I returned home to South Carolina day after the election unable to wipe the grin off my face. My husband and I had been living in Colorado for several months and changed our registration in order to vote in that swing state, correctly assuming SC would remain blood red and would not be in play. Sigh...maybe one day.
I worried a bit about coming back to McCain country after leaving our Colorado town in the middle of a huge communal celebration, people dancing, crying, hugging each other..
All was indeed quiet upon arrival in the Lowcountry of South Carolina. No one spoke of the election. Three McCain/Palin signs greeted me as I drove down my street, nary an Obama sign anywhere.
But the biggest election buzz-kill upon coming home to a red state was revealed while visiting my sweet 82 year-old mother-in-law, who was so distraught after the McCain/Palin loss that she was unable to get out of bed the next day. She did manage a smile for us, but her face was swollen, her eyes would not meet ours, and she walked slumped over. I noticed two days of newspapers on her front porch, still in their wrappers, unread.
Fox News blared in the background, like a senile old uncle, only meaner, propped up in a wheelchair in the corner of the living room babbling on and on and on.
Never doubt that a small, group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has. Margaret Mead
What a joy and privilege it was to be in the blue state of Colorado for this election! Obama signs everywhere, all our friends were supporters and many volunteered, as we had, to work on the campaign. Everyone had Obama bumper stickers on their bikes, cars, backpacks... the entire town seemed to be riding the same beautiful blue wave. You could safely assume that most people you met were Obama supporters. Outside the town in the rural ranching areas, it was a different story, but we loved being in our downtown Obama bubble.
As we landed and disembarked from the plane, the heavy moist air let me know I was in South Carolina. I had an Obama sticker on my coat leftover from election day, and I was anxious to get reaction from fellow Southerners, expecting celebratory gestures, high-fives, terrorist fist jabs or something, and after all the hugs and smiles from strangers in the Denver and Chicago airport I was ready for some local love.
The silence was deafening. I learned quickly not to bring up the election, when during our first family dinner my mom-in-law exploded into a tirade. This is a woman who goes out of her way to be nice to everyone. She is the peacemaker of the family. I had never seen her angry at all, ever. The level of her hatred, yes, hatred, for Michelle and Barack Obama was so unlike her, so disturbing, so over the top, that it made me feel ill.
Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies. Friedrich Nietzsche
Beware of the Dark Side. Anger, Fear, Agression. The Dark Side of the Force are they. Easily they flow. Quick to join you in a fight. If once you start down the Dark Path, forever will it dominate your destiny. Consume you it will. - Yoda
I put the blame for this on Fox news, and Rush Limbaugh as well, and truly despise what they have done to her and other seniors. Many Fox viewers are elderly, shut-ins, vulnerable and susceptible, and they have been fed daily with poison, and are now fully brainwashed and programmed to hate, or at least disrespect Obama and his wife, and they feel justified and patriotic doing so.
"The most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly - it must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over" Joseph Goebbels
The older I grow the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom. H. L. Mencken
Fox News has used their power for evil, creating a legion of people filled with hate, some who are crippled by it. They have been trained by master manipulators, filled with an unholy spirit, and now they cannot shut it off. Fox needs to keep them addicted for the ratings, and so they keep pumping their toxic waste into homes 24 hours a day. The collective negative energy Fox has fomented is now our problem, and the families who have to deal with these possessed souls. I imagine there are many zombie-like relatives, friends, and loved ones out there who are raging on about Ayers, un-American associates, Rev. Wright, and "never been proud of my country"; I have heard these code words and phrases every time I accidentaly switch on Fox, and they are the very same words my mom-in-law recites.
"a nation of warriors and fanatics, marching forward in perfect unity, all thinking the same thoughts and shouting the same slogans, perpetually working, fighting, triumphing, persecuting—three hundred million people all with the same face." George Orwell, "1984"
If I hear anyone else say that we just don't know "who Obama is" I will have a Bill O'Reilly style meltdown for their benefit. If you don't know anything about Obama, you have your ears plugged up and your eyes and mind cemented shut. You are lazy and ignorant, or maybe just absolutely brainwashed.
"The trouble with radicals is that they only read radical literature, and the trouble with conservatives is that they don't read anything" Thomas Nixon Carver
I have been searching for ways of helping my mother-in-law, and know there are many others out there going through the same thing. We might have to do an intervention. We want to cut her cable. She keeps going back for more to feed the beast, and I fear she will end up getting really ill this winter in her weakened state. Seriously.
Time may heal things in our family, and time will certainly expose the lies, exaggerations, half-truths repeated throughout this election process. Till then, I defer to President-elect Obama:
And to those Americans whose support I have yet to earn – I may not have won your vote, but I hear your voices, I need your help, and I will be your President too. Barack Obama