated to throw politics into the mix.

Oh that I could be as kind to my mother as you are to your father!

[kelliekat44]

29. Beautiful!! I have one request.

I would like to cite your post in a few of my own on FB. No ID, though, but props.

[progressoid]

30. Nice, except our economy is not back on top.

Of course the 1% are doing swimmingly. But most Americans are still struggling.

Sadly, our party either turns a blind eye to that or continues to enable the destruction of the middle and lower class.

[markpkessinger]

31. Very, very well done!

I know what it's like to have family members whom I love dearly, and who also love me, yet who hold radically different (i.e., right-wing conservative) political views. It can be frustrating and, at times, even painful. I commend you for the forbearance, yet firmness, you demonstrated in this remarkable, lovely response.

My best to you!

[lsewpershad]

33. Thanks for sharing

Hope you don't mind that I share with others.

[madokie]

34. My dad was a republican too

Most of us kids are democratic party faithfuls now though.
Dad never tried to push his personal beliefs about the republican or democratic party on us either. Same as I do with my step sons

[blackspade]

38. Very nice. Thanks!

[Blanks]

45. Here's Boehner's plan...

As you can see by the list it is essentially a compilation of ways to trash the environment for the benefit of the Koch brothers and their cronies.

The 'plan' might create jobs, but it clearly moves this country in the wrong direction.

A lot of support for Fracking which is going to kill us all.

http://m.speaker.gov/general/no-pivot-necessary-republicans-consistently-focused-jobs

I will say - it does appear (by the way that they describe each proposal) that they are fighting Obama, but we will just see just how well conservative voters like the federal lands that they live near defaced in the interest of creating temporary jobs extracting nonrenewable resources.

[Tarheel_Dem]

51. "no “referendum” on anyone. It was what history predicted."

[Nitram]

52. Sister, thanks for the post

My Dad sounds almost exactly like your Dad. Intelligent with good values, but propaganda-ed out of his mind by the right wing media, which is all he reads, listens to or watches. the difference is he won't answer emails on any topic even remotely related to politics. Wish I could break through with some reasonable discussion of facts.

[tiffany_willis]

53. Thanks, but you can't post this entire piece. Copyright violation

I greatly appreciate all of the kind words about my article, but the original poster can't post things from my site like this. It's in clear copyright violation and against the law. You can post an excerpt with a link to the original site.

[babylonsister]

54. Ms. Willis, I'm very sorry. I read this from your article, and

thought it'd be all right. My fault, and apology.

Likely many of you have received your own gloating emails from right-wing family members and friends. Feel free to use and re-use my response if it works for you.