Tags
Argument, Christmas, GOP, Holidays, Propaganda, Republicans, Rhetoric, Snowflakes, Trump
So, the Trump campaign has launched a brand new website intended to help their supporters ‘win’ arguments over the Holiday dinner tables. (No, I’m not linking to the damned thing; you can find it yourself if you like.) I seem to recall the deplorable pundits encouraging their faithful to harass us at the Thanksgiving dinner table. Now they’ve decided to press the fight on into Christmas as well.
…and supposedly, it’s liberal secularists that are trying to ruin Christmas, but whatever!
How are they pitching this little bundle of disinformation? According to CBS News:
“We’ve all seen the news articles about liberal snowflakes being afraid to see their MAGA relatives at Christmas or holiday gatherings, so the Trump campaign wants people to be ready,” Kayleigh McEnany, Trump campaign national press secretary, said in a statement. “We’re not helping snowflakes avoid arguments – we’re helping Trump supporters win them! As 2019 draws to a close and 2020 approaches, President Trump and Americans are going to be winning, winning, and winning, and then winning some more!”
Which brings to mind a certain question. Why is it that we liberals are the ones ducking these Holiday discussions? Why is it that we are the ones consciously trying to avoid politics with friends and family over the Holiday season. I suppose there may be some counter-examples, obviously there are, but I do think the general pattern is those pushing this sight see it; liberals are the ones who would rather not engage even as deplorables are only too happy to spill their love of the Manchurian Cheeto all over the room, regardless of the season.
Frankly, I think this quote, commonly attributed to Bill Murray sums it up rather nicely. (Speaking of which, does anybody out there know when Murray said that? Or if it really was him?) It isn’t a fear of losing the argument so much as the knowledge that any argument worth making will be wasted on some folks. We’ve all been there, and the headache just isn’t worth it. Also, quite frankly, the fear of seeing the darker truths about people we know and love. It sucks when you realize that someone you really care about shows you that that they are only of egg-nogs away from telling a bunch of really racist jokes. It’s unpleasant to realize that a close friend or relative doesn’t check his facts before opening his mouth and can’t be corrected when called out on it. It’s genuinely horrifying to realize that someone you love is just fine with seeing certain people suffer needlessly (ahem! Children in cages on our borders or living under the bombs in any number of places around the world). It isn’t just the unpleasantness of disagreement that makes some of us wary of Holiday discussions, it’s those moments when you can’t help seeing a trace of cruelty or willful deceit underlies the politics of some people you’d like to love. Sure, sometimes people make a reasonable argument from the other side. Even a right wing clock is right twice a day, so to speak, but sometimes, all-too-often really, it isn’t the challenging case that makes us uncomfortable, much less the cold hard-to-explain fact, it’s the moment you see the genuine cruelty in a friend or family member. Politics brings that out in people, some people at any rate.
With Trump in the White House, politics is bringing it out of them a lot more often.
If Hell is the impossibility of reason, then Holiday Hell is the impossibility of reasoning with a half-drunk uncle. The White House wants to see more of that happening today and tomorrow. Apparently, this year it isn’t enough to fight an imaginary war on Christmas or to do as Trump has done in the past, which is to take credit for the fact that people are wishing each other Merry Christmas again, and hope that people won’t notice that most never stopped in the first place. Now they want us to argue more over Christmas.
This is just one more example of trump’s old promise that he will deliver countless wins to his followers. Like so many other ‘winning’ moments, this one is a manufactured moment of one-up-manship, a pointless battle designed to give someone lacking any semblance of character a chance to feel he got the better of someone else. It is neither patriotism nor conservatism. It certainly isn’t Christianity.
And it really isn’t much of a win when you think about it.
Which is to say that it is just like everything else Trump has brought to us over the last 3 years.
northierthanthou 
I am ducking them less, just ducking family in general more and more. My one nephew, as I see, having returned from wonderful Christmas camping at Big Bend, has unfriended me on Hucksterman. His loss, not mine.
I hate to have to take a moral stance here but for me Christmas is about my Savior. I refuse to think about let alone speak of Trump. Everybody deserves a day off! God bless us all.
Happy Beans on Toast Day everyone, peace on Earth happens when we ditch the crap and make our own new ways of doing things.
I’ve never been entirely clear on what Trump means by “winning,” especially as he uses it in contexts where no competition is involved. I guess that makes it all the easier to declare victory.
Debates about fascism at dinner have not been a problem for me for a long time.
Not too many true believers in the moral necessity of the nation state in my extended family, and I have either hit, or made clear that I would hit, anyone bringing that shit.
If you are going to go expressivist, I say go all the way.
Amen
I tend to deflect when faced with a trumpet spouting nonsense. My favorite phrase is, “I didn’t come here to talk politics. I came to eat!” (Or drink, or open presents….)
I presume this is just another version of “owning the libs” though it certainly fits Putin’s interest in furthering division among us.
This piece resonates with me today. Not because I had to spend time with family members who hold Trump in high esteem or agree with his policies. There are really only a small handful of them sprinkled between my side of the family and my husband’s. And we spent our Christmas at home, just the two of us this year. Why it resonates with me is because one of my co-workers was crying today because she and her kids haven’t been invited to her side of the family’s holiday gatherings for 4 years. Because she is a liberal and they are right-wing, pro-Trump folks. They literally don’t want her and her kids around because of the difference in their political beliefs. How freaking sad is that?! Life is just too short in my opinion and love for family should always “trump” (I know, I know) personal political beliefs and opinions. I appreciate your political posts. I have done a few of them on my blog as well, but they pretty much go over like a lead balloon. Good thing I’ve got lots of thoughts and opinions on other stuff. Cheers to a better 2020, the year when the Trump administration and all the Republican politicians who toe his divisive, corrupt, idiotic line get tossed to the curb (hopefully)!
Excellent
“We’ve all seen the news articles about liberal snowflakes being afraid to see their MAGA relatives at Christmas or holiday gatherings, so the Trump campaign wants people to be ready,”
We’re not afraid to see them because of their politics. We’re afraid to see them because they are assholes who won’t shut up about their politics at family gatherings. So the campaign wants to be sure to turn these people into bigger assholes. The effect will be that they stop being invited to family gatherings at all.