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In my case, it was the real war on Labor Day, 2004, when my staunchly Republican Dad went all medieval on my liberal ass. It's always been a joke in my family, how a right-wing, conservative Dad managed to raise a bleeding-heart liberal daughter. But we have always had a great deal of respect for each other's point of view, and talking politics was never an issue.
In 2004, my new fiancé and I had made the drive from Texas to Florida to visit my parents; I wanted them to get acquainted in a low-key setting. At dinnertime, the conversation got around to the president. I declined to comment, as I never like to discuss politics or religion over food. With no warning, my usually logical, calm Dad was transformed into a crimson-faced, foaming-at-the-fangs Rush O'Reilly, screaming at me at the top of his lungs about how at least this president wasn't Clinton, how he was bringing honor back to the nation...yadda yadda yadda. If it had been anyone except my Dad, I would have called 911 for involuntary commitment to the nearest mental institution. The transformation was stunning and quite frightening; not only in front of me and my Mom, but also in front of his guest, my fiancé.
Sure, I knew he listened to talk radio, and watched Fox News...what I hadn't realized, until that time, is that these outlets have tapped into time-honored brain-washing techniques (repetition, repetition, repetition; us and them; 9/11! 9/11! 9/11!) to transform normal, sane Republicans into talking point monsters.
What springs to mind is, "Deutschland, Deutschland über alles..." - to another time and place when a reasonable, politically thoughtful population was deliberately put under the sway of emotion rather than reason. I never thought it could happen here...I was wrong. When is this insanity going to end?
