Great ideas, Georgia, But they would not work for me. I long ago persuaded my family to register and vote Democrat. This include my now deceased bother and his last wife, new husband and three kids. They will all vote fir Biden/Harris and both Senator and House of Representative members too,
I too am lucky that no one in my family has fallen prey to the MAGANAZIs.
I had an uncle who voted straight Democrat his entire adult life who loved to debate politics at holiday meals. It didn't matter if everyone at the table agreed with his position. If so, he would happily debate the other side. I was a kid so I didn't participate in the conversations, but my mom and aunts were always upset with him.
My nephew is the union rep for a large fire department in the midwest while his sister works for the state putting away child and spouse abusers. And their brother is a cop, so there stories are much better than arguing politics.
Good job Fay. As each of my three kids reached eighteen years of age I had one and only one request. I was not the parent to pressure them towards college or toward any specific career path. They seemed to have an inkling of how they would fit best in the world and what they were good at. I impressed upon them to do there best and they knew I was a firm believer in potential. But I digress, the one request I did have, in fact a demand - that they thoroughly research each political party or non-party affiliation, current affairs, and register to vote and vote. One hundred percent compliance. Two Democrats and one Independent. One of my son’s greatest disappointments he told me was missing the registration deadline by a few weeks in 2008 due to the date of his eighteenth birthday and not being able to vote for Obama. And he’s the Independent.
Great to hear this Michael, I always joke and say I forced my husbands. children and grandchildren to be Democrats, I did no such thing, I explained why we 'owed' it to our fellow humans and other mammals to be kind, empathetic, and accepting and generous as possible and explained that was why I was a Democrat. Both my husbands were registered Republicans when I married them. Neither was as political as I am so I think they registered and voted Democrat mostly to shut me up (:-), But my daughters and grandchildren, except one grandchild actually agreed with my thinking, Billy who died in 2011, would have been a trumpster had he lived, was a hardcore white, male supremacist; but we still loved and respected each other while he lived.
In addition to Georgia's excellent work, I recommend people follow Rosenberg, another facts and data person.
Here is a sample of Rosenberg's work:
- In the last 4 Presidential elections, Democrats have averaged 51% of the vote, Republicans 46%. That’s 51%-46% (+5). It’s best Presidential run for the Democratic Party since FDR’s 4 elections from 1932 to 1944, and sure suggests that America is today a center-left nation. You can find more Hopium electoral stats here.
- Since 1989, when a new age of globalization began, 50 million jobs have been created in America. 48 million of those jobs, 96%, have been created under Democratic Presidents. Essentially all of them.
Rosenberg
Another statistic I always share is that between September and October there was ZERO INFLATION.
And prices went down 2.1%
I always point out that the President does not set prices. Greedy corporations and Saudi oil are the problem.
Hopium is definitely the place I go when I need good news. But sometimes I feel Rosenberg underplays the negative stuff that is out there. I balance him out with Thom Hartmann.
I guess I keep coming back to "It isn't the odds, it's the stakes." which is somewhere in between the two. I also weight the negative more heavily because of my belief that it is the billionaire dark money types that are actually setting the agenda and Trump is just a front man. If Trump was no longer there, there still would be the those people calling the shots, with someone smarter and more effective in Trump's place.
Nov 17, 2023·edited Nov 17, 2023Liked by Georgia Fisanick
I very much agree with you. Rosenberg is excellent for the hard facts and energizing people to be politically active. He is just not going to look at the scary big picture. There are indeed some very dark money people who have gone beyond the oligarch stuff and are now wanting to install fascism in this Country. Harlan Crow is one of the more up front ones.
The No Labels Party keeps me up at night. That and voter ignorance. Oh and the biased media owned by oligarchs.
I'm a bit more optimistic because I think Trump was more than a front man. He was a narcissist with delusions of grandeur who learned to feed small minds what they want to hear. He has, and had, a unique ability to bring out the worst in this country and amplify it. True billionaires may want an oligarchy, but they want it in a stable country. They're not nihilistic, with real - not falsified - wealth, and prefer a relatively peaceful existence (albeit a plush one) in a relatively stable society so their wealth is not risked too much.
In short, yes we should worry about dark money and about a disengaged electorate. But Trump has been a catalyst for the worst among us. Defeat Trump, and dealing with the rest will be easier. (Keeping the electorate engaged will be harder.)
(I kept writing after the above, listing a short hierarchy of evil in our society that must be dealt with to achieve lasting progress, but I couldn't keep from rambling while chugging coffee.)
Politics can’t be discussed at the table (my sister, the host, has a trumper husband !) but the vast rest of the family & grandkids are Dems including 94 yr old mom. We may discuss political machinations quietly in pockets throughout the house! There is no way to change a trumper’s mind. They say “well trump did some good things” but they can never expound on that when asked. What good things did he do??? No answer.
Don't give up! There has to be one tiny thing that the trumper is worried about, especially since it sounds like he is of retirement age. Drug costs or denials of coverage in Medicare Advantage plans, or rural healthcare access. You can start the conversation with "Boy, I am worried about..." I have a senior yoga class with some ladies with multiple OAN bumper stickers, but we still have common worries.
I agree w/what you’re saying but my sister has laid down the law - no politics discussed. We’ll respect her request. But there might still be pathways to navigate a fact or two into discussions!! We’ll try the “I’m worried about” openings. It’s less combative!
No combat ever at this point. I agree it doesn't do any good with Trumpers. The only way in is through empathy and commonality. You and your family have a year to build the bridge.
Every donation not sent to Trump and the Republicans, every visit not made to Tucker Carlson's website, counts as a win. This threat to our democracy is going to be around for a while. It will be there after the next election. We have to keep pushing back.
This is brilliant, Georgia. Don't bring a club to the table. Bring some merchandise - information. I will bookmark this list for future reference. But it won't be needed at our table. There are no MAGATs in my family or friends. We are fortunate. It's also been the result of a long term shedding of associations. The "conservatives" that used to be dear friends and have gone to the dark side of hate and bigotry don't get phone calls from me.
I think there is real value in trying to communicate with those that we hold close. But there is also the mental health benefit of not surrounding oneself with haters. And shunning is a statement of principle.
We are spending Thanksgiving in Florida. All the family is on the bright side. But I may encounter a conversation with an ageist or "anti-socialist" in our travels. Thanks for the material!
Good suggestion Georgia. Thankfully, I don’t have many Uncle Charlie’s amongst relatives and friends. I do have a niece married to a hard-core Trumper. Very hard core. Incurable lost cause. My niece is more tolerant and somehow it all works out. The last Thanksgiving we had with them was 2015. He was already spouting off every other sentence. My wife and I, the well known tree hungers we are, took deep breaths and accepted the ephemerality of the good and bad moments. We’re all failed humans in one way or another. This too shall pass.
An uncomfortable thought for us to ponder: Is it a good thing that there are few or no Republicans among our family and friends anymore? How did it come to be that we as a society became so polarized? How much responsibility do we bear for pulling away and leaving the "lost causes" to themselves--to leave them unchallenged to stew in the lies spewed by Trump and Bannon and Carlson?
I am guilty of this, In retrospect I see that it is much harder to do the necessary work of building those relationships back now than it would have been then. And they can only be built back one relationship at a time, one conversation at a time.
I think the most successful conversations might be with close relatives or longtime friends where the comfort level of conversation can be more trusting, criticism accepted as being constructive, and when all else fails both parties agree they don’t agree and work within certain boundaries. Shirttail seldom seen relatives, acquaintances, and co-workers are a little tougher.
The niece’s lost cause husband had lots of “Trump will fix that” comments, defiantly refused to use his recycler trash can because he’s anti-environmentalist, and made his own hollow point lead ammo because it’s illegal to buy in CA. He’d love to move to the ultra-red Idaho panhandle, but realizes he’d be unable to transfer his lucrative CA tax supported pension and pay level. Talk about a hypocrite.
I spent over forty years in field of work (construction/architecture/engineering) heavily dominated by republican pro-business anti-environmental thinking; I listened, smiled, and occasionally probed around the edges. I wasn’t out to pick a fight or become an antagonist. The best method is to find common ground and work from there. Almost twenty of those years was spent on military base construction. My years as a piggy at the trough. That was eye opening. Not everyone at DOD are right-wing, gun and ammo loving war mongers. I saw the insides of installations the public hasn’t a clue about (and a security clearance that was the envy of my wife at airports when I always got TSA pre-check clearance and she waited in a line for an hour), had conversations with career Navy SEALS about overseas missions that wouldn’t be made public in the press for years, and came away knowing every issue has many sides to the conversation, no one is ever completely right, nor completely wrong.
The below is from Katharine Hayhoe’s November 20, 2023 SubStack “Talking Climate with Katharine Hayhoe”
Katharine is the Chief Scientist for the Nature Conservancy and a professor of climate science and is a Paul Whitfield Horn Distinguished Professor and an Endowed Chair in Public Policy and Public Law at the Texas Tech University Department of Political Science.
It’s specific to the subject of climate change, but it includes useful tips on how to start a conversation that could begin to change someone’s perspective.
From “Bring local impacts into climate conversations” -
“This week is American Thanksgiving and for many others, the holiday season is coming up next month. This means that, wherever you live, you’ll have lots of opportunities to have a conversation about climate change soon.”
“I always recommend starting off with something you have in common; so focusing on how climate change is affecting the place where you both live, or care about, or visit, is a good place to begin. “
“You can mention one of the crazy weather events that happened this year, or perhaps how unseasonably warm the fall has been, depending on how you live. Then bring in some of the other changes that have been happening there, and how they are affecting people’s homes, livelihoods, or health.
Where can you find this information? If you live in the U.S., you can turn to this page of U.S. National Climate Assessment and find the chapter that describes your region to see what’s happening there. In Canada, we have the Climate Atlas of Canada that illustrates local impacts. For Australia, you can look to Climate Change in Australia; in the U.K., the Met Office and the BBC developed this tool; and for the E.U., there’s this report by the European Environment Agency.”
“Don’t forget to also bring up positive solutions that will get people excited about action. Even though they might not talk about it, most people are worried about climate change but don’t know what to do. This newsletter’s archives are full of solutions, such as the edition last month on food waste. Spread the word!”
“For more tips about how to talk climate change at family dinners, watch this webinar I hosted on this very topic, or my interview with Jimmy Kimmel where he asked me the same question. Give it a try, and let me know how it goes!”
I’d add in all the conversions I’ve had over the years with those I knew or quickly discovered were of conservative leanings is to listen first, mentally define the boundaries, strive to find why they perceive things as they do to have formed the opinions they have, and then probe for cracks in the facade to see if they can be opened for better enlightenment. There are many reasons people form opinions - it could be they were raised in strict narrow minded families with no exposure to alternative perspectives (from friends, relatives, or the media); maybe there’s a PTSD reason; it could be a firmly head religious belief that holds sway over all other thinking; fear is a huge controlling factor; lack of education (by circumstances, family attitudes and beliefs, or mental abilities). A lot of Americans lack critical thinking skills.
I was fortunate, having emerged from a family with an overly strict, highly structured, extremely right-wing father, to have been born with a compass for detecting and detesting hypocrisy. The B&W TV got wheeled out every night for the local and evening news as we ate dinner (dad got home late). I was exposed to the Vietnam war and riots in the street at an early age, started following politics at age ten. I could already tell something’s wrong with this picture.
Great ideas, Georgia, But they would not work for me. I long ago persuaded my family to register and vote Democrat. This include my now deceased bother and his last wife, new husband and three kids. They will all vote fir Biden/Harris and both Senator and House of Representative members too,
I too am lucky that no one in my family has fallen prey to the MAGANAZIs.
I had an uncle who voted straight Democrat his entire adult life who loved to debate politics at holiday meals. It didn't matter if everyone at the table agreed with his position. If so, he would happily debate the other side. I was a kid so I didn't participate in the conversations, but my mom and aunts were always upset with him.
My nephew is the union rep for a large fire department in the midwest while his sister works for the state putting away child and spouse abusers. And their brother is a cop, so there stories are much better than arguing politics.
Good job Fay. As each of my three kids reached eighteen years of age I had one and only one request. I was not the parent to pressure them towards college or toward any specific career path. They seemed to have an inkling of how they would fit best in the world and what they were good at. I impressed upon them to do there best and they knew I was a firm believer in potential. But I digress, the one request I did have, in fact a demand - that they thoroughly research each political party or non-party affiliation, current affairs, and register to vote and vote. One hundred percent compliance. Two Democrats and one Independent. One of my son’s greatest disappointments he told me was missing the registration deadline by a few weeks in 2008 due to the date of his eighteenth birthday and not being able to vote for Obama. And he’s the Independent.
Great to hear this Michael, I always joke and say I forced my husbands. children and grandchildren to be Democrats, I did no such thing, I explained why we 'owed' it to our fellow humans and other mammals to be kind, empathetic, and accepting and generous as possible and explained that was why I was a Democrat. Both my husbands were registered Republicans when I married them. Neither was as political as I am so I think they registered and voted Democrat mostly to shut me up (:-), But my daughters and grandchildren, except one grandchild actually agreed with my thinking, Billy who died in 2011, would have been a trumpster had he lived, was a hardcore white, male supremacist; but we still loved and respected each other while he lived.
In addition to Georgia's excellent work, I recommend people follow Rosenberg, another facts and data person.
Here is a sample of Rosenberg's work:
- In the last 4 Presidential elections, Democrats have averaged 51% of the vote, Republicans 46%. That’s 51%-46% (+5). It’s best Presidential run for the Democratic Party since FDR’s 4 elections from 1932 to 1944, and sure suggests that America is today a center-left nation. You can find more Hopium electoral stats here.
- Since 1989, when a new age of globalization began, 50 million jobs have been created in America. 48 million of those jobs, 96%, have been created under Democratic Presidents. Essentially all of them.
Rosenberg
Another statistic I always share is that between September and October there was ZERO INFLATION.
And prices went down 2.1%
I always point out that the President does not set prices. Greedy corporations and Saudi oil are the problem.
See Simon Rosenberg at Hopium on Substack
Hopium is definitely the place I go when I need good news. But sometimes I feel Rosenberg underplays the negative stuff that is out there. I balance him out with Thom Hartmann.
I guess I keep coming back to "It isn't the odds, it's the stakes." which is somewhere in between the two. I also weight the negative more heavily because of my belief that it is the billionaire dark money types that are actually setting the agenda and Trump is just a front man. If Trump was no longer there, there still would be the those people calling the shots, with someone smarter and more effective in Trump's place.
The danger in underplaying the negative is optimism leads to complacency. What we are facing is a fifty alarm fire.
I very much agree with you. Rosenberg is excellent for the hard facts and energizing people to be politically active. He is just not going to look at the scary big picture. There are indeed some very dark money people who have gone beyond the oligarch stuff and are now wanting to install fascism in this Country. Harlan Crow is one of the more up front ones.
The No Labels Party keeps me up at night. That and voter ignorance. Oh and the biased media owned by oligarchs.
I'm a bit more optimistic because I think Trump was more than a front man. He was a narcissist with delusions of grandeur who learned to feed small minds what they want to hear. He has, and had, a unique ability to bring out the worst in this country and amplify it. True billionaires may want an oligarchy, but they want it in a stable country. They're not nihilistic, with real - not falsified - wealth, and prefer a relatively peaceful existence (albeit a plush one) in a relatively stable society so their wealth is not risked too much.
In short, yes we should worry about dark money and about a disengaged electorate. But Trump has been a catalyst for the worst among us. Defeat Trump, and dealing with the rest will be easier. (Keeping the electorate engaged will be harder.)
(I kept writing after the above, listing a short hierarchy of evil in our society that must be dealt with to achieve lasting progress, but I couldn't keep from rambling while chugging coffee.)
Politics can’t be discussed at the table (my sister, the host, has a trumper husband !) but the vast rest of the family & grandkids are Dems including 94 yr old mom. We may discuss political machinations quietly in pockets throughout the house! There is no way to change a trumper’s mind. They say “well trump did some good things” but they can never expound on that when asked. What good things did he do??? No answer.
Don't give up! There has to be one tiny thing that the trumper is worried about, especially since it sounds like he is of retirement age. Drug costs or denials of coverage in Medicare Advantage plans, or rural healthcare access. You can start the conversation with "Boy, I am worried about..." I have a senior yoga class with some ladies with multiple OAN bumper stickers, but we still have common worries.
It's not the odds, it's the stakes!
I agree w/what you’re saying but my sister has laid down the law - no politics discussed. We’ll respect her request. But there might still be pathways to navigate a fact or two into discussions!! We’ll try the “I’m worried about” openings. It’s less combative!
Great post w/suggestions by the way!!!
No combat ever at this point. I agree it doesn't do any good with Trumpers. The only way in is through empathy and commonality. You and your family have a year to build the bridge.
Every donation not sent to Trump and the Republicans, every visit not made to Tucker Carlson's website, counts as a win. This threat to our democracy is going to be around for a while. It will be there after the next election. We have to keep pushing back.
This is brilliant, Georgia. Don't bring a club to the table. Bring some merchandise - information. I will bookmark this list for future reference. But it won't be needed at our table. There are no MAGATs in my family or friends. We are fortunate. It's also been the result of a long term shedding of associations. The "conservatives" that used to be dear friends and have gone to the dark side of hate and bigotry don't get phone calls from me.
I think there is real value in trying to communicate with those that we hold close. But there is also the mental health benefit of not surrounding oneself with haters. And shunning is a statement of principle.
We are spending Thanksgiving in Florida. All the family is on the bright side. But I may encounter a conversation with an ageist or "anti-socialist" in our travels. Thanks for the material!
Good suggestion Georgia. Thankfully, I don’t have many Uncle Charlie’s amongst relatives and friends. I do have a niece married to a hard-core Trumper. Very hard core. Incurable lost cause. My niece is more tolerant and somehow it all works out. The last Thanksgiving we had with them was 2015. He was already spouting off every other sentence. My wife and I, the well known tree hungers we are, took deep breaths and accepted the ephemerality of the good and bad moments. We’re all failed humans in one way or another. This too shall pass.
An uncomfortable thought for us to ponder: Is it a good thing that there are few or no Republicans among our family and friends anymore? How did it come to be that we as a society became so polarized? How much responsibility do we bear for pulling away and leaving the "lost causes" to themselves--to leave them unchallenged to stew in the lies spewed by Trump and Bannon and Carlson?
I am guilty of this, In retrospect I see that it is much harder to do the necessary work of building those relationships back now than it would have been then. And they can only be built back one relationship at a time, one conversation at a time.
I think the most successful conversations might be with close relatives or longtime friends where the comfort level of conversation can be more trusting, criticism accepted as being constructive, and when all else fails both parties agree they don’t agree and work within certain boundaries. Shirttail seldom seen relatives, acquaintances, and co-workers are a little tougher.
The niece’s lost cause husband had lots of “Trump will fix that” comments, defiantly refused to use his recycler trash can because he’s anti-environmentalist, and made his own hollow point lead ammo because it’s illegal to buy in CA. He’d love to move to the ultra-red Idaho panhandle, but realizes he’d be unable to transfer his lucrative CA tax supported pension and pay level. Talk about a hypocrite.
I spent over forty years in field of work (construction/architecture/engineering) heavily dominated by republican pro-business anti-environmental thinking; I listened, smiled, and occasionally probed around the edges. I wasn’t out to pick a fight or become an antagonist. The best method is to find common ground and work from there. Almost twenty of those years was spent on military base construction. My years as a piggy at the trough. That was eye opening. Not everyone at DOD are right-wing, gun and ammo loving war mongers. I saw the insides of installations the public hasn’t a clue about (and a security clearance that was the envy of my wife at airports when I always got TSA pre-check clearance and she waited in a line for an hour), had conversations with career Navy SEALS about overseas missions that wouldn’t be made public in the press for years, and came away knowing every issue has many sides to the conversation, no one is ever completely right, nor completely wrong.
The below is from Katharine Hayhoe’s November 20, 2023 SubStack “Talking Climate with Katharine Hayhoe”
Katharine is the Chief Scientist for the Nature Conservancy and a professor of climate science and is a Paul Whitfield Horn Distinguished Professor and an Endowed Chair in Public Policy and Public Law at the Texas Tech University Department of Political Science.
It’s specific to the subject of climate change, but it includes useful tips on how to start a conversation that could begin to change someone’s perspective.
From “Bring local impacts into climate conversations” -
“This week is American Thanksgiving and for many others, the holiday season is coming up next month. This means that, wherever you live, you’ll have lots of opportunities to have a conversation about climate change soon.”
“I always recommend starting off with something you have in common; so focusing on how climate change is affecting the place where you both live, or care about, or visit, is a good place to begin. “
“You can mention one of the crazy weather events that happened this year, or perhaps how unseasonably warm the fall has been, depending on how you live. Then bring in some of the other changes that have been happening there, and how they are affecting people’s homes, livelihoods, or health.
Where can you find this information? If you live in the U.S., you can turn to this page of U.S. National Climate Assessment and find the chapter that describes your region to see what’s happening there. In Canada, we have the Climate Atlas of Canada that illustrates local impacts. For Australia, you can look to Climate Change in Australia; in the U.K., the Met Office and the BBC developed this tool; and for the E.U., there’s this report by the European Environment Agency.”
“Don’t forget to also bring up positive solutions that will get people excited about action. Even though they might not talk about it, most people are worried about climate change but don’t know what to do. This newsletter’s archives are full of solutions, such as the edition last month on food waste. Spread the word!”
“For more tips about how to talk climate change at family dinners, watch this webinar I hosted on this very topic, or my interview with Jimmy Kimmel where he asked me the same question. Give it a try, and let me know how it goes!”
https://open.substack.com/pub/talkingclimatenewsletter/p/bring-local-impacts-into-climate?r=1knhs2&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post
I’d add in all the conversions I’ve had over the years with those I knew or quickly discovered were of conservative leanings is to listen first, mentally define the boundaries, strive to find why they perceive things as they do to have formed the opinions they have, and then probe for cracks in the facade to see if they can be opened for better enlightenment. There are many reasons people form opinions - it could be they were raised in strict narrow minded families with no exposure to alternative perspectives (from friends, relatives, or the media); maybe there’s a PTSD reason; it could be a firmly head religious belief that holds sway over all other thinking; fear is a huge controlling factor; lack of education (by circumstances, family attitudes and beliefs, or mental abilities). A lot of Americans lack critical thinking skills.
I was fortunate, having emerged from a family with an overly strict, highly structured, extremely right-wing father, to have been born with a compass for detecting and detesting hypocrisy. The B&W TV got wheeled out every night for the local and evening news as we ate dinner (dad got home late). I was exposed to the Vietnam war and riots in the street at an early age, started following politics at age ten. I could already tell something’s wrong with this picture.
My friends and family know I believe in the Republic and I love them... I love the Republic.