At a Family Reunion

I went to a family reunion last weekend in Wisconsin where close to half the relatives are evangelical Christians. It's a picnic, only a few hours long, so it's not hard to avoid talking about politics.

One uncle, however, had to wear his pro-Trump T-shirt. I didn't notice it for the first few hours because I was avoiding him in general, based on past experience. But at some point, before I had seen the T-shirt, I realized one of the Gen Z attendees (who lives in the Twin Cities) was over talking to him for a little while.

Later I asked the Gen Z-er if they were getting into it with the uncle about his T-shirt, and the answer was yes. I didn't get a lot of details about the conversation, but I did get that the uncle told the Gen Z-er they are the one who lives in a bubble with limited info. The Gen Z-er asked the uncle where he gets his info and he said The Christian Broadcasting Network.

We shared an eye roll.

One of the things the uncle did say was that children in public schools are not allowed to proclaim any aspect of their Christianity. (I can't remember the exact terminology they said he used.) When they told him that was not true, he didn't believe it.

I told Gen Z-er the uncle and his wife home-schooled their kids and more recently their grandkids, so they have no idea what goes on in the public schools. Gen Z-er didn't know that about the family, and appeared kind of surprised.

They said their college courses are designed to teach critical thinking, to examine multiple sides of arguments, and I agreed that is generally how liberal arts are designed, and what the MAGA movement doesn't want to happen.

Just a glimpse of how things are out there, which I suppose most white people with families in this country are aware of in some sense. 

I read, but now can't find, a very convincing essay about refusing to deal with relatives and (former) friends who have gone down the MAGA drain. I wish I could link to it now; it wasn't a well-known writer in a mainstream source — just a person with a newsletter that I don't read regularly. I thought I had saved it somewhere but my tabs are a mess so I can't find it. 

It was persuasive, but I have not managed to cut off the many racist, inherently fascist people in my life.