Said Maureen Dowd's brother Kevin, quoted in her column "Of Monuments, Arguments, Vampires and Thanksgiving/John Wayne, Brett Kavanaugh, my brothers Michael and Kevin, and me," which has lots of great material about her relationship with her 2 conservative brothers. She goes on a trip to Monument Valley with Kevin. The other brother, Michael, died in 2007, and if I'm reading correctly, she was estranged from him when he died. The column ends with Maureen and Kevin watching the Kavanaugh swearing-in:
When Kavanaugh thanked his “amazing and fearless” friends, including those from the “coaching” world and his “tightknit Catholic community here in the D.C. area,” I looked over. A tear was running down Kevin’s cheek.Don't indulge in the off-loading of your estrangement onto Donald Trump. There will always be political figures out there, setting us off, stirring up hostility and anxiety. Find the estrangement that originates in you, and take care of that. Just remember, when you really need somebody, the only one that’s going to be compelled to run toward you is your family....
And then I started to cry, too, because I was thinking of Michael and what was lost, and Kevin and what I hope won’t be lost. And because, more and more, it seems that Donald Trump’s genius for hate and division has driven us all into a canyon that we won’t easily be able to climb out of.
I worry that it will be a long time before we can talk across our jangly, angry chasms.
Posts
110 comments:
It seems only natural for her to blame Trump. To a leftist, the personal is the political. This is their most dangerous and destructive creed of all.
Happy Thanksgiving, Modo.
You know what has estranged me from my sister?
Feminism. I don't even consider the ideology to be serious on her part. It's a cudgel to try to browbeat me in the great game of sibling rivalry. Who did Daddy love the most?
I view your feminism, Althouse, as the same damned thing. Dowd appears to have the same problem.
It's just an S&M game you play, prof, to try to gain the edge in your relationships with men.
As with my sister, I refuse to give in to your underhanded S&M game.
Her brother is admirable. It sounds as if she has more problems with her sisters, which is not surprising. For her family, this isn't just politics, they know Kavanaugh personally. That she fails to grasp that in her brother's tears and instead blames Trump is sad.
"You know what has estranged me from my sister? Feminism. I don't even consider the ideology to be serious on her part. It's a cudgel to try to browbeat me in the great game of sibling rivalry. Who did Daddy love the most?I view your feminism, Althouse, as the same damned thing. Dowd appears to have the same problem."
I think the best solution lies in each person's looking into himself and finding the estrangement in yourself and doing something about that. The other person has to do that for herself, and maybe she will but maybe she won't. You can only do what it takes for you, in your own terms, to be the person you want to be. Maybe that is a crusty, angry old man. It's not my problem.
I am pretty sure that the majority of the hate out there comes from sore losers who have a plan to replace the American electorate and thought it would have worked by now.
"Don't indulge in the off-loading of your estrangement onto Donald Trump."
Yes.
The Devil makes them do it.
From Wiki:
"The Trial of Arne Cheyenne Johnson, also known as the Devil Made Me Do It Case, is the first known court case in the United States in which the defense sought to prove innocence based upon the defendant's claim of demonic possession and denial of personal responsibility for the crime.[1][2] On November 24, 1981, in Brookfield, Connecticut, Arne Cheyenne Johnson was convicted of first-degree manslaughter for the killing of his landlord, Alan Bono.[3]
According to testimony by the Glatzel family, 11-year-old David Glatzel had allegedly played host to the demon that forced Johnson to kill Bono. After witnessing a number of increasingly ominous occurrences involving David, the family, exhausted and terrified, decided to enlist the aid of self-described demonologists Ed and Lorraine Warren (noted for their investigation into the famed Amityville Haunting) in a last-ditch effort to "cure" David. The Glatzel family, along with the Warrens, then proceeded to have David exorcised by a number of Catholic priests. The process continued for several days, concluding when, according to those present, a demon fled the child's body and took up residence within Johnson. Several months later, Johnson killed his landlord during a heated conversation. His defense lawyer argued in court that he was possessed, but the judge ruled that such a defense could never be proven and was therefore infeasible in a court of law. Johnson was subsequently convicted, though he only served five years of a 10- to 20-year sentence."
Everyone knows that when th Devil is after you that you have to stand strong and play the fiddle better than him.
I am Laslo.
I say that because the estrangement in my life all seems to originate from those on one side of the political spectrum. But Dowd is pretty smart and it probably runs in the family, which explains. why two out of the three kids were conservative.
It's not my problem.
Yeah, it is your problem.
My sister and I were estranged for a long period of time. She eventually dropped the bullshit and we agreed to cease all political discussion, especially the S&M bullshit about feminism.
When are you going to stop playing your stupid S&M game? It's vile. You've got a serious moral problem here. Behave yourself.
The Devil Made Me Buy This Dress!
Thank you for reminding me of Flip Wilson.
God and family. Sad that people have to have this pointed out in this current culture. Family is great. Don't forget there are a lot of responsibility, along with those benefits.
"And then I started to cry, too, because I was thinking of Michael and what was lost, and Kevin and what I hope won’t be lost.... I worry that it will be a long time before we can talk across our jangly, angry chasms."
I know she wrote "chasms" because she was out in Monument Valley and rocky landscape was the metaphor at hand, but if she cried and thought of all that was lost and all that was going to be lost, why did she pull back into worrying and imagining "a long time" needing to pass? With one brother already dead, it's starkly obvious — it's a jutting red mesa of obviousness — that there isn't time. Stop wasting your life on politics and see the love that you have in your family.
"Stop wasting your life on politics and see the love that you have in your family."
This.
"It's not my problem"/"Yeah, it is your problem."
Well, you just substituted your own antecedent for "it." That's just a cheap rhetorical device.
The question remains the same, Althouse.
When will you have the sense to stop playing this despicable, vile S&M game?
I was close to being estranged from my sister until we each realized that we were reacting in different ways to the same destructive sibling shit. Now we are closer than ever, but we never argue about politics. We avoid that by not discussing them except in the most general ways, or where there are likely areas of agreement. Such as, even though she could lecture you today about how the 2000 election was “stolen,” and she registers as a Republican solely to make mischief in the primaries, we can agree that the Clintons are the lowest form of scum to infect our politics in our lifetime, which included Dick Nixon’s presidency.
Happy Thanksgiving.
I hope you and your family have a happy holiday.
Dowd was estranged from her brother, who died in 2007, because of Donald Trump. How'd that play out, exactly?
I am still hot for MoDo. I can tame that filly.
"Just remember, when you really need somebody, the only one that’s going to be compelled to run toward you is your family, not your friends."
No, that's not true. I've watched all the sitcoms, and whenever someone's in trouble, they turn to their friends who are always there for them, have the money for them, and have the time to address that moment's troubles, dropping any and every concern that they might otherwise have, so that you and your issues are addressed. Like the true and caring people that they are, friends are always available to go the coffee shop, to the movies, to help you move something. Anything you need, they're there for you. George, Elaine, Jerry, Kramer.
When will you have the sense to stop playing this despicable, vile S&M game?
You know that music is all about tension and resolution, ST, is that S&M?. So is comedy, so is literature, so is sex...
Shouting Thomas said...
"You know what has estranged me from my sister? Feminism."
Althouse said...
"I think the best solution lies in each person's looking into himself and finding the estrangement in yourself and doing something about that."
People are estranged, when you're an estranger.
Faces look ugly, when you're alone.
Women seem wicked, when you're unwanted.
Streets are uneven when you're down.
Wilbur said...
It seems only natural for her to blame Trump. To a leftist, the personal is the political. This is their most dangerous and destructive creed of all.
"The personal is political" will prove out to be the most destructive motto since "workers of the world unite."
It was kind of Dowd, though to give her conservative brother credit for a great observation about the appropriate limits of politics. (And not insignificant that it was said by a conservative and not a liberal.)
Also, have you noticed that when a sitcom cashes in the sexual tension for a wedding episode, it’s never going to be the same?
Of course this blog had the wedding episode some time ago...
Thanks for this Ann.
I am thankful for the Althouse blog. An interesting intellectual charge every morning!
I think the best solution lies in each person's looking into himself and finding the estrangement in yourself and doing something about that.
That's a mouthful of truth. conflicts with others can only be addressed by you personally. You are the only one that has the power to change you. You have no power to change others. Attempting to change some other person will only lead to your own misery. When you're in the middle of a shit storm, realize that you are the cause of, and energy at, the center of it.
Family is strong and it is inescapable, no matter how hard you try to escape it.
Family is also hard to live with/without.
Everybody have a good day out there. If you don't have enough family, you try to make a substitute. It may serve, but it's not family.
Don't indulge in the off-loading of your estrangement onto Donald Trump.
Well, h8rs gotta h8. What she hates isn’t Trump. She hates that there are people out there who do not fall obediently into line behind her extremist political philosophy. She hated the Tea Party, she hates Trump, she hates everyone who doesn’t want to live their lives the way she wants them to live.
Trump didn't poison anything. Trump is the response to the already poisonous atmosphere of our political climate.
Also, I disagree that family will come running when you're in trouble. Many times they won't, while true friends will.
Isn't MoDo unmarried and childless?
Is she the best person to be taking advice from on family?
(that's probably going to be taken as mansplaining or woman shaming by some)
John Henry
Boy, a lot of people dropping despair on a Thanksgiving thread. You may want to give it a rest.
Nice try Professor. Some commenters pursued the sentiment of the post, others did not.
Have a great Thanksgiving.
Today would be a great day to use an Althouse apron. If only they were available for purchase.
Humperdink said...
Boy, a lot of people dropping despair on a Thanksgiving thread. You may want to give it a rest.
I exempt myself as it is not Thanksgiving where I am.
One of the keys (I think) to remaining civilized, retaining good family relationships (and being a poster on blogs that one wishes to read) is not to make personal attacks when one has a disagreement on a fact/issue. We all slip up but I think most agree that should be the goal. Amazed that so many disagree and think personal attacks is the way to go. Have no idea how to fix that conviction in others, or to convince them that Antifa-like approach to political discussion with those on other side is not the way to win friends/influence people.
Gspencer said: "Anything you need, they're there for you. George, Elaine, Jerry, Kramer."
You're exactly right in the sentiment, but picked the wrong show. They never did anything for each other without being browbeaten into it, groused the whole time, and weren't grateful for anything. No hugs....
"My Free Advice to Pre-school Children and NYT Regulars"
'when you really need somebody, the only one that’s going to be compelled to run toward you is your family, not your friends'
Even though that statement obviously isn't true, (s)he is claiming that genes will always win out over trivial stuff like ideas and principles.
She could use the same faulty logic to claim that "when you really need somebody, the only one that’s going to be compelled to run toward you is someone of the same race, not your diverse friends" but she'd never say that.
"A Race Is An Extremely Extended Family"
I think the best solution lies in each person's looking into himself and finding the estrangement in yourself and doing something about that.
If you don't know what introspection means, you should take a long hard look at yourself. A&G
My sister's birthday is today. She is 55. Anyone care to math that one?
I want to offer mutual content creators the opportunity to pump each other up. I have enough material for video to try to monetize through yt. Anyone with a counterpoint or anything to offer, or mutual open channel twitter support not inga but anyone who looking for a wingman.
MODO needs to update her PHOTO!
This Thanksgiving I pray for justice near and wide. I pray that bad people everywhere get trampled. Schlump doesn't derange me though I despise him. Some families, like mine, have evil monsters in them. I'm happy NOT to break bread with them. They, like Schlump, deserve terminal cancer for their bad actions, broken promises, and betrayal. A pox, or wildfire, on their house, too.
I've made my peace with my lack of family long ago. I now need to make my peace with the large number of people who glorify family right in front of my nose and make zero attempt to understand how it doesn't always work out, family or no. I ain't there yet.
Dowd could start by looking over her shoulder at her own paper, the NY Times, which a few days ago gave us the Angry Uncle Bot showing liberals how to talk to their hate-filled, wrong-headed conservative uncles at Thanksgiving. Or she could look around at any of the other dozens of articles from smug media telling young and old liberals alike, just how to talk, or sway, or piss off their hate-filled, stupid, wrong-headed conservative family members.
This did not start with Trump. This has been dished out to us for years- every Thanksgiving. This chasm that is too deep to crawl out of is continually being dug, not by Trump, but by all of us. It started before Trump, and to blame Trump is just lunacy. He's the result of years of this stuff. It did not just start 2 years ago on a November morning.
So how do we stop it? How do you unlearn a couple of generations of indoctrination?
I don't know that it can be stopped. I hate to say that I think we're all on a new and unfriendly path.
Still...I'll wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving. I hope your day is peaceful. Mine will be spent agonizing about how shitty my Lions still are after 60 years.
Wow, some very annoying comments today of all days. Ann & Meade, I hope you and yours have a great holiday. Peace.
Its sad that Maureen Dowd doesn’t have insight into her own actions that contribute to the chasm. Donald Trumpis a convenient boogie man for the intellectually lazy.
Most importantly, Happy Thanksgiving, all!
This thread reminds me of a joke:
A guy was visiting an insane asylum.
As he waLked down the hall he looked in a room and saw a patient swinging an imaginary baseball bat.
He asked the patient, "What are you doing?"
The patient said, "I'm practicing. When I get out of here I'm going to be a professional baseball player."
The guy wished him luck and walked on.
Then he came to a room with another patient. This one was swinging an imaginary golf club.
The guy asked, "What are you doing?"
The patient said, "Practicing. When I get out here I'm going to be the next Tiger Woods."
The guy wished him luck and walked on.
Then he came to a room and found a patient balancing some peanuts on a huge erection.
The guy said, "What are you doing?"
The patient said, "I'm fucking nuts. I'm never going to get out of here."
Happy Thanksgiving everybody.
I was always blessed that I understood the importance of family. Modeling in my younger years the most reasonable explanation.
Today I am the only survivor of 4 siblings. The good news is, I have no regrets about love not communicated.
If you want to be loved, you have to love.
How important is it, really?
Althouse said: Don't indulge in the off-loading of your estrangement onto Donald Trump. There will always be political figures out there, setting us off, stirring up hostility and anxiety. Find the estrangement that originates in you
Truly and wisely said.
You can become estranged from people for personal reasons, actions that you find unforgivable, extreme differences in lifestyle decisions that affect you (such as uncontrolled addiction), and yes even politics.
However, to blame a remote third person, Donal Trump, as being the cause of the estrangement is just shifting the blame.
If you truly want to bridge the estrangement or distance between family or friends, you need to look at yourself and see if there is a way.
Caveat....it takes two to tango. If your liberal or conservative relative won't reach across the divide, all of your efforts are wasted..... Move on. Time is too short.
Great joke Bob Boyd.
And being a former med mal defense attorney, I ask what nursing or medical school did Maureen Dowd attend. People want perfection and miracles in health care but at no cost to them. Hospitals do their best to stop infections but the problem is that lots of sick people live there and the viruses and germs are getting tougher to eliminate.
I’d bet good money she consulted a plaintiff’s attorney on that case.
This needs the CIVILITY BULLSHIT tag.
Down proves that this really is just bullshit with her Trump blaming.
Pumpkin pie is in the oven.
We don't talk much politics at our small family gatherings. We know to keep clear of it. Some of the in-laws are from New Jersey. If it does come up, it's usually my father repeating a dumb joke. We all groan and try to change the subject.
What are some good subject changers?
Clean up on aisle 3!!!
Someone has vomited all over this thread.
Yes Dowd hated the huntress, so she gets a double helping with trump,
Sigh. Somebody's determined to bring strife.
"it seems that Donald Trump’s genius for hate and division has driven us all into a canyon that we won’t easily be able to climb out of."
The problem with this part of Dowd's essay, and the part she is surely oblivious to, is that she would have written the exact same line for Ronald Reagan, both Bushes, and Newt Gingrich. The blind spot is that she is the common factor in her belief system, not the Republican presidents and Congressional leader. The same applies to conservatives in regards to the Clintons, the Obamas, and people like Pelosi and Schumer.
I am very politically involved, but at no point in my life has my emotional state been driven or altered by the people in power, in either direction. Much like the Dowds, my own siblings are different from me- my youngest sister is largely apolitical, like our mother, but my two older sisters (I am the eldest child), are far, far left. We get along just fine by not discussing politics among ourselves. I don't even know whether or not they are aware of my political leanings- they could, of course, have read my comments here or elsewhere online that I have made over the last 20 years, but they don't ever mention it, but their leanings are quite well known to me since they have been the primary material on their Facebook pages for the last 2.5 years.
This advice applies to Christian and Catholic families, but not so much to paranoid Nazi and John Burch thinking families. Thank God my kids are all normal and only into reality local politic connections needed to get Governor Judicial appointments for friends. Although being a Republican gets harder and harder when the Bush appointed Federal Judges are 100% biased against all injured Plaintiffs and blatantly trying to stop the Tort Law system that we have had for 100+ years from reaching the Jury trials anymore.
Good grief, no maureen Dowd is not owed any benefit of the doubt, we only know her from her public pronouncements as a spiteful shrew.
"But politics should not be the determining factor in your life, high up on your emotional scale."
Too late. Since, oh, 1789, politics has been the determining factor in leftist lives, and therefore, when our defenses flagged, in everybody's lives.
"You should realize that family always is more important."
Too late. The point of progressivism is to devastate the family, the better to rule the world and to create the New Man.
"the only one that’s going to be compelled to run toward you is your family, not your friends.'"
Still true, but for how long?
"it seems that Donald Trump’s genius for hate and division has driven us all into a canyon that we won’t easily be able to climb out of."
Yeah, blame Trump. He has "driven us," has he.
"I worry that it will be a long time before we can talk across our jangly, angry chasms."
It's a one-way chasm, so to speak. Until progs recognize that, there's little to talk about besides sports.
@Althouse: "Don't indulge in the off-loading of your estrangement onto Donald Trump."
Correct, but too late. There will always be a non-prog figure onto whom progs will offload their "estrangement." Of course, that supposed estrangement is just a tool: progs fight to win.
Poor Kevin: always at risk of being fodder for a dowdy column.
How is multiple repost make practice Christian?
Asking for Jesus!
Blogger Trumpit said...
Schlump doesn't derange me though I despise him.
Too late for that, Trumpit.
John Henry
"Stop wasting your life on politics and see the love that you have in your family."
I appreciate the expression of such bourgeois notions on Thanksgiving, but the point of progressivism is that love isn't all you need. There is a higher value.
"Politics" stands for the better world and the New Man that has to be created, the kingdom of Wo/Man. Spending your life on "politics" is never a waste. Even giving your life for politics is never a waste.
Example: for the sake of protecting "women's bodies," it is perfectly fine to devastate another person's life.
“Donald Trump’s genius for hate and division has driven us all into a canyon that we won’t easily be able to climb out of.”
Seriously? It’s Trump’s fault that Maureen Dowd is deranged?
I suspect another cause: the exaltation of self-virtue in the liberal mind. The world could do far worse than read a little John Calvin.
For years I avoided talking politics with one of my sisters, because I thought she was a typical urban shitlib, politically. Turns out she was avoiding talking politics with *me* because she thought *I* was the la-de-dah SWPL shitlib, politically. Wasn't a problem, because the supply of interesting things to talk about that has nothing to do with politics is inexhaustible.
But 2016, which brought so much of what was concealed or unspoken into the light, revealed, one to the other, that we were both thorough-going deplorables. We caught on by noticing how unexpectedly smiling and jolly the other seemed that Wednesday morning.
We had a good long laugh about that, and now sometimes enjoy letting our deplorable freak flag fly when together, but we were never estranged. And we go right on spending most of our conversations talking about everything and anything but politics, so no real change in anything.
Rory: Wonderful dramatization of the impact of mental health professionals taking a long weekend.
Lol. Surely there are some skeleton-staff orderlies with the delete-syringe around somewhere, though.
Ah yes. What would Thanksgiving be without another installment of Ann's typical pleas for Americans to Surrender to the Tyrant! Please!!! Today's version/sermon is especially charming - blaming sane family for her dismay over a relative's hypnotized servitude to the Orange Attitude.
It's all your fault! If only you relented to his lust for power, and the drooling adoration his minority of fans show for him and all the hatred and division with which he governs, then things would be better.
There will always be political figures out there,
Not always so greedy, mean and tyrannical, though. That ends with people doing their part to expose and oppose them. But your complacency is just as charming as always.
setting us off, stirring up hostility and anxiety.
A more moral person than you would want a leader to take responsibility for the hatred, hostility and anxiety that they themselves are addicted to projecting. It's really not America's fault if your leader's toolbox is empty of any other means now, is it? But it is your fault if feel a need to excuse it.
Find the estrangement that originates in you, and take care of that.
I'm not sure that we in the majority are as estranged as you propose. We don't feel that way.
If we did, there would be as much hatred for us as Trump has always felt for himself and that almost everyone Trump has ever known feels for him.
Go wear an orange armband on your sleeve at a Thanksgiving dinner if you must. It's much more honest and less annoying than preaching to the normal and sane majority.
That said, for the more practical out there, there's this.
Dowd's columns on her brothers reveal that she fears they may be right. The odd stories about her "estrangement" from a brother (assuming it is true) shows she is concerned that she, not her brother, was responsible for it for stupid political reasons.
Jesus Christ. Post the comment once, if even that.
I’m making apple pie right now for my family: wife, son, daughter, son’s fiance — a bit later in-laws will arrive. Our parents are back east but we’ll see them at Christmas.
We are pretty divided politically, but this began long before Donald Trump came along. We’ve had shouting matches, sobbing, and my SIL, once tried to physically “slap sense into me.” It didn’t work. I still love them all.
Shouting Thomas' sister sounds like a female version of him. If he thinks family feminists are raging baboons for just wanting equal rights and/or social esteem, he should reflect on how he sounds when raging on about his own perceived entitlements and the insults he constantly claims are dealt to them.
Finally, it wouldn't be Shouting Thomas without projecting some sort of sexual perversion into another person's quest for simple respectability. Think on what that says about him.
How sad that he doesn't have something more to be thankful for this year.
Have a good one.
Terser:
You know what has estranged me from my sister?
Feminism.
Lol.
What an admirable and noble purveyor of masculinism you must be.
Geez. So hard to see why your "alternative" social instruction is either not catching on (at best) or falling down the fucking tubes (more likely).
Feeling endlessly aggravated and aggrieved while telling everyone else that they never should have any right to be is one hell of a weird way to go through life.
Happy Thanksgiving to Althouse and Meade and all her commenters!
S. Tommy's sister is a horrible, no-good (fill in the anti-female epithet here) for wanting to be respected as a woman but S. Thomas Tommy is a wonderful human being for obsessively demanding on every thread that he be respected as a man. Or even simply for being a man.
Yep. I don't see any problems with that philosophy. Just can't figure out why it's causing him and others like him so much aggravation.
Ken B said...
This needs the CIVILITY BULLSHIT tag.
Down proves that this really is just bullshit with her Trump blaming.
11/22/18, 8:43 AM
The fox always shows its tail. Reminds me of:
"It's just this war and that lying son of a bitch Johnson!"
My own Thanksgiving plans tend to get really convoluted and extended out over several weeks, but I still feel I have a lot to be thankful for. Like this amazing Lana Del Rey song that came out two months ago, for instance.
She's at least as much a goddess as whatever form of Providence there was looking after some fictionalized starving Pilgrims and their helpful Amerindian friends four hundred years ago.
I'm not estranged from any member of my family. I think it has something to do with being old and having an estate.
Well, to be fair, frequently we don't treat our friends as badly consistently as we treat our families.
So if the family isn't there, maybe you need to look into yourself as to why that is the case.
Blogger President Pee-Pee Tape said...
Terser:
You know what has estranged me from my sister?
Feminism.
Lol.
What an admirable and noble purveyor of masculinism you must be.
ST is a self-proclaimed ladies man. His shtick is based on his ability to think and act like a weak woman to con them into sex. Feminism is a direct assault on his weak sister personality.
@ Tim in Vermont..
...we can agree that the Clintons are the lowest form of scum to infect our politics in our lifetime, which included Dick Nixon’s presidency.
Most dems I talk to - they are not thrilled with the Clintons. They want to shed the Clintons. Yet, the Clinton-media machine persist in forcing them on us. Rachel Maddow is the worst at this.
Thanks for all the good comments! I really value the participants who appreciate this place and use the forum with respect for what it is.
Thank you, Ann.
Happy Thanksgiving, Ann and Meade, and all the best to you and yours!
What about those of us who show no respect? We are not machines freely producing bile and invective without cost. We need props too.
I mean, I did help PPT de sitter space and Inga drive out Doc Mike to the rest home.
Thanks, Ann.
ST is a self-proclaimed ladies man. His shtick is based on his ability to think and act like a weak woman to con them into sex. Feminism is a direct assault on his weak sister personality.
I (and I presume others) only recall a single woman for whom he's ever expressed any admiration or even just basic respect, and that's his late wife. As terrible as it is to say (and I really loathe bringing this up today), I think it had something to do with the abuse and depraved violations (to euphemize) that she endured from a man or other men. There are other things that might make a woman respectable, but unfortunately for Thomas I think he can't accept that. Only by having been raped and not devolving into misandry can a woman prove to a guy like him that she is "human" enough to overcome the worst a man can do, since in his mind that is apparently what they were born to do and what men were born to do to them.
It's a truly sickening way of looking at the world and at people but then, if he didn't feel that way he probably wouldn't resort to his constant refrain of accusing others of sexual problems and S&M or whatever else he inappropriately projects onto them.
We are pretty divided politically, but this began long before Donald Trump came along. We’ve had shouting matches, sobbing, and my SIL, once tried to physically “slap sense into me.” It didn’t work. I still love them all.
Haha. That's insane that it came to physical blows (which I would find inexcusable; didn't know situations actually get that bad - I guess it can get as bad as some say it is)... but it's funny that you say "it didn't work" before what follows as if to say her failed aim was to get you to stop loving her.
I think you still love me chickie but you didn't have to de-link me that one time. Probably petty of me to bring up right now and I give you plenty of crap just the same but I really wish I had a better sense of exactly what does push you over the edge vs. what you just find either annoying or funny. You truly are a mystery to me, chickie. The Mysterious Chicken Little. His personal rules of engagement are as hidden from and inscrutable to me as the Twelve Tables were to the Roman plebeian.
I always think we should be very thankful for Martin Luther King, not only because he caused the end of legal segregation but also because he set an example of how to meet contempt and hate without sinking into it and without giving up the struggle for justice. We need to know that this can be done. My family comes from the same parish as Maureen Dowd and the Kavanaughs and there are at present unbridgeable rifts in my family, too, since some of them regard me as a racist and others think I am a prolifer who supported Kavanaugh. But the ones that always hated me for being prolife now regard that as only mildly bad as compared to supporting Trump or Kavanaugh, i.e. being a racist, fem-traitor. So that shows how things can change.
I'm thankful I'm older and I remember how Vietnam where my brother died was terrible and tore the family apart yet we lived over that; and this too will pass.
People are really wonderful, and for the most part they want to help. They want to be kind.
If there is something making you think otherwise, move away from that thing. Which commenter said a few weeks ago to move away from cable news to see the beauty that is out there? It's true. Do that.
Politicians don't really care about you. They don't know you. They make money and gain power off from you arguing with your siblings at Thanksgiving. Don't give them that. Nancy Pelosi wouldn't look at you if she were walking through an airport, and she wouldn't intervene on your behalf if your sibling says bad things about you. Don't argue on her behalf with your sibling, unless it's fun for you.
Finally, remember this: Nobody has to agree with you. Nobody has to feel the way you do about anything. Even if they love you deeply, they do not need to share your thoughts and feelings. Similarly, you do not need to share theirs. You are different people, and that is perfectly fine. Choose love, and if not love, kindness.
Thankftoo for two great & thoughtful comments just above mine by Wildswan and Maybee!
Not all estrangement is bad. Sometimes, there's just nothing to say to your family.
You can say I'm estranged from my siblings, but I don't think there was a cause to it. One brother went into the Navy and lived in Dallas, San Fran, and Seattle. One sister married and moved to Phoenix. One brother stayed in Charlotte, and I moved about and ended up in Hershey.
Sis and I talked a bit after the Seattle brother died, and while I wanted to talk more, she firmly suggested calling quarterly. Bro and I don't talk; our last conversation turned into criticism over my not being there when mom died (all three of the sibs were taking care of her, and I was taking care of my pregnant wife. If there was resentment, it wasn't expressed until after mom died and I couldn't do anything about it.)
If there's resentment among the sibs, I'm not aware of it (I'm the youngest by many years). We last got together 25 years ago at my wedding, and we had a good time. Then we went back to our lives and found our own families to be with.
I joke that we were raised by shellfish. I worried for a long time that there must have been something seriously wrong for us to act like this. Now, I realize that we're just wired this way. No hatred. No resentment. We have nothing in common and no reason to bond. We're just not wired to call each other up and say, "What's up?"
Maybe we're better bonding with other families.
The Lefties are just mad because Trump talks back. They’ve been calling Repubs Nazis since Dewey. The usual response from the Repub was “Thank you sir, may I have another”.
From the cowardice that shrinks from new truth,
From the laziness that is content with half-truths,
From the arrogance that thinks it knows all truth,
O God of Truth, deliver us.
After a pretty bad incident at a years ago Thanksgiving....my family has made an unofficial pact to not discuss politics at family gatherings. We are quite divided and opposites when it comes to some issues, and just find it prudent to skirt around those things.
There are plenty of other fun, non-confrontational things we can discuss. Even some political issues are fair game.
We sort of know what those are and if it gets dicey..... We can judge when it is time to change the subject and do so.
As to estrangement of family, we do have a relative that we are estranged from. It has nothing to do with politics. There is no going back from that relative's actions, no excuses offered and non would be accepted, so we have cut that person completely from our lives. It may seem harsh, but it is for the good of everyone else.
"Just remember, when you really need somebody, the only one that’s going to be compelled to run toward you is your family...."
That's bullshit. People who will be there for you when most others will not are simply people who do that. Some are family, and some are not. They also include, police, firemen, many CCW holders, friends who are good people as opposed to just "good friends". Sometimes even complete strangers. It is often people in your family who will stab you in the back. Anybody ever see a family tearing apart a dead relative's estate, stepping on each to hold onto things that were never theirs to start with.
Happy Thanksgiving.
Everyone has a choice to value as they will. Even family members. I’m convinced that the great secret in life, and the great justice, is that we’ll all get precisely what we want. If we turkey value and want close families and friends, we’ll eventually get them.
Our branch of the family tree is conservative, the rest is decidedly not. Our family gatherings are mostly made up of members from my husband's side with my contribution being limited to myself, my sister, and my mother. Depending on the holiday/year there are twenty to twenty-four people attending.
There has never been a single argument. When we are together there are so many other things to talk and laugh about. Of much more concern is the fact that my husband's uncle went to Cal and SC lost this year :(. I love him anyway.
I hope everyone does at least one thing that they enjoy today.
And, as usual with people like Dowd, the divisiveness is always because of those wrong-thinkers on the other side of the aisle.
To me, Obama is every bit as hateful toward those of us who disagree with him as is Trump. But, I have family members who admire the man. We would never let our political disagreements lead to estrangement.
Look into a mirror, Ms Dowd. It's not Trump looking back at you.
"Donald Trump’s genius for hate and division.."
Like when he called a large swath of the population deplorable.
Genius.
It is often people in your family who will stab you in the back.
The origin story of Bag o'H2O and his contempt for humanity reveals itself.
“If we turkey value and want close families...”
As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could value.
With the progress of the transgender spectrum, #PussyHats are no longer politically congruent.
After Occupy selective, came Antifa and dinner on the run, then Antifa Occupy your home.
Diversity or color judgments/discrimination march on.
A clear and progressive anti-nativism around the world in your community.
Immigration reform that is a cover-up of social justice adventures as first order forcing of catastrophic anthropogenic climate change and collateral damage at both ends of the bridge and throughout.
On this day, let us give thanks, and teach our kids about unPlanned wonders.
#HateLovesAbortion
For ten to fifteen percent on both ends of the political spectrum, politics has replaced religion as life’s primary meaning-giving structure, which bodes ill for the rest of us.
Shorter MoDo: she can dish out the hate, but doesn't much care to have it come back at her. Maybe she should reconsider her abandonment of Matthew 7:12,
Yeah, I'm a somewhat different sort of atheist. I'm the nonproselytizing kind.
And as for Ann and Meade (especially whoever cleaned up the mess on aisle 3), thank you for all you do. A "place" like this on the internet is truly a haven in a hard world. Happy Thanksgiving to Ann, Meade and all her commentariat.
Unless they're informing on me to the secret police, an impossibility as of now since there aren't any secret police, I don't care about politics at all when it comes to family and friends. I think the idea that anyone should stop talking to someone else over politics is sick and disordered.
As for the "compelled to come running," I guess the family members are the only ones truly compelled to come whether they like it or not, but good friends come anyway.
"Bad Trump, if only he gave the power back to its legitimate and natural owners - that is, us - all this hate would cease and everybody would be happy in his family".
"...since there aren't any secret police...." Secret police are secrete. You aren't suppose to know about them.
Just because you are paranoid does/t mean someone isn't out to get you.
the idea that anyone should stop talking to someone else over politics is sick and disordered
A time and place for that, too.
Sigh. Dear, sweet Maureen.
I remember when . . . Sometimes, late Thanksgiving afternoon, the long distance was overloaded and I couldn’t get through to my brother in Virginia. Today we have multiple children, their spouses,a nephew and his girlfriend in the house and the iPhones randomly ring out, bearing well wishes from far away parents, sibs and sibs-in-law and (somewhat unexpectedly), absent friends.
Earlier this month my High School football coach passed away at age 90. That call won’t be answered this time - the 46th.
We are estranged from members of our family. They do have different politics, but that isn't the cause of the estrangement. They are dangerous and toxic. They act out in very hurtful ways. We have children to protect.
That said, I don't wish them harm. I pray for them
I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving! What am I thankful for? Among other things, Ann Althouse and this blog, including the community of commenters.
Like Hannio 11/22/18 10:01 AM, Maureen Dowd’s column reminded me of the line from Forrest Gump: "It's just this war and that lying son of a bitch Johnson!" Wesley was wrong to blame President Johnson for his (Wesley’s) out of control emotions, and Ms. Dowd is wrong to blame President Trump for the out of control emotions of the left.
An example of out of control emotions was right here in these comments yesterday. I was reading this blog yesterday during an idle moment amidst family festivities, and watching the mess unfold on aisle 3. Wow! But I am pleased to see that all is under control today. Nicely done.
Again I am thankful for Ann and her “salon” here, practicing respectful free speech in a world that is becoming increasingly intolerant of those who question our supposed leaders in the media.
“... Donald Trump’s genius for hate and division has driven us all into a canyon that we won’t easily be able to climb out of.“
Trump merely stepped into the shoes of the most divisive president representing the most divisive party in recent history. The hate and division were there. Trump didn’t make it worse, only different. Think “bitter clingers,” an insulting, divisive term aimed at a substantial proportion of the population and perhaps only exceeded in nastiness by Hillary’s “deplorables.”
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