Will you be sharing your Thanksgiving dinner table with any wingnuts? Do you have a strategy for keeping the peace?
I’m fortunate. Since 2005 (Katrina, Terri Schiavo), there are no longer any Republicans even in my extended family. None. We have peaceful holiday celebrations.
How about you?
None.
But I don’t talk to them anyway.
.
Yes, I’m afraid so. But there is a flip side to this that might make it entertaining. I believe they might actually be outnumbered by Obama supporters. While I cannot say for certain, there is a good chance that will be the case.
But the wingnuts which will be gathering at my house are what I could call, “Premium Wingnuts”. They’re not your run-of-the-mill wingers. So I really don’t know what to expect. I am not going to bring up the election at all. I am the host, so I don’t want to bring on any unnecessary stress. But the chance of getting through the day without it coming is probably nil.
My hope is to avoid any irreparable harm.
You make an announcement very early in the day, perhaps with a note on the front door or a mass email: discussion of politics will NOT be tolerated.
My wife is the one I need to lean on. She’s still in a bit of a gloating mood, after listening to some of these same people’s craziness throughout the election season. Particularly with their absolute, ironclad certainty that the Pres was going down.
If I can keep her from baiting them, I’ll probably be okay.
I have a nephew who’s a republican, but he won’t be there at Thanksgiving. However, he’s the nicest, politist guy in the world. He’s kind to others and would defend anyone being picked on by a bully. I have tried a little bit to show him the error of his political views, but he’s so nice, mostly I just talk about other stuff. What he thinks about me, well, he’s too polite to say.
I’m visiting my grandpa. He’s 90 years old now, a former marine who fought in WWII. While Bush was president, anytime he got a magazine in the mail with GWB on the cover, he would punch the cover and say “If I could get him alone in a room…”
So no, no wingnuts. Everyone in my family voted for Obama and thinks anyone who did otherwise is either uninformed or an asshole.
Our wingnuts are all 3000 miles away (mine in Georgia, hers in Maine), and we like it that way. The family we have out here – including the brother-in-law who runs corporate security for Microsoft, and who you’d never, ever want to meet in a dark alley – are all nice folks and politically sane.
None will be in the house this week although there are only a handful in the family. (Our turtle Pablo may be a wingnut but has been silent since the election.)
Last Thanksgiving I briefly mentioned how my job had benefitted from the stimulus, which prompted some grumbling about coming tax hikes. I let that pass without comment. I have been in many environments that could have been combustible, but when the hot buttons get put out there, I give it a pass. Nobody’s gonna be any better off for the debate. This past weekend one of my music playing buddies said he voted for Romney and said some things that were very anti Obama. This was very testing. I’ve become pretty good at biting my tongue. Any comments I make I am very careful not to be over the top.
My daughter, who lives in Alabama, is going to have to contend with her (otherwise good) in-laws. But her husband has been giving his relatives good gloating schadenfreud over the election; the in-laws might be subdued.
Here, it’s just going to be my wife, myself, and our “pedigreed” chihuahua, who was very concerned about the fact that he didn’t have papers.
Not to mention that he dodged a bullet, given Romney’s history with dogs.
A few of my best friends here are socially conservative republicans who voted for Romney. They won’t be coming to thanksgiving but I’ll see them over the holidays for christmas music — one of them is an excellent singer (sings in the church choir). I bring my guitar and we have a great time. They are lovely people. No politics.
If I shake the family tree hard enough I come across a few conservative types. We have friendly arguments about lots of stuff, including politics. I would love to see them for thanksgiving but they live far away.
Family and friendship trumps politics in my house.
We go to a friend of ours who also happens to work at the same place my wife does. My wife’s the boss. The assholes keep their mouths shut.
Well – I get to deal with political idiots, like the one who says Hillary and Rahm would lock up the women and hispanic votes. What a shock when I informed him Rahm was Jewish. Really?
I’ll avoid any temptation/possibility of family wingnut interaction by celebrating Thanksgiving quietly alone at home with my wife.
I do have some conservative friends, but my rule had to become that there’s no discussion about politics because they’ve gotten so deranged.
My family isn’t white so we have less of a chance of having super-crazy wingnuts (not a guarantee see: Cruz, Ted). I don’t think any of them are, and the few Republicans live too faraway. On my wife’s side her family is center to center-left but has 0 interest in politics except on election day when they vote. There is apparently one Faux-Wingnut but I’ve never met him and apparently he is mercilessly mocked by other family members if he brings up right wing madness so he mostly sticks to other topics. I am pretty relieved as her family hails from Bachmann’s district.
The conservatives in my family keep quiet.
We surround them.
We have a huge generational divide. Only successful strategy is silence.
Many years ago, my parents went from being center-right Republicans to being liberal Democrats. Now my dad gives his friends hell but he does it in such a funny, charming way they all love him anyway. He told one of them, “You know what your problem is. You’re a dinosaur and need to die off.” My mom keeps her mouth shut to avoid making enemies.
They’re in Arizona and I’m in Washington state with my wife. We’re having Thanksgiving with friends, all of whom are Obama supporters. We are Sufis (Sufism is the mystical side of Islam), but from Jewish backgrounds. We sometimes jokingly call ourselves Jewfis. Our shaykh is an 80 year old Palestinian who lives in Jerusalem. We introduced two of our friends that we’ll be with tomorrow to him and, though they are recovering Catholics, his teachings about Jesus and Mary so blew them out of the water, they became his students. They said they had never been around anyone who was able to bring through the teachings of Jesus and Mary so profoundly and beautifully.
Our shaykh is socially conservative. For example, he won’t marry gays or lesbians. But he doesn’t reject or excoriate them. He simply says, “This is not our way.” My wife used to be a lesbian. She says she was hiding from men because she had a lot of fear — possibly some repressed sexual trauma, though she has no memories. Ironically, Our shaykh, whose wife of many years died a few years ago, is now married to an American woman who also used to be a lesbian. He’s a really cool person in the sense that he would never want anyone’s civil rights to be limited because of religion or sexual orientation or anything else. He speaks often of how men and women are equal. He talks about how real religion is full of love, peace, mercy (compassion), justice and freedom — and how if any of these elements is missing, the religion is off kilter. He speaks of how all religions are connected and how, if people knew their religions well, there would be only the religion of love, peace, mercy, justice and freedom.
Did you convert to Sufism, or is that the family ism?
It’s not a belief system so “convert” doesn’t seem the right term. In a way, I didn’t understand what it is to be Jewish until I became Sufi. I would’s say it’s all one. Very much as God is one. When we create duality, we’re dealing with institutions of man.
Now that trip to Sufism from Judaism would make an interesting diary, and I’m an atheist.
I know of a Democrat who’s exactly like your dad; we successfully converted him. Now whenever we’re in a car with a known Republican, he gives them shit in a “funny and charming way.” It’s trolling in a way, but not quite.
We’ll have a dozen family members tomorrow with a few mixed nuts, but we simply don’t discuss politics. My husband’s mom and sister will be the ones who bring up the election, the mixed nuts will look uncomfortable and I will immediately change the subject and offer more pie.
the only wingnuts in my family live far away, and won’t be coming to dinner.
No worries here.
My mom’s family are 1) religious lunatics – being a missionary is one of the family businesses since 1870 and I have at least 5 3rd cousins who are in the ministry or missionary business at this time 2) conservative and 3) far away. My own family (7 sibs) are all liberals except 1 BIL who long ago learned that we would overwhelm him. He has become far more reasonable over the years.
I will put out my normal xmas letter in which I will definitely state that Obama won, and that this is good. Fuck ’em if they can’t deal with it.
Last spring, I visited my aged (97) great-aunt, the last sib of my grandma on my mom’s side. She is very feisty, and also a writer – she wrote a book and continues today to write a column for her local paper. She is a very religious woman, and was adamant about how bad Obama was. She also made some VERY rude comments about my mom and an incident years ago, and I am getting to be increasingly uninterested in keeping quiet. She does live in AL near Pensacola, and I doubt I will see her in this eartly plane again. I did learn some interesting things about my greatuncle who was killed by the Serbs in Novi Sad in 1920. She was born in Budapest in 1918 or so. I will make sure that she gets my letter with my description of running for State Senate as a Dem.
My Mother in law, age 89 and frail, lives with us. She is a republican, but I persuaded her to vote for me. She also voted for Romney, but since this is SD, who cares? Romney was going to win in SD.
I never heard… did you win? (she asked hopefully)
Nah – lost 60-40 – But I don’t regret running, even though I was self-funded (and some are saying “that is why you lost, turkey”). I spent $4500 and lost 60-40. Others spent 50K, and lost 57-43.
I’m sorry to hear you didn’t win. Glad you have no regrets, except for the not winning part, of course.
My whole family except for my step-father’s brother and his wife are wingnuts. My grandfather doesn’t talk about it, though, and warns against it.
My mom thinks the president is a Muslim.
I mean my family that’s coming to dinner. My great aunt and uncle were civil rights and anti-war protesters in the 1960’s. Now they’re just old hippies and approaching retirement. My grandmother (mom’s side) has voted Democrat her entire life, and my mom only just now found out; she’s not a partisan, yet she even voted against Reagan…twice.
My sister, who belongs to the Daughters of the Confederacy, is 3000 miles away. So, no, no problems at the dinner table.
I have one capitalist rightie 1%er rel, but will be spending the holiday with like-minded family only. When the 1%er comes around, I refuse to discuss anything political with him. He’s now in his 80s and with luck, I’ll outlive him and go on to vote many more times as left as is humanly possible in the somewhat insane state in which I reside.
My brother, the real crazy one in the family, decided to take his wife and kids camping for the week. I have no evidence that he is avoiding the gloating side of the family, but I wouldn’t be surprised. My dad is an old-school mostly sane Republican who had fallen under the spell of Fox News. He argued with my friends and I on Facebook for months, and then mysteriously fell silent. My brother says he hasn’t mentioned politics since. I don’t have a clue what happened, but I’m happy enough with the resulting peace to not want to ask.