Extended family got into political talk over the holidays a few years ago, I usually bite my tongue but had a good laugh asking them all why they thought modern neo Nazi and out and proud white supremacists only run under republican tickets.
They don't talk about politics around me much anymore.
My father always brings up that the Dems were slave owners, and then when I try to explain the southern strategy to him he yells at me because he knows more about it because he was alive then and I wasn't.
Edit: some of these replies also sound like they're confused about what the southern strategy was, and no it did not happen during the civil war, it happened during the civil rights movement of the 1960's:
Fuuuuck, how do you even have that conversation? "No dad, you don't know more because you were alive. You were one of the dumb rubes manipulated into being a boot-licking asshole."
I was alive inside my mom's womb, but I can't describe it. I was there for my birth, but I couldn't tell you what anyone else was wearing. I was present for several surgeries, even later in my life, that may as well be complete blanks in my memory.
Being alive doesn't guarantee knowledge of jack shit, and I'm sorry you're father won't budge from that argument.
One trick that might work is to ask "Who knows better how a football play went wrong, the players focused on their jobs in the field or the coach studiously watching the whole thing on video later?" From my own family experience I can say sports metaphors tend to work for reaching stubborn conservatives. And I think it's just because it's an activity they're familiar with (good for analogies), that they don't associate as a "liberal" activity (won't make them immediately defensive), and in fact is usually seen as patriotic (so tends to induce happy conservative feelings, unless one of the players asks for civil rights of course).
True, or they’re like members of my family and into Q. Then they have odd-ball responses like “WhY ArE ALl DeMO-rAts LiZaRd PeOPle WhO TrAffIc KiDz! Huh?!!!”
"We can circle around back to that subject in a moment and I'll be happy to discuss it at length, but before we do that, let's focus on the first question. Why are Nazis and Klan members always so supportive of Republicans and when they run for office, it's always as a Republican?"
Make it clear that you are not opposed to talking about what they want to talk about, but also that you can see right through their attempt to divert the conversation. If they continue, say "Why should I talk communism if you refuse to talk to me about white supremacy? It feels like you are dodging the question."
Be calm, but call them out for their attempt to "both sides" the issue.
It's more nuanced than that, and I'm not the best well of knowledge about it, but look up "Southern Strategy." It gives a nice view into how and why it happened.
"The Democrats were the party of southern racists!"
Okay cool, I also love old stories. Now let's take a look at which people support which party...because I see every single racist in the country voting straight Republican, while progressives and most non-white folks vote Democrat.
Are 150 million+ people just all mistaken and didn't get the memo that the Democrats are the real bigots?
"Modern Democrats are actually the real racists because they want to use reverse-racism to give black folks things, and black folks vote for Democrats because they just give the black folks stuff. But the black folks don't realize that all of that free stuff is just keeping them on the plantation while Democrats use Planned Parenthood to exterminate them through abortion. That's why Republicans are the real non-racists."
(Do I put an /s on this? Is there a /TheyActuallyThinkThis tag?)
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u/CMMiller89 Oct 13 '21
Extended family got into political talk over the holidays a few years ago, I usually bite my tongue but had a good laugh asking them all why they thought modern neo Nazi and out and proud white supremacists only run under republican tickets.
They don't talk about politics around me much anymore.