Never discuss politics with your parents.

[MrBadExample]

So I was visiting my parents this last weekend. They're getting on--Dad's retired, Mom's on disability and Medicare, and so on. As so often happens when you're talking to older people, the conversation turned to health, and Mom started complaining about the high cost of her prescriptions. There are some she can't even afford to take because of the cost, so she does without.

"Aha!", I thought. "Here's my chance to stump for Dean a bit." Ordinarily I know better than to talk to my parents about politics, but I spotted an opportunity and went for it anyway. I talked to them for a while about what Dean's done for health care in Vermont, and what he wants to do with the national system, focusing particularly on the prescription drug benefit he wants to put into Medicare. Everything went fine for a while, and I had them saying they'd check out the website later...

...and then my dad mentioned Bush. The conversation had drifted over to presidential candidates in general, and we'd been discussing the pros and cons for each one. (I should have known we were heading into land mine territory when Mom said "I like Lieberman, but I think he's a little too liberal". Argh.) Dad said, "I know you don't like Bush, but we do."

I couldn't stop myself. I said "Why?". He and Mom both went on to say that they were glad he was in office when 9/11 happened because "Republicans do something about things like that". Apparently, according to them, a Democrat would have gone to New York, wept over the site, and then gone home and caught a Friends marathon on TV or something.

I tried to reason with them. I really did. I told them that Bush went after completely the wrong country, that the hijackers were overwhelmingly Saudi, that the WMD thing was just one huge lie...the usual. I was still assembling my arguments when Mom said she didn't want to talk about it any more--which, in my experience with Mom, means "You're making some uncomfortably good points, and I'm going to lose the argument, so I'll stop now."

Then came the kicker. Dad, not getting the hint, launched into a rant about how the entire Middle East should be "nuked into glass" and the remaining oil should be owned and distributed by the Israelis. (He didn't get around to explaining how to refine radioactive oil safely.) Mom agreed with him. I was thinking about bringing up the idea of reducing our dependence on foreign oil so we wouldn't have to bother with the Middle East in the first place, but finally realizing that my parents aren't paying attention to the world around them disheartened me to the point where I changed the subject to something innocuous.

I thought of all people, my mother would be reasonable. She seemed so perceptive when I was growing up. I'm depressed now. :-(

[gWbush is Mabus]

1. same here

i can not even talk to my dad anymore...it is awful.

[ibegurpard]

2. Many people have their heads buried in the sand like this.

Hopefully, you made some points that hit home that they will continue to think about even if they didn't admit to it.

[diplomats]

3. Are your parents Republicans?

If so, that explains their viewpoints. As your thread title says, it's probably not a good idea to discuss politics with family members who are on the opposite side of the political spectrum, unless you want an argument.

[MrBadExample]

8. They haven't been before.

They voted for Clinton both times, if I remember right. I'm afraid to ask who they voted for in the last election, though.

[diplomats]

That is depressing

Ironically, senior voters have the lowest approval rating of Bush, polls show.

[salin]

19. Do they attend a politicized church?

The Christian Coalition spent 10 years moving pastors who were uncomfortable talking politics from the pulpit out - or pushing those who resisted into doing so. Now, in many more churches the rhetoric you heard comes from the pulpit. Thus it seems to carry more weight for the parishoners - because "A Man of God" has said it. Very hard to combat that.

[MrBadExample]

25. Nope.

They're pretty non-churchgoing these days, although they spent years as Roman Catholics. Mom's started talking about maybe going back to church, though.

[salin]

33. now that could be interesting

depending on the Church. Locally the two Catholic churches are very peace oriented - and they raise an awful lot of questions about currently policy related to Iraq. That might be a little jolting for your folks. But have heard that in other areas the Catholic Church can be neutral - or even probush. Who knows.

[janekat]

42. They've just been hearing the media "spin" about Bush too much

That's what we will have to overcome if we want to win. The general population has been hearing over and over again that Bush is a "brave" man who is fighting against terrorism. AND that the Dems are "soft" on national security.

[thebigidea]

4. geez, stories like this make me really appreciate my dad

sarcastic old cynic that he is, dutifully screaming "shaddup, Tweety!" at the TV and tearing into Bush whenever possible.

"launched into a rant about how the entire Middle East should be "nuked into glass"

ughhh - one of my best friends will eventually pull this "argument" after getting his network news ideas diced to ribbons by yours truly, and by this point I think he's just saying it to piss me off. How can a sane human believe that nuking the entire ME is a good idea?

Oh wait, I forgot what country I'm in.

Yeah, I guess lots of apparently (outwardly) sane individuals DO believe that killing millions of innocents is a good idea.

NUKE THEIR ASS AND TAKE THEIR GAS!
USA USA USA!
HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

I'm gonna go cry now.

[mhr]

5. Good Story and Condolences

I have somewhat of the opposite problem.

Both of my parents are democrats. My mother is still alive and I have to constantly remind her how bad things really are.

She still clings to a political gentility from days of FDR.

She has a hard time understanding the motivations and depredations of the neo-cons, fundies, and BFEE.

Slowly she is becoming much more shrewd and discerning.

[JohnKleeb]

6. Ummmmm My parents and grandparents detest Bush

Although :D it is a little hard for them to get on the Kucinich boat. Sorry about your parents, I feel bad for those with right wing parents yet I respect them because they managed to see the good in the left.

[alexwcovington]

7. Good advice

Especially if both of your parents were Marines.

[foo_bar]

9. the missionary position

People tend to clam up when they see you "have a dog in this fight". It's easier to educate them about health care and teach them to fish, then hand them a Dean fish and say there's more coming.

[flamingyouth]

10. Mine have become even more liberal as they age

Reading truthout.org, writing letters to the editor, marching against the war on Iraq, etc. I'm very proud of them.

But I think the title of your post is right - just don't discuss it with them, if only for your own sanity. Sorry to hear this.

[MrBadExample]

15. That's how I am.

The older I get, the farther to the left I lean. I'm just waiting for my shipment of patchouli, tie-dye, and Birkenstocks to come in. ;-)

[otohara]

11. Don't Give Up On Them

Maybe if you printed out some articles/facts - PNAC info - Things like flying the bin Ladens out of US with in days of 9/11 - stuff they surely are not aware of that will possibly make them think twice about JR. There's that list of "Bush lies"

It's hard to belive that old folks on SS & Medicade/Medicare would support this man.
Just what has Bush done for the elderly, besides prey on their fears.

[salin]

24. I wouldn't give up, but I wouldn't do the "hard sell", either

in terms of giving papers, etc., that they will (due to their current mindset) quickly dismiss.

Instead, at future times, just raise issues that are of concern about how this administration behaves. Frame it not argumentatively, but from a... I've been thinking and am very troubled... Go as far as the conversation will go - on that front - in that conversation, before they hit "shut down" (which is what you hit in this conversation.)

Just plant seeds that raise questions.

They know you are well informed. And when the questions hit their 'tipping point' level (and for many folks they will), they will let you know. Then hit them with the hard stuff (articles, info, etc.)

[TNOE]

12. "Unfortunately" - they will probably come around

but will probably be of the "come around" group when its too freaking late and America is bankrupt and there are thousands of death soldiers and more thousands and sick wounded to where it won't be able to be hidden any longer. However - my parents and I - or I shoudl say my Republican mother and I - use to have big fiesty discussions - which would sometimes erupt into verbal battles - but interestingly enough now - everytime we are together now - she asks what I think about this or that - she has totally switched sides. I've always found the effort to be worth it.

[vi5]

13. I agree, and my parents are liberal leaning dems...

My parents are in general moderately liberal centrists who almost always vote Democratic. They dislike Bush. But still I get in arguments with them because they think I'm too politically radical. Even though I don't think I am at all. They just don't like talking politics in general. They donate to causes that are personal to them, vote in every election, and like to leave their politics there. I'm a little more zealous and passionate.

[TKP]

14. MrBE

According to some people on DU, you should have talked to your parents the way Al Franken would have talked to your parents. Then you could have offered to make them a pot of coffee, giving you the opportunity to spit in their cups before serving it to them.

One of the hardest lessons in life is realizing that people will look at the same evidences and walk away with different conclusions. You've got to realize, they're wondering why YOU don't get it.

Continue to love and honor your parents. They're here way to short for you to be upset over things with them like politics. Listen to your parents. You may not agree, and they want you to be your own person, but they speak from years of experience, and you know they love you.

[diplomats]

21. Um, I don't think he's going to abandon his parents over this

(BTW, please don't take this the wrong way, but you keep bringing up Al Franken's book in your posts. What's up with that?)

[TKP]

29. diplomats

> Um, I don't think he's going to abandon his parents over this

I should certainly hope not.

>you keep bringing up Al Franken's book in your posts. What's up with that?

I've had a couple of extemely wise people tell me today that if Democrats started being more in-your-face like Al Franken and not take a more reasoned and logical approach when discussing political differences with Republicans, we would do better at the polls. As you can see, I obviously disagree.

[salin]

30. you are just seeing the ongoing

debate - which I think has some grains of truth on both sides - as to why the democrats keep being outmanuevered by republicans.

Not quite a warm welcome to DU - but one that gives insight to part of the questions/battles over strategy and style. Welcome to DU.

I would urge you to read more policy/strategy threads - as they will give you another view of some of those with whom you 'faced off' with. We can agree on many things - and learn from one another - if we look beyond some of our disagreements. On the otherhand if we just focus on the disagreements, and chose to use that as an ongoing point of battle, one will never get to that broader perspective and to find the comraderie that exists (and it does) across such differences.

[diplomats]

31. I like Al Franken, but I think even he would agree he shouldn't

be seen as our "voice." Reason and logic are very important, of course, and should never be thrown aside for pithy soundbites. :)

[JHB]

34. 2 people seeing different things

I've been a participant in at least one of those discussions, yet that's not the impression I got. Advocating a more forceful presentation of liberal ideas, not permitting conservative lies and distortions to go unanswered, and not letting conservatives control the terms of the debate, but not exactly expectorating in coffee (something which I don't recall Franken actually advocating).

[knight_of_the_star]

50. That we SHOULD be

But not forcefull in the fashion that the neo-cons are. Forceful simply by refusing to shut up when they start spouting off lies and rolling out the facts usually works rather well.

[thebigidea]

48. I don't recall that argument being used

I think the gist of my point was that Al Franken was a million times more effective than Alan Colmes. How someone can hold up Alan Colmes' technique as something exemplary and tactically sound is beyond me, but then again - I don't like the man... I just worship him.

and where the heck did the coffee-spitting thing come from?

[JHB]

32. And just who would these "some people" be?

There is a wide range of possible actions, you know.

As a classic example of "people will look at the same evidences and walk away with different conclusions", some of us are wondering how regarding Alan Comes as an inadequate advocate of liberalism equates to spitting in peoples' coffee.

[TKP]

38. JHB

Got no problem with that. Just say that you don't think Alan Colmes does an adequate job like you did. The one's to whom I refer are those who say that someone is being stupid just because they don't see things the way they do. A couple of people ("some people") ended up on the ignore list today because they attacked *me* rather than addressing what I said.

[thebigidea]

49. ooo, did I make the ignore list?

And please point out the personal attacks. I seem to recall much merrymaking at the expense of Alan Colmes.

Unless... wait a minute... ALAN, is that you? All is forgiven! Come home, we miss you!

[TreasonousBastard]

16. hehehehe.. Been There....

hehehehe

Politics is a lot like religion:

Logic or factual arguments don't work

People tend to have the beliefs they were raised with

People all too often tend to believe what they want to believe

Beliefs evolve through one's personal revelation or experience.

Arguments or debating points can no more change a Republican to a Democrat (or vice-versa) than they could change a Catholic to a Muslim.

I stopped trying years ago. Just gets everyone pissed off and ruins Thanksgiving dinner.

(I still make fun of them sometimes, though. Reminding them Bush is no Eisenhower gets 'em going and I split.)

[legin]

35. Why is politics like religion ?

Just musing. Good post TreasonousBastard.

Politics is a belif system because it is a set of 'ideas' that are adopted to handle a vast unknown, that are nescerily limited because people have lives to lead other than politics, that allow people to achieve a sense of intelectual safety because they have a 'model' that allows them to 'think intelligently' about the world around them.

People know that the model they have adopted is limited and not very good but it has enabled them to muddle through life with a fair degree of sucess so far, so why dump it, the negative downsides of the model have failed to reach a level that impact enough upon the person holding it to warrant the hardship of acquiring a new model.

The German people under Hitler only rejected the model that Hitler had induced in them because they had an massive intellectual shock applied to them by being invaded by the allies.

But models must be capable of change because Hitler managed to warp peoples out of shape just as bush* and the neo-cons have done. Possibly model change can be effected by appealing to what is instictive in people like tribalism and violence.

(I beginning to dislike bringing up Hitler because it is Germany and France that are the good guys at the moment)

[legin]

39. So

the statement 'turning the middle east to glass' amongst other things is a statement of the degree of error that they will allow for their model. Basically telling you that if the person is willing to allow that much error in the model they hold then your feeble attempts at showing the deficencies that model are not really worth the effort.

You are failing enough negative downsides to convince the person to go to the work of adopting a new one.

[legin]

44. One way of subverting the model

"Men are not gentle, friendly creatures wishing for love, who simply defend themselves if they are attacked, but that a powerful measure of desire for aggression has to be reckoned as part of their instinctual endowment. The result is that their neighbour is to them not only a possible helper or sexual object, but also a temptation to them to gratify their aggressiveness on him, to exploit his capacity for work without recompense, to use him sexually without his consent, to seize his possessions, to humiliate him, to cause him pain, to torture and to kill him. Homo homini lupus; who has the courage to dispute it in the face of all the evidence in his own life and in history? This aggressive cruelty usually lies in wait for some provocation, or else it steps into the service of some other purpose, the aim of which might as well have been achieved by milder measures. In circumstances that favour it, when those forces in the mind which ordinarily inhibit it cease to operate, it also manifests itself spontaneously and reveals men as savage beasts to whom the thought of sparing their own kind is alien. Anyone who calls to mind the atrocities of the early migrations, of the invasion by the Huns or by the so-called Mongols under Jenghiz Khan and Tamurlane, of the sack of Jerusalem by the pious Crusaders, even indeed the horrors of the last world-war, will have to bow his head humbly before the truth of this view of man."

Civilisation and its Discontents, Freud

http://www.english.upenn.edu/~afilreis/50s/freud-civ.html
(an extract)

[Syncronaut Seven]

17. The more I know about denial

The more I'm convinced it doesn't exist. :)
Seriously, My mother was moving in the right direction untill 9-11. Mention the security of social security & 6 different expressions appear in that telling first half second. It's raw fear, you can smell it.

The last political discussion we had terminated with my assertion that Americans were totally brainwashed by the media. Psycological carpet bombing of the mind I think I called it.

Dad (the engineer)replied "Americans can figure it out, were not stupid!" to which I replied "I believe the correct term is ignorant".

Pretty much the end of that discussion.

Harrad.

[newyawker99]

22. Hi Harrad!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[shrike]

18. my dad was a good democrat

We were the only ones in the family and we loved to talk politics. Now I'm all alone, and I sure miss him. Fortunately, my husband has seen the light -- he voted for Bush and rues the day he did -- so I've got someone to bitch with again.

[RichM]

20. "Nuking the Middle East into glass" does sound a tad extreme.

Your dad sounds like a bona fide Neanderthal. No offense, of course -- my dad is no better. When I told him that Bush's gang was going after Iraq just to get the oil, his response was, "But we NEED that oil!"

[diplomats]

23. Your dad's answer cracked me up, RichM

At least he's honest!

[DoYouEverWonder]

26. I talk politics with my folks all the time

but then I was lucky to end up with lifelong liberal dems for parents.

[SammyWinstonJack]

37. Same here

:-)

[Speck Tater]

27. My mom always tries to prove her point by...

... citing and award winning term paper she wrote in high school in 1938. To her Dems are the cause of every problem in the world and Repugs are the cure, and nothing has changed in either party , or in the world at large since 1938.

There's no arguing with that kind of "logic".

[morgan2]

28. I agree

I can't even stand to argue with my dad. He gets so angry when he has to pay taxes that he buys into the fact that he's paying to much taxes and is entitled to relief. Whats even sadder is that he does volunteer work for the democratic party so as to get ahead in his business because they control the county positions. He gets all angry when he sees me watching things he considers "liberal" like cnn and tries to give me lectures about how they are biased. A few days ago he came in and was like "you've got to realize cnn has an agenda? do you know who started it? Ted turner and "hanoi" jane." While this was good for a laugh, I can't even imagine where to start with him.

[SharonAnn]

36. Sounds like you should convince them not to vote.

That's two less GOP votes we'll need to worry about, then. Just act apathetic and say that oh, it doesn't matter anyway since the voting machine compnies have the whole thing rigged.

[shanti]

40. join the crowd:-(

although my parents are lifelong dems, they STILL refuse to see the truth about what is going on...i gave up :shrug:

[janekat]

41. I feel for you - they sound just like my parents....

n/t

[Undemcided]

43. The Saudi issue will have to be dealt with ...

... and sooner rather than later.

Check out this article about it.
http://www.spectator.co.uk/article.php3?table=old§ion=current&issue=2001-09-22&id=1104

[Yupster]

45. Good advice

don't talk politics with your parents.

If you manage to convince them they've been wrong all these years, then you've managed to make some old people depressed and feeling stupid. You still lose.

Tell them how their grandkids are doing. That's what they want to hear about anyway.

[Lady President]

46. I turned my dad around (sort of)

I know this won't help much with your stumping for Dean, but perhaps you could discuss military backgrounds of some of the candidates vs. Bush*. I have managed to convince my father, who is a veteran, to vote for either Kerry or Clark. Clark isn't in my first tier, but I would much rather him vote for Clark than Bush*~ by far. Maybe if he is pro-Isreal send him information about Lieberman. (I know, that is tough for anyone here to do, but think of the alternative.)

Good luck! :)

[qwertyMike]

47. Since my Dad was a Communist Party member . . .

. . . I had politics befor breakfast every day.

[Clete]

51. That's too bad because votes from old people like

your parents, who need Medicare reform, are what Dean needs. Do they read any of the AARP publications, like Modern Maturity and their newsletter? Usually, they have pretty good articles on Social Security and Medicare that are unbiased and objective. If they prefer to get their information from other sources than you, this may be the way to go and then you can try to ease them into looking into Dean as a candidate again. The important thing is to get them to register as Democrats so they can vote in the primary.

[in_cog_ni_to]

52. <sigh> Doesn't it just drive you nuts

when you get that kind of argument for why people like Bush? My parents who are 69...mom and 77...dad, are both Dems and are voting for Dean. My dad's pet name for Bush is SOB and he says it to EVERYONE who will listen! LOL! He really hates the guy.

[ShaneGR]

53. THIS IS A BAD EXAMPLE!

LOL, I had to do it. Actually, I think your parents are fairly normal. People get stuck in a mindset they refuse to back out of, until you hit them over the head with it. If their is solace, they are only 2 votes. So your vote is worth 33%. :-)