The Holiday Survival Guide for Liberals
Or: How I Learned to Resist the Urge of Slamming My Trump-Supporting Cousin’s Face Into the Mashed Potatoes
Ah, the American Holidays of 2016. Perhaps no holiday season in recent U.S. history has been the cause of more anxiety than this one. Who’s stupid idea was it to stick election day right before it all, anyway? And how is a multi-cultural-loving, equality-for-all liberal supposed to make it through the day without resorting into the very thing s/he supposedly abhors? And yes, I do mean bloody violence.
Fear not, for this here Holiday Survival Guide will help you through the familial tensions that are sure to rise while stuffing your face with cranberry sauce. First, let’s consider your position. You care about this country and all the different people that live inside its boundaries. Maybe you were With Her, or maybe you weren’t so much With Her as you were Against Him- but either way, this wasn’t what was supposed to happen. How did half the country manage to turn its brain off- and its moral conscience- long enough to elect the most disgusting example of everything good people stand against? In the time that has followed this disaster, you’ve seen swastikas painted on walls, heard stories of brown-skinned people being told to go back to their country, as well as stories of cops detaining people for cracking an anti-Trump joke in public. I mean, it’s getting ugly out there, and your internal body temperature is beyond feverish. And now you’re supposed to just pretend that none of this is happening, just so you can get through a dinner with Uncle Charlie or Cousin Jane or whatever-member-of-your-family-that-clearly-must-have-been-adopted-because-otherwise-it-would-imply-that-you-share-the-same-genetic-code and there is no way in scientific hell that this could be the case?
Okay, breathe. Step one is to examine your argument objectively. What you’re basically claiming is: there is a moral line somewhere between stealing office supplies from work and knowingly voting for a person who publicly disrespects women, ridicules people with disabilities, persecutes believers of different faiths, insults immigrants, etc. etc. etc. Maybe you can’t quite define where that line is, but it’s definitely been crossed, and to not take a stand at such a time is to be silently complicit in the crime. After all, if you don’t say anything to your cousin / uncle / sibling / whatever, who will? They’re just going to go back to their Trump-loving town in the middle of Middle America where they’ll be surrounded by like-minded morons encouraging each other to make racial jokes… or worse. Isn’t it your moral duty to speak up?
Well… yes. Sort of. Before you start slinging the stuffing at them, however, remember this: that same argument you just made is one that others have probably made about you. For example: perhaps Cousin Jane considers herself deeply religious, and for years now she’s had to endure all your little jabs and jokes at the expense of the pro-life movement she so much believes in. She’s heard your arguments, she knows why you think what you think, but those arguments don’t really hold much water compared to the stark reality of what a person is supporting when they vote for Blankety-Blank Democrat who is ardently pro-life. Because even if you have legit concerns about women’s rights, health, or other specific issues tied to abortion, you are still, to Cousin Jane, supporting the murder of children for the sake of those lesser concerns- and that crosses a moral line that just can’t be tolerated. She looks at you and thinks, “I know my cousin is a decent person who wants what we all want- a decent job, a family, a vacation once in awhile. They mean well, and they have their reasons for supporting a pro-choice Democrat, I get it- yet they still voted for a person who supports ending an innocent human life. How can I just make polite conversation and pretend this is okay?”
Now, before you get all Roe vs Wade with me, remember- I’m not saying I personally agree with Cousin Jane. What I am saying, though, is that moral values are subjective- or, at least, subjectively interpreted. Each person has their own somewhat-unique and somewhat-assimilated set of morals, and whichever reside at the top of your personal list are the ones you are most sensitive about and least interested in having challenged. Racism, homophobia, sexism… these are some pretty good social ills to be morally against for sure, and most of us on the liberal side of things see red when we see people acting like bigots. But for someone who believes that people have souls, and that those souls last for all eternity while your earthly body only lasts a few years… and that the Creator of the Universe’s #1 rule is that those souls are the most important thing ever, and that you’re not allowed to mess with them in any way… then yes, having had to sit next to their liberal cousin during Easter Sunday last year and listen to all her flippant jokes about needing to restock her supply of morning after pills was just as great a trial for Cousin Jane as anything you might be dreading this Holiday Season.
I say this all half-jokingly, but my philosophical point is hard-core serious. Unless you have some kind of monopoly on what Moral Truth actually is (hint: you don’t) then it really doesn’t matter how Right you think you are in this case, because, objectively speaking, until you can prove it in a Matlock-style court of Universal Law, it really is just your opinion, man. And while you and I might be in agreement that your opinion happens to be really, really, really on point in this case, and that your argument rests on solid ground, remember that it is still an unprovable assumption, just like Cousin Jane’s belief about abortion: one that not everyone takes for granted as being true.
But maybe you don’t have a Cousin Jane with religious beliefs, and maybe my example isn’t really applicable to your holiday situation. Fair enough. Our goal at this here Holiday Survival Guide is to provide you with a strategy for discussing these hot-button issues with your politically polarized family in a constructive way. Yes, bring up things that have been weighing heavily on your mind- but do so without kicking off a 40-year-long family feud. You need to keep your cool. You need to not be the kind of judgemental asshole you’ve been rallying against your whole life. So how does one do that, you ask?
Easy: look around. While you’re sitting at that family dinner table, I mean. Look around you and see the world you and I inhabit, the world of the United States of America. It is not reality- it is only a version of reality, like The Matrix without the non-stop techno music. Once we train our critical eye to start piercing through said matrix, we begin to notice how tenuous our grasp on everything really is, especially in the world of morals and ethics. You can see what I mean by asking yourself a few questions right there at the ol’ family dinner table:
What am I eating?
It may sound silly, but have you thought about that big-ass bird in front of you? Because some might be morally disgusted by the fact that you’re even eating it. Luckily for you, I’m not one of those people, but they do exist. I am, however, one of the people that would point out that, unless you got this bird from a farmer with ethical practices you can personally verify, chances are this bird lived a pretty shitty, crammed life where it ate food it was never designed to digest. And even if you don’t really believe TurkeyLivesMatter, it was probably raised on a farm far away from here, then shipped to a processing plant in some other faraway location, only to then get shipped to your faraway supermarket for ready consumption. Given the fact that the number one moral, ethical and practical issue we all need to deal with right now is that of our crumbling environment, this silly Turkey example becomes a bit more serious- especially when you realize it’s not just the turkey, but every single piece of food you eat that burns up more fossil fuel you care to think about just to enter your stomach. And it’s not just food; if you’re a typical urbanite, for example, just think of all the plastic take out containers you’re the cause of every week when you order out for delivery. Ever think about what it takes to get all that plastic to your home or office? All the resources, the oil that was consumed… all so that you can just use it once and then chuck it into the recycling (if you even remember to do that)? Our entire American Food System is a huge moral and ethical disaster- not to mention an impending economic one- but how many of us worry about that little detail when we sit down for a meal? And maybe it doesn’t seem so egregious as, say, spray painting a swastika on someone’s car- but yeah, it kinda is. The swastika thing is disgusting on an interpersonal level, but the passive-consumer thing is disgusting on a macroscopic level, which in some ways is the more dangerous one because it’s so hard to notice it when it’s part of your everyday life. That’s where the whole Matrix metaphor kicks in. People that live outside of our particular matrix see our American Lifestyle with the same exact moral disdain you are feeling towards those Trump supporters- seriously, no joke. In fact, many, many people not living in America are watching our indignant Trump tweets with a kind of bemused irony, thinking “oh, so now you guys are all High-And-Mighty? After you done fucked up our world for the past half a century?”
What am I wearing?
Quite similar to What am I eating? this question about clothes is probably one you’re familiar with, yet you’ve probably managed to shove it aside into some mental ethics closet labeled “shit I gotta get around to thinking about at some point.” Yes, I’m talking about the 9-year-olds getting paid 2 cents an hour in China while they work 400 hours a week. Again- I joke, but this stuff is real, people, and we’re not really doing much about it. And what can we do, short of growing our own cotton and making our own clothes… or paying ten times the price of a t-shirt at American Apparel, which, on the scale of morals and ethics, isn’t exactly a step up, what with their exploitation of pre-teen girls in semi-erotic poses? Listen, I make my own peanut butter and use baking soda for shampoo, believe it or not, but there’s only so many hours in the day- I get it. We can’t all be saints about every single thing all the time. But that’s precisely why we need to slap ourselves with these reminders that we’re not perfect creatures, and that playing the “well, I’m better than XX” game is missing the point entirely, because, no- you’re not better than XX. You’re a pathetic human, like the rest of us, with lofty ideals but many shortcomings that prevent us from reaching them. From a “big picture” point of view, which one is causing greater harm in the world? A racist comment that spreads unease throughout the community, or a somewhat-passive economic mode of worldwide slavery we’re all funding with every time we hit the mall or log onto Amazon? The only honest answer to that one is “shit, they’re both pretty fucking bad.”
What’s that buzzing sound coming from my pants?
Or purse, or wherever you keep your precious iPhone is the point of that question. Again, the neo-slave labor employed to make those millions of iPhones reach the hands of addicted Apple consumers all over the world… the precious metals constantly mined that go into the circuitry of your device… all to be ditched a mere year later when Steve Jobs’ lackeys convince you to blow another several hundred dollars on this year’s model..? How many phones have you owned in the past decade? Tell me that’s not the epitome of waste and luxury, because I’ll call you a liar. And you Samsung Galaxy owners aren’t exactly on more solid moral ground. I know, we all need phones these days like we all need clothes, but I submit that there is definitely a moral difference between a conscious consumer that tries everything they can to limit the environmental destruction & human suffering their lifestyle causes, and one who’s read the exposés, agrees with the liberal sentiment in theory, but enjoys his/her lifestyle too much to do much about it in practice. Unless you’re planning on using that phone for at least a good five years, you might want to check yourself before you trash your uncle about how he’s breaking down society with his Trump vote. Because when I hear my friends start their long rants about “the people in those red states” and “don’t tell me they’re mostly ‘nice people’ because nice people don’t support a hate-mongering racist misogynist President…” well… yes, but… truly nice people also don’t let the consumerist paradigm of their culture dictate their own individual choices. They do their best to live a conscious life every day, not just the few weeks after a Republican becomes president.
The Holiday Survival Guide apologizes for dragging you down the road of anti-consumerist ranting, but only a little, because time is short and we hope to bluntly hammer this point home to liberals everywhere. There are a hundred other such questions you can ask yourself to reach the same conclusion- everything from the plane / train / automobile you used to get to your mom’s place to the obligatory everyone-on-the-couch-to-watch-the-Lions-lose tradition which feeds directly into a non-profit scam by the NFL that costs taxpayers millions and millions of dollars. No joke- almost every single aspect of our way of life spells “I-N-S-A-N-E” when you look at it with the same critical eye we’ve been applying to Señor Trump.
Rest assured, we’re in the same boat as you. We’re pissed, we’re really concerned at the hate speech popping up everywhere and the imminent dismantling of Everything Good About America that’s about to start, and we believe in being proactive by yanking each and every new bigoted sprout from the root before it all grows into a very ugly jungle. Our point isn’t to say “no one is 100% pure, therefore shut up.” It is, in fact, the opposite: speak up! Be critical, be vocal, become an activist. Only remember that there’s a huge difference between criticizing an idea, and attacking the person holding that idea. People are not ideas, and they do have the ability to exchange destructive ones for constructive ones, given the right circumstances. If you play your cards right, you can be part of “the right circumstances,” but if you’re too angry to talk to people humbly, your relatives are going to get understandably defensive, and you’ll have blown your chances at making a convert. As The Dude once pointed out, “you’re not wrong, Walter. You’re just an asshole.” Let’s try to avoid being assholes.
If you actually do care about racism, homophobia, xenophobia et al the way you say you do, then you have to accept that the only way to fight these bubbling social ills is with humility and compassion. As angry and concerned as we are, the fact is we actually need our Trump-supporting relatives to work with us if this problem is ever going to get fixed. Unless you’re suggesting an inverse “final solution” where we ironically exterminate anyone we consider to be “promoters of hate,” you have to accept the fact that half the country isn’t just going to go away. If you want racist attitudes to disappear, you have to fight the attitudes- not the people behind them. And the only way to do that genuinely is with… don’t mock me for saying this, but… love. Not the hippy-dippy “all you need is love” flowers-and-unicorns love that keeps you lying in a field of daisies all day without lifting a finger. Not the kind of condescending “oh, you’re a fucking moron but I love you anyway, ignorant cousin” so-called-love that comes packaged in that smug smile liberals are so fond of handing out. We’re talking about the kind of love that recognizes you’re imperfect too, and that, believe it or not, you’ve also embraced ideas and made decisions that have hurt people and damaged this world. If you can stay emotionally humble, yet intellectually critical, then maybe, just maybe, you can get through the holidays not only without any broken noses but with an actual, honest-to-god exchange of ideas between you and your relatives. Perhaps you won’t have solved world peace by the time everyone goes home, but you’ll at least have opened some mental doors that could lead to serious soul searching in the next few months… by all parties. Because, you know… we’re in deep shit if we don’t.
