He is the one sibling I can still have a reasonable conversation with, meaning, we haven’t reached a point of disowning each other. (My sister, on the other hand, a rabid Trumper, sees me as a “liberal loon” whatever that means today. She’s on FB, which I have zero use for. We just don’t.)
He confessed that he will still vote for Trump because he likes what Trump has done with the economy and the Markets, with the caveat that of course, we’re not in normal circumstances but he hopes they’ll return sooner than later. My brother has a Masters, and at one point wanted to pursue a Doctorate in Economics, but life and kids got in the way. He’s worked many years and far too many weekly hours in the physically demanding grocery business, and he’s 65 now. That’s part of the story too.
We did agree that the country is in a terrible place, and he even laughed at my reference to the Republican Convention culminating as a Nuremberg Rally. He didn’t disagree. He would have been a Jeb voter and actually can’t stand Trump, but here’s the thing: He sees Biden as suffering from dementia, and why couldn’t the Democrats come up with someone better for him to vote for?
(I know, I know..)
When I calmly asserted that Trump is in fact, completely nuts, with too many examples to count, he had nothing to answer back with, other than that he’s getting a gun for the first time in his life, and he’s afraid to go to Downtown Milwaukee because of all the violence. From there, as you might guess, it was a leap to all the violence in our cities, and what has Pelosi or Schumer or any of them done about that? Why did I agree that looting is ok? I don't, and I never said anything remotely to that effect. But it’s interesting how little critical thought is actually going on over in Right-Wing Land. And the heavy-lift ALWAYS seems to be Our Responsibility, and Our Fault when things don’t change.
We both enjoy reading history, and everything going on now is too big for a phone call, so we ended without going down rabbit holes, on a good note, with his usual joke about where Richard Burr is hiding these days. Good question. Then, he said a curious thing. He asked if he could call again soon, after his sheepish confession that he’s voting for Trump, and urged me to be careful out there with all the violence. I live near Downtown Raleigh, NC. I’ve never felt afraid here and I don’t plan to get a gun. I lived in Rogers Park, in Chicago for many years, and loved it. It’s the gun-toting, tribal people afraid of “the cities” that scare me.
The trope that Biden is ailing, and the country is in danger of being overrun by lawless, Democratic voting thugs is really strong with these folks. I want to keep a relationship with my brother. We do have insightful conversations. He isn’t a Q loon, just fearful, and nostalgia seems to be a Big Thing. Well, that, and looking everywhere but in a mirror for Change. Why can’t the country just be like it was? Why do We have to change?
We have much to do.
