Very disheartening exchange on Facebook with a family member...
I post a lot of political discussions on Facebook, and generally I get very positive feedback. But this exchange, with a brother-in-law, really bummed me out. I deleted his name (because I am not looking to publicly humiliate him). Here's a graphic of the exchange...
= new reply since forum marked as read
Truth is needed. All medicine tastes bad.
... I will concede the tone of my FB post was a bit sharp. And I understand where you are coming from, and appreciate the constructive advice. Typically, and historically, I have been much, much more patient with stuff like this. But I also know this about my family: they are really, really good at not seeing that which they don't want to see -- that which challenges their worldview, etc.
A little background: I come from a family five generations of which were active in local Republican politics. But my forebears, including my late father, were a very different breed from modern Republicans. They actually believed in a commons. An example: in my hometown in PA, up until the 1940s, most of the wells in town had been contaminated by a tannery that had existed in the 19th C. My grandfather built his house and his business on the site where the tannery had stood. His father, my great grandfather, owned a large parcel of mountain land a couple of miles away that had a very productive spring with terrific, potable water. So my great grandfather donated the land, with the spring, for use by the town and a neighboring village. My grandfather designed a reservoir and delivery system (the spring was at enough of an elevation relative to the town that the whole thing could operate purely as a gravity based system, providing amble pressure for homes, without any need for pumps or other mechanical assistance.. The system remains in use to this day. My grandfather then set up a local water authority, a joint municipal agency, consisting of folks from both my hometown and the neighboring village that also used the system, to manage the system. Similarly, my father was instrumental in pushing the town to abandon septic tank systems and to build a central sewage treatment plant. He also served many terms on borough council, and was always involved in trying to do things that would better the community. Today, of course, they would be accused of being "Socialists" or something.
Now, with me and my four siblings, we're all over the map politically. My oldest sister and I (I am the youngest, she is 62 and I am 51) are the two lefties in the family, and indeed share a similar temperament. Sister #2 has gone off the deep end in to batshit crazy Tea Party land. Sister #3 (the one married to the brother-in-law I had the FB exchange with) is conservative by nature, but politically she is more liberal than she thinks (she is a public school teacher). Her conservatism isn't really ideological -- it's more cultural and habitual. She's very traditional in her preferences (although accepting of nontraditional lifestyles). But you can reason with her; she is intelligent and is willing to entertain alternative viewpoints. My brother is a small businessman, also temperamentally conservative, but he, too, will listen to reason and can often be persuaded. Sister #3 and my brother both still live in the town in which we grew up. And then there's me: the youngest, gay, and who lives in the big, bad city of New York. 
So here's the thing: my conservative siblings and in-laws, when asked about some of the extreme rhetoric and positions coming out of the GOP, will say they disagree with those extremes. All well and good. But they still think this is our father's GOP: the party of Eisenhower. They are in complete and total denial about what is going on with the Republican Party. Sure, they claim to be supportive of me, their gay brother, even making sure I know that anybody I happen to be dating or seeing is welcome to come along anytime for family visits. I appreciate that -- I really do. Yet, when they get into the voting booth, the GOP's virulently anti-gay stance never factors into their thinking. Nor does its economic/social malfeasance. Meanwhile, none of us are rich, and in various ways we've all suffered (as has most of the middle class) as a result of GOP policies. So what I have been trying to do of late is to give them a bit of a wake up call: to try to get them to see that their vote has real consequences for real people: people they know and love even. I have resorted, of late, to laying things out in very stark, personal terms, because the honey approach, which I used with them for many, many years, simply hasn't worked (and because my own reserves of sweetness have just about been tapped).
But, clearly, my vinegar isn't working any better than my honey did. <sigh>
You tell 'em.
When I looked at his political Face Book page and saw who he had friended, he lost my vote. I would never vote for anybody connected to one extreme fruitcake who is in our State House.
I mentioned this to some friends at work and they had never thought of looking at a Candidate's Face Book page when decided whom to vote for. I pointed out that it is one more place to gather information on candidates. 
Oh and BTW, I don't care about any Repukes so my risk there is zilch. I could break this down further but you are not worth chatting with. Bye.
