An article won't help
Dear Prudence,
My wonderful and extremely intelligent daughter has been married to “Steven” for seven years. We are extremely fond of Steven. He is kind, hard-working, enormously respectful, and genuinely devoted to our daughter. The problem is that Steven is an ardent Trump supporter. My husband, my daughter, and I are die-hard liberals and horrified by all that is happening politically right now. We understand Steven’s viewpoint. He is an active-duty military officer from a very different background. He’s always been respectful of our point of view and we generally avoid talking politics. But he is increasingly fixated on Fox News and various extremist MAGA commentators as being the truth and now doesn’t believe there is another point of view. Our daughter is incredibly distraught.
They have essentially agreed to disagree. Steven claims that my daughter’s more privileged and sheltered life precludes her from understanding current realities, especially those he has seen firsthand in numerous combat situations. My daughter is weighing her options and is discussing this with me in depth. Among her concerns is that Steven is dealing with various combat-related medical issues and frankly would be devastated, if not destroyed, if she were to leave. She loves him and he absolutely adores her. She is asking for my help. She knows regardless of what she decides her dad and I will always support her.
But there is a part of me that feels overwhelmingly sorry for Steven. I want to help him see the light. I want to do what I can to help keep their marriage viable. I’m encouraging my daughter to seek local counseling and also to find moments where she can openly share her political views and serious concerns with Steven. He often seeks my opinion and advice on work-related and family issues. In the run-up to the election, I sent him occasional hard facts and non-opinion pieces pointing out Trump’s lies and criminal undertakings but clearly, this had no impact. Can you recommend a succinct, serious eye-opening article or statement by someone not clearly liberal that he might consider? Any other suggestions are welcomed.
—A Very Sad and Worried Mama
Re: An article won't help
I know it's hard. I'm not speaking to anyone in my family but my mother and an aunt. The rest of the family has made an effort to reach out since my father died and I've ignored them all. I rest easy with the decision.
Is daughter willing to support someone who thinks she's less of a human than he is in perpetuity?
I told my H during the election that Trump could stomp to death a litter of adorable puppies on national tv and his fanatics...which is an alarmingly high number of people...would praise him for controlling the pet population.
I didn't think it was possible for me to hate a politician more than him. I should not have tempted fate with that feeling because now there is Trump.
Now I have to rant.
My H and I had originally evacuated to my friend's house in Hattiesburg, MS for Katrina (HK). We knew the storm would go directly over that town, but it's a good ways from the coast. Nobody expected that storm to hit even central MS as hard as it did. The whole city was without power the next day and it wasn't coming back on anytime soon. All the stores were closed. My H and I spoke privately that we needed to move along so we weren't a burden on her family.
Birmingham, AL was our new destination. The freeway was closed due to downed trees. It took us 6 hours on backwoods farm roads with bumper-to-bumper traffic to go 90 miles north. But that was when we could finally get back on the freeway. Good times!
We'd heard from the radio about the devastation on the MS Gulf Coast and the flooding in New Orleans. But that night in our hotel was the first time we saw any footage. We were shell-shocked and devastated.
But sometimes the news flipped to other stories. Like George W. Bush toasting champagne and eating cake from his birthday blowout he'd had earlier in the day. He was on vacation for a week at his house in TX. And stayed there. The WHOLE week. Before bothering to come only 1 and 2 states over and at least pretend he sympathized.
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This was a popular George W Bush joke in New Orleans at the time:
"President Bush, what is your stance on Roe vs. Wade?" (I know, harsher impact in current times)
George W: "No stance. I don't care how people got out of New Orleans."