My PO'd Republican Mom

Wow.  Is it cold here in hell, or is it just me?

I visited my unrepentant RNC-donating Bush calendar-displaying mom this week and got a shock.  Don't want to get my hopes up, but if this could happen in my family, then the Republicans are screwed in 2006 (assuming we can control their congenital need to tamper with voting).

Earlier this year my obstinate Republican brother, who volunteered for the county party, finally got fed up.  We got into screaming matches frequently before then, with him spewing the same old tired BS talking points about how the Democrats hated the military and wanted to ruin it with gays, about how the Democrats wanted to tax him to death, about how the Democrats wanted to let the terrorists win, about how Kerry was such a coward that he volunteered for Vietnam so he could shoot himself in the leg and get his political career going, etc.  Jeebus, it makes me ill just remembering the bender one has to endure when sucked into the mentality of the average dumbass Republican voter.  Yech.

Anyhow, the war toll finally wore him down this winter.  He overcame the requisite cognitive dissonance and began to see the emporer in all his naked, um, nakedness.  The more stories that hit about pre-war intelligence, the rising military death toll, the obvious lack of any planning for withdrawal, the more angry he got.  I'm so proud of him.  Of course, I pushed him along with helpful details on the cowardly avoidance of service of nearly every member of the administration in another similar war.  Hey, I do what I can for those I love.  He's well on his way to recovery, and while he hasn't jumped completely over (he's going Libertarian first), he's at least willing to clash with our mother about the evils of Bushco.

Mom, on the other hand, was completely sold on the glorious Bushco Revolution to De-Gayify Amurka.  She thought Clinton let the country go all sex-crazed and drug-happy (I know, I know) and that it was time for an honest, strong leader (mind boggling, no?).  She's exactly the kind of voter the wingers count on-simple.  She doesn't need nuanced policy details or subtle distinctions to make up her mind, just someone who speaks plainly and says that he's strong, regardless of all evidence to the contrary.  Maybe I'm adopted, who knows.

Well, sometime in the last couple of months since our last argument (I called a mental moratorium on Bush-related topics since it felt like my brother and I were ganging up on a little old lady), something changed her mind COMPLETELY.  She told me the other day that a pollster called and asked her if she approved or disapproved of Bush and that she not only said she DISAPPROVED but that she put the phone down on them for emphasis.  gulp.  I didn't say a word, afraid I might break the spell.  She followed up that doozie with the vow that she will never vote again.  Now that's what I called PO'd.

I don't know exactly what changed her mind.  Frankly, I'm a little afraid to ask.  I imagine that it was a combination of things, things like this war looking a lot like more like Vietnam every day, the sight of Cindy Sheehan standing in the familiar Texas heat holding a picture of her son, the economy looking to her a lot worse than what's being reported, and the gas prices when she fills up her minivan.  Whatever the reasons, she's done with the party.  She may not go to the Democrats, but she will never go back to the Republicans either.  And I can't imagine she's the only one seeing what she's seeing and saying "enough."