I talk to my mom about politics all the time. She was a Goldwater Republican in college and we disagree on just about everything all the time. However, there's nothing more enlightening than speaking to a real wacked out wingnut Republican. Here are some of the things I've gathered and strategies for dealing with them in conversation:
They aren't big fans of the war.
My mom feels like this whole war was "mismanaged". She believes we should have gone in an nuked any palace Hussein might have been in and then just left. She believes that helping them build their nation is a bad thing and is why we're in so much trouble. Oh, and she also believes weapons of mass destruction were shipped to Syria.
When you hear something like this spouted from a wingnut it's just best to let it go. Anything that drives war dissatisfaction is just fine in my book. I don't care how they get there, just THAT they get there. Arguing against any of these gems is going to be like trying to teach a pig to fly, because lack of evidence doesn't prove anything to these people.
Iran is interfering in Iraq because they're evil.
Mom believes all the propoganda about Iran arming the Sunni insurgents. She also believes that the author of the Muslim religion is Satan, so it's not a far stretch, I guess, to believe Iran would sow discord and chaos inside of it's close neighbor, Iraq.
This one is really awesome because even someone who thinks in black and white (hi, Mom) can understand this simple equation: Iraqi insurgents=Sunni. Saudi Arabia=Sunni. Osama bin Laden=Sunni. Al Qaeda=Sunni. Iraqi government=Shia. Iran=Shia. Iran wouldn't arm Sunnis when they're Shia. (Yes, gross simplification, but so what?)
By the way, the rebuttal is (get ready) "I didn't say it was the Iranian government doing it. There's a porous border." To which, I replied, "So we shouldn't go to war against the Iranian government who could actually put a stop to this, should we?"
Our army is stretched to the breaking point.
Yeah, this one doesn't need a rebuttal, but it's good to reinforce and start asking questions about those 30,000 soldiers who are "coming home any time now" because we've had such a "huge success" with the surge. Let the wingnut prattle on a while about how great that is and then tell 'em that those 30,000 people are coming home because our President has no choice. Then sucker punch them with the 15 months out, 12 months back thing. This worked for REALLY great effect with mom.
Now might also be a good time to attack Petraeus and his halo. Tell your victim/wingnut that Petraeus was grading himself, that he has political ambitions, and that he's been for the surge the whole time. So the damn "But he's perfect and unbiased!" thing is a huge crock.
There's a huge deficit because Bush appeased the Democrats by spending so much.
I nearly spewed coffee from my nose with this one. Here's the reasoning: In the first two years of the Bush Presidency, Bush passed NCLB and Medicare part D (Edit thanks NoMoJoe) to appease Dem senators. Because of this, we've spent ourselves into debt.
I couldn't help getting a little riled at this one, but here's the way the rant/smackdown went: NCLB was a big fat duping of the Dems who got on board. It's a way to get more fed control of schools, prove that public education is a big failure, and hey, it wasn't even a funded mandate anyway, dammit.
Medicare part B, as we all know was a Rovian scheme passed to steal older voters from Dems, and wasn't funded with a tax increase or anything (so we're, as I love to tell Republicans, borrowing money from Communist China which dilutes our currency and makes your dollars worth less.)
Of course, the most hypocritical thing is "both parties are at fault" which is a big one that disaffected Republicans always fall back on. They can't seem to bring themselves to criticize JUST the Republican party. They'll criticize Dems or they'll criticize both parties for doing something "they all do anyway" but never EVER will they single out Republicans. This trait, my friends, is how you can identify a true, red throated wingnut.
So did any of this do any good? Not really. Mom thinks Ron Paul is the answer to all our nation's ills. Of course, she has no idea what she'll do when he loses the primary. I like to use that time in the conversation to point out that all the others are true believers in this war and that they've all lined right up behind Bush. She has no idea who she'll vote for, but she's in the anyone but Hillary crowd. (By the way, Bill cheated with Monica and it was okay because, "Look who he's married to.") At the very least, my mom is ideologically pure. She's handicapped and gets Social Security but she hates both it and Medicare. So I (in a moment of ire) told her I was going to run for office, kill SS, kill Medicare, and make her live under my roof and under my rules, dammit.
Oh, and before any of you damn bleeding hearts get your panties in a bunch, I told mom I loved her and I always have fun talking to her. The old bird needs someone to spar with every now and again. It keeps you from going senile or something.
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