I'm not talking about the rift between Republican and Democrat. I'm talking about the polarization of my own family.
My mother is a staunch Republican who votes the Party Line, no matter what. While her classmates were in Vietnam or protesting it, she was a Youth for Goldwater. My first memory is of accompanying her to the Republican Party Headquarters here in Las Vegas and standing with her, hand-in-hand beneath the stern picture of Richard Nixon, surrounded by red white and blue bunting. She defends Nixon's actions to this day. She spewed bile at the TV when Carter won. She was a Reagan woman through and through. She hated Clinton with a rare passion. She loves Dubya with that same passion. She approaches local elections the same way, always voting Republican.
The first times I voted, I followed her. Then, somewhere along the line, I got my own mind and my own opinions. I came to believe in using my vote for the candidate, not the 'R' or 'D.' So I've voted for Republicans, Democrats and Independents. I've even voted 'None of the Above' in a presidential election (1996), because I didn't have faith in either Clinton or Dole.
There are people I respect that will be upset by this, and perhaps look at it as a mental failing, but I voted for Kerry. It was a hard decision for me to make, but in the end, it was a decision made by looking at things besides security and Iraq. I fear for the environment, and the kind of planet my son will inherit. I worry about the schools, and the social institutions. I hate the way my religion has been politicized. I can't stand the way the Patriot Act has been misused - in my city, the FBI used the now-legal wiretaps to get evidence of bribery against strip club owners and County Commissioners. And it's hard-wired in my nature to worry about those who have even less than me - and I'm a single mother without additional support.
I don't think Kerry could have solved all the problems - maybe he couldn't have solved any. But to me, a vote for Bush was a vote for no change at all, and no new points of view.
Last night, across the dinner table, I told my mother I voted for Kerry and the look she gave me was bordering on disgust. I could tell that if Kerry won (which I was, by the way, sure he wouldn't) she would hold me personally responsible. We barely spoke the rest of the night and I could feel her disappointment as surely as if I were back in high school and I'd done badly on a test.
So now, it's time to put away the partisan politics and reach across the aisle with, for me, guarded hope and heartfelt conciliation.
Yep. I'll have to call my mom.
2 comments:
It's a shame that people you respect might consider developing your own opinions, and making your own choices based on well-thought out motives a mental failing. I don't know if this counts for much, but I, for one, respect you even more. Not because you voted for a democrat, but because you thought it through on your own, and decided based on your own opinions, and not those of someone else. I wish more people would do that instead of falling hook, line and sinker for their parent's or grandparent's rhetoric. I think that gives you the right to look yourself in the mirror every day.
I share your fears, and I have some of my own as well. As the mother of two teenage sons, I fear the possibility of a draft if this war continues on in the manner it has. I fear for the mothers whose sons and daughters are there already. As a taxpayer, I fear for the economy, that has gone from the highest historical budget surplus to the hightest historical deficit in the span of four short years. I fear for the young, and, yes, stupid, girls who get pregnant, and may now have their alternatives stripped away so that they have to suffer serious interruptions in their lives, a difficult delivery, and the possible wrath of their families, or suffer life-threatening, back-alley abortions, while the men who contributed to their condition, and are equally stupid, continue on with their lives as if nothing happened to them. I fear for those unwanted children, and what will become of them, because adoptive parents can't possibly absorb them all. I fear for those born to crack whores who were too indifferent to stop sticking needles in their arms while they were forced to carry them, and now have to suffer through life with the lasting effects. I fear for all the additional babies that will found in trash cans across the nation. I fear having to watch people I love suffer and die from insidious diseases that could possibly have been cured by technology that was at our fingertips, but not funded because of certain myopic view points. I fear for the people who are loved by those same visually- challenged people, and who might suffer from the same insidious diseases. I fear for the young, gay man or woman, who is told that they are deviant and abnormal, and as a result will be denied some of the basic the human rights the rest of us are afforded, as if their lives are not difficult enough.
Finally, I fear for all those who just voted their party line, without any consideration, because that is what they were conditioned to do...I don't understand how they can look themselves in the mirror each day, and I fear what they see staring back at them.
Sorry, this is YOUR blog. But I must say getting that out made me feel 1% better. I'll shut up now.
The other Shannon
Only 1%? That was worth another two percentage points at least.
You know my family dynamic. Thanks for knowing, and caring.
Love you.
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