This is a modest story of one average Thanksgiving family gathering, but it gave me a spark of hope in the future of progressive democracy, or maybe I should say, democracy period, seeing as the latter is increasingly in danger of extinction around here.
My family, like so many in this country, is blue and red. I was rabidly pro-Kerry, pro-defeat-the-idiot this year, and took the defeat hard. My sister's family in Virgina are also Democrats -- blues in a red state. But I share my state (Michigan) with my Repub brother and his wives (current & ex) and children and in-laws -- Republican. Guess which side of the family my husband and I have to eat turkey with? That's right. It was Thanksgiving with the Bushies....
The hardest part this year was learning that my youngest niece, in her 20s, was voting Bush this time after casting her first Presidential vote for Gore. When I asked her why -- didn't she know about the lies? -- she said she liked Bush's "campaign" better. I said, what about the issues? But no, she'd already been gobbled up by the Republican machine.
You know, I told myself, my brother's wife and kids never were exactly the sharpest hats on the rack.
I was not looking forward to breaking bread with my brother's clan this year -- yeah, I know family is supposed to trump politics, but this year was just too hard.
But we went, and I sat next to my favorite niece, the one who always seemed to mesh best with my side of the family, the one whom my mom loved best. And she confided that yes, she was the only Kerry voter on her side of the family, and after being beseiged with Bush propaganda from her mom, she felt she had to keep quiet about her choice -- she couldn't tell her own mother that she had voted for Kerry. I felt better already, though, knowing that there was another Kerry voter in the room.
But this is the part that gave me hope. First, she said that she had voted for the first time. She's in her 30s. A single mom with three kids, working her ass off. She's not one to follow politics much. But the reason she voted for the first time and voted Kerry?
"Because the kids were so into Kerry." Her oldest, a girl about 14, who has a piercing in her eyebrow, wears punk clothes and is an honor student, was fully invested in a Kerry win.
As dismal as these days sometimes seem, I remind myself that, for example, most teens are more accepting of gays, and the freedom of expression, the progressive values so much of the country takes for granted, are so engrained in our youth, at least in the urban youth, and maybe elsewhere, that I do have hope the bigots will eventually die out, the fear of differences will have its last gasp, and a new generation of people who believe in freedom and tolerance and living together peacefully IS on the horizon.
Whaddaya think?