Thanksgiving with the fascists

I heard from a couple of friends today about how fraught their holiday plans are getting.

Kim told me that things are difficult because her parents were hardcore lifelong Democrats — both of them are retired public school teachers — until at some point in the Obama administration, at which point her father went hard right because Obama was going to take away all the guns. (He’s a hunter, grew up on a farm in the Midwest, and has spent his adult life in the Colorado mountains about a half hour from Vail. I gather her mom has pretty much just followed his lead.) They’ve gotten Trumpy enough that they actually drove the “Trump train” at some rally in their small Colorado town awhile back. Meanwhile Kim’s mother in law hates Trump passionately, gets all her news from MSNBC — two guesses on where Kim’s parents get their news and the first one doesn’t count — and is supposed to get together with her daughter’s parents for Thanksgiving (BTW there’s a word for this precise relationship in Spanish — consuegros — which doesn’t exist in English, so we have to get by with the more general term “in-laws”). So that sounds like it could be lots of fun.

Then there’s this from another friend:

My Mom and step dad are Trumpers. The worst kind – the ones who know better and say how they hate his character but like his policies, etc. etc. I’ve gotten into it several times with them and we agreed to just not talk about it with the election going on.

The election happens and I find out that my wife and my 13 year old have been faking calmness the entire time and are incredibly messed up by it, especially my 13 year old. To the extent that she does not want to talk or see my mom or step dad right now.

So, my mom reaches out a few times with minor stuff. I ignore her. Then she texts myself and my sister yesterday wanting our kids to come over soon.

I realize that I need to try to be mature somewhat tell her what is going on. I workshop 10 different versions of a text before settling this morning on “I’m going to be honest- after tuesday, our family needs time and space to be alone. If we get together right now it would not go well. Not trying to make things worse, but we need space.’

Literally as watered down as I could make it.

And my mother, bless her heart, is now having a total meltdown and accusing us of holding her grandkids hostage and choosing politics over family and saying she’s done with us, etc.

As I suspected, she’s making herself the victim when honestly myself and my sister are trying to not make things worse and damage things irreparably.

I don’t really have a point, just bitching.

Honestly – I could probably be around them and likely keep my mouth shut. I’d hate it, and I don’t want to – but I could do it.

But my 13 year old daughter literally does not want to see them – and I’m trying to not permanently damage things by telling my mom that.

These stories got me thinking more about Biden’s White House meeting with Trump yesterday, and the more I think about it the more I’m appalled by this kind of thing. Precisely because these kinds of customary social practices reflect no legal requirement of any kind, they are more symbolically meaningful than a law, say, that would require the outgoing president to attend the inauguration of his successor.

I’m going to be equally if not more appalled if Barack and Michelle and Bill and Hillary show up in their finery on January 20th, which I suppose they will, because there’s a club and we’re not in it.

Good comment about this from Lex Lugar:

I said this on the other thread but whatever the merits of peaceful transfers of power, you just can’t tell people 20 times a week saying that their money is urgently needed to forestall a fascist takeover and then meet amicably with the fascists when you lose.

I know very normie Democratic voters, not firebrands, not “genocide Joe” protesters, not Jill Stein leftier than thou dilettantes, who view this as a personal betrayal.

We’re in other clubs though, and the question of what sorts of social customs and practices should be maintained in a midst of a fascist/authoritarian takeover that 50% of the electorate voted for (50.2% as of this morning, but that will probably drop another tenth of a percent or three by the time California finishes counting) is going to a very difficult one for a lot of people.