I'm 60 and live in the Upper Midwest. My sister is 68 and lives in southern California. I like pie, she likes cake. I'm left of center and she's way far right. We've been worlds apart politically ever since I can remember. A year ago in March she announced they'd cancelled the L.A. Times "because of its outrageous left-wing slant in everything---from the supposed news articles, to headlines, letters to the Editor-----just impossible to read and not be totally infuriated every minute." That made me, a progressive journalist since 1980 with a modest income, grimace but I brushed it off and kept quiet because I know she's a hopeless case that way, not to mention being an arms-in-the-air evangelical. Whoops, I mentioned. And we've gone back and forth over the years to some extent, but now it seems, like so many others distraught about Obama's election, she feels her country's been taken away.
I got this e-mail last week out of the blue:
I hope your health is good with no ill effects from your surgery. We are pretty healthy......physically. But we are furious, outraged citizens ever since Obama has taken control of our beloved country. Every single day he and the Democrat party are seriously damaging our freedom, and we are mad as hell.....pretty much every one we know is at wit's end.....it is one damn totalitarian thing after another. I can't even sleep anymore as I witness what is happening to the United States of America. I'm old and don't have that long to live, but I am sick about the world my children and grandchildren will live in if this left wing madness in every area of our life is allowed to continue. I despise both Obamas (arrogant, narcissistic, America bashing) and every Democrat in congress as well as the government media, academic and union folks and all their anti-constitutional behavior. The press is a joke, just an arm of the Democrats. My children and I have all worked since we were 12 or 13, earned every cent we ever made.....and saved to provide for our own families, and the left is confiscating half of everything we have, and will be taking more than that if these ridiculous programs they are shoving down our throats continue. It is outrageous! I am also very sad and angry that you choose to spend your time trying to remove God from the public square, if indeed you are working at [a nonprofit that promotes freethought and separation of state and church]. How does that make this a better world? How is that a good use of your gifts? Of course, I will always love you, but I am really, really ticked off and worried about our country, and what will be left of it after this administration gets done. God help us. Love, S-----
Yes, she's wealthy, due mostly to her husband, and has no money worries (except those filthy taxes). Because you can look these things up online, I learned I pay property taxes on my small condo at three times the rate she does on her Proposition 13 home of 4,450 square feet. She rails against public schools and unions and all things governmental but conveniently forgets the aerospace companies she worked at before retiring early fed almost entirely on the federal teat. Yes, she dearly loves her little bro but just can't help sending him a boatload of unsolicited political e-mail stress despite his heart attack and bypass surgery earlier this year. The saddest thing is her children see things similarly. I wrote back, saying nothing political but said where I work and what I think is none of her business but that I'm willing to move forward and put this behind us, and included some family chitchat. Not a word back a week later.