Political views and their values are some of the most difficult things for me to understand. Their furor is almost religious in many of those who are displaying signs on front lawns but also their establishing social systems with mentally locked gates designed to keep out poisonous thoughts of the opposition. There seems to be an adrenalin rush in unsympathetic views of the opposition’s “other party” that gives people a false idea of loyalty based upon almost black and white interpretations of good versus evil more treacherous than facts.
Looking at Democrats and Republicans reveals a staunch kind of loyalty sometimes going back to parents and their own family members in a sometimes clan-like loyalty from our parents and other family members in a feud that epitomizes the “us versus them” ethic, going back hundreds of years in an almost hereditary acceptance of social superiority over factual data.
Emotions and facts too often wage war against each other in what would otherwise be comic shenanigans on Gilligan’s Island, maybe because self-righteousness is one of the oldest sources of true comedy.
I remember family gatherings when I was growing up that, among thirty guests, would occasionally find one uncle or aunt stepping on a political comment that in the group was like stepping on a landmine. Vocal volumes would rise until Grandpa would take out a brandy decanter to calm the men down while the women rolled their eyes in almost a comic despair.
The rancor always subsided by the wee hours when we were all prepared to face the cold winter air outside and return home to our warm beds and the fact that we had once again survived another familial bout based upon American politics. JB