I learned about twelve years ago that you should not talk politics with your friends. My friend and I were yakking it up about things happening in the world. I was talking Clinton, she was talking Bush. And then I realized that she was stroking elephants, I was petting donkeys.
I approached the conversation in a different way. That didn’t work. Soon, we were screaming at each other. I was puzzled, then I was hurt. A third-party observer pulled me aside and said “Never talk politics with your friends”.
I had heard that cliché before but thought it only applied to angry old men in the fifties. Don’t talk politics, religion or money…Yeah yeah yeah, but who really thought it was true? I never did. Until I realized that my friend was a Republican.
She always seemed a little more conservative than I, perhaps a little less tolerant. She sometimes calls me a granola-crunching tree-hugging hippie, but hey, that’s just a little good-natured ribbing between friends. You really voted for Bush…AND his son?
Don’t even tell me you are considering Hillary for president.
Yeah, I was. The problem has not gone away. I avoided politics for over 12 years with her. And then, over a glass of wine, I saw her rolling her eyes at my Hillary sign. Actually she screamed out loud when she saw it hanging on my front door.
The shouting started up again- she, calling me a fool for giving another Clinton a chance, me calling her a traitor for not considering voting for a woman in the White House. She accused me of trying to get people to vote for someone just because she’s a woman. That’s not what I’m saying, but come on MITT ROMNEY??!
Now, it’s all about John McCain. I keep getting emails about McCain’s superior stance on the economy, the war, and illegal immigrants, as compared to Obama’s crazy, hippie, loosey-goosey, anti-American sentiments on all of the above and more.
I start to shoot off an email countering each point, but then remember the wise words from that third-party observer back in 1996. I am not going to win this. Neither will she. So, I delete the email, but can’t help sending a curt ‘Give it up, he’s gonna lose”.
As fate would have it, this friend and her rather large pet elephant, were at my kitchen table shortly after McCain had picked his controversial running mate. As we watched CNN, over a few drinks, I was feeling kind of smug. Is this pick for real? Mr. McCain seems to have gotten sucked into the Obama drama, impulsively picking the youngest, most unexpected candidate he could find, forgetting about- oh, I don’t know- THE VICE PRESIDENCY!
My friend remained calm, reserving judgment. I sensed that she was a little nervous. But, like any good Republican, she kept her comments to herself, mumbling that she’d have to do some research on this woman from Wasilla.
No need. The research emerged, the controversies continued. As is typical, what should have been politics as usual, turned into something akin to Inside Edition. Over the next week, I watched in horror as the spin backfired. What was supposed to be a gaffe, turned into an up-by-her-bootstraps story. Her fiery speech, like some gigantic pep rally, got the elephants jumping. And the pounding was hurting my ears.
What remains clear, now as it was back in 1996, is that friends shouldn’t talk politics, because people are not really interested in changing their minds. Certainly not the two seated at opposite ends of my kitchen table.
Recently, things have really become heated. She sent me a picture of Obama next to Osama bin Laden in some sort of ridiculously offensive poster. I called her racist. She mentioned the “lipstick on a pig” comment; I called her sexist. If anyone had said that about a male candidate (and MANY politicians have), no one would have been offended. Now, people are implying that women need to be protected.
C’mon! I thought she was a pit bull! More emails flew back and forth. Womansaynotopalin is a website for women to speak out against this choice (who, incidentally, speaks out against our choice). What about the notion, in the wake of losing Hillary, that just any woman would make a suitable candidate? That’s pigslop!
I even hit “reply all” to desperately try to reach anyone in her circle of elephants who would listen to me. Will I never learn? The elephants don’t want donkey food. And I would sooner vomit than listen to their foolish trumpeting. Although I did get one reply: it was just my friend assuring me that I wasn’t a donkey, I was a jackass.
But I was too busy trying to finish this sentence to care: “If the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull is lipstick, then the difference between the Governor of Alaska and the Vice President is…”
I heard jokes about Obama’s inexperience. I fired back about McCain’s hawkish approach to the US at war. She asked me what I would do if my daughter came home with “that problem”. (Does she mean “pregnant”?). I ranted about the need for open discussion and education, not just preaching abstinence and repression.
I screamed at her for voting for someone so anti-women’s rights. Censorship! Drilling in Alaska’s virgin territory. Don’t get me started about drilling in anyone’s virgin territory! I was out of control. Angrily tapping on my computer. Sweating. Muttering. Swearing. I called her ignorant. She called me clueless. Friends, it’s voting season!
By the time this appears in print, I will have cooled down. I may even have a certain someone at my kitchen table. By then, I will pour her a drink and tell her that I still love her. Even if I do occasionally call her a racist, sexist pig…with lipstick.
Megan Davis Collins is a writer, social worker and mother: megdavcol@gmail.com
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