Tips On Navigating Right Wing Arguments During Christmas
Nothing says coming together as a family like vicious fighting over ideological frivolity
Just Imagine Toni Collette is wearing a Santa hat
Tristan Young @talltristan
First things first- just don’t get together for a large Christmas gathering. We are in full on pandemic mode; to join in or host a grouping of an extended family is irresponsible and just not worth it. Especially so if it involves crossing into a different health authority. However, current guidelines stipulate that gatherings of two or three family members within the same medical jurisdiction would be permissible. That being the case, one might not be fully immune from the dreaded conservative versus liberal argument that tends to always rear its head come the holidays. Or maybe you’re going to have a massive Zoom party in which case someone (not always the uncle, leave them alone!) will invariably have too many Christmas tequila shots and bring up Trump, in which case it’s go time. The best advice may be simply to ignore such incendiary rhetoric. Failing that though, here’s a few pointers to coherently and efficiently address some of the common fever dream arguments from the more detached orbits of the right wing ecosystem.
Anything related to Qanon
Maddening as the labyrinthine and inane narratives at the heart of Q culture, these theories are actually the easiest to dismantle, and with minimal effort. Should a family or friend start espousing the merits and efficacy of Qanon, simply ask them to elaborate. Ardent zealots of the Q continuum are so used to being entrenched in bilious arguments as soon as they bring it up they are rarely afforded the opportunity in open debate to thoroughly explain the core nexus of their theory in full, complete sentences. So used to being cut off, side swiped, interrupted, and yelled at yet, they don’t often get to tell the whole the story. Let them. Ask them to educate you on Q. Put them in a situation where they have to actually say the democratic party is a secret cabal of satanic pedophile vampires that gain their power from drinking the blood of children and one of their secret bases of global oppression is in the basement of a pizza shop in D.C. See how they feel after actually saying it. Let them say that out loud without interruption in front of a group of people who are not fully indoctrinated. When they state that Donald Trump alone can stop them, ask them to provide some kind of update on his progress. Has he secured the arrest and executions of Clinton or Obama or Biden or Gates or Soros as Q acolytes have claimed time and time again he would over the last 4 years? No? Any day now, surely. Thank them for sharing their thoughts and move on.
The Election Was Stolen From Trump
For a person to say Trump only lost because the election was stolen is essentially analogous to admitting he lost but they are not happy about it, only the person doesn’t understand the symmetry between the statements. Trump’s most ardent partisans- lovingly referred to as ‘The Base’- parrot claims of malfeasance and theft without a hint of context or irony. Providing some context is easy and useful in this case. The context being, this is not the first contest Trump has claimed was stolen from him or his sycophants. Not even close actually! Let’s excavate the recent history of Trump making the same spurious claim:
-The 2016 Iowa caucus when Ted Cruz beat Trump
-The 2016 general election when trump lost the popular vote to Hilary Clinton by around 3 million votes
-The 2017 special election in the senate in Alabama
-The 2018 senate contests in Arizona and Florida
-And of course nearly all of 2020 pertaining to the general election
Trump says this literally every time an election doesn’t go his way for him or his surrogates. This is why we have the story of the Boy Who Cried Wolf. Trump is that spoiled little boy! The legitimacy of such a claim diminishes every time he deploys it and it’s embarrassing that anyone is regurgitating it at this point.
The Deep State Is Conspiring Against Trump
Your hypothetical family member may persist in their aspersions however. They may claim that this situation is different as Trump is in a full on war over the existential soul of America with the nefarious and amorphous Deep State. A cadre of antagonistic government workers forming an ad hoc shadow government to thwart every one of Trump’s noble endeavours have culminated with their institutional corruption of the election. Let’s look at some key players in the upper echelons of government who have weighed in on the election. Georgia Governor Brian Kemp and State Secretary Brad Raffensperger, who over saw the voting in the hotly contested state both said they have seen no evidence of election fuckery, so clearly they are part of the Deep State. They are also both career republicans with Kemp openly pleading that he voted for Trump. The department of Cyber Security and Infrastructure also said that the 2020 election was the most secure in modern American history, so surely they must all be corrupt also. How about (now former) Attorney General Bill Barr, one of the most infamous and virulent sources of corruption and cronyism in the Trump Administration? He said his Justice Department has found no actionable or large-scale evidence of fraud in the election. So Barr- again, William fucking Barr- must also be a member of The Deep State. One of Trump’s more brazenly open statements of corruption prior to the election was his insistence on taking the results all the way to the Supreme Court for litigation, even before voting had begun. This was indeed cause for concern as the SC is now slanted considerably towards with the right with three Trump appointees: Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett. Instead, they wouldn’t even hear the case (pertaining to prior failed litigation in Pennsylvania courts, and a ridiculous attempt for Texas to interfere in other states election conduct) due to the overwhelming record of losses in courts at the state and federal level. These are all Trump’s appointees. Ask anyone arguing about the Deep State if they are really prepared to claim that Amy Barrett too is a member of these nefarious interlopers. They are likely going to have trouble answering.
There was election fraud in Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Michigan
Points to any family member that will try and provide specifics- that’s better than nothing! You may find yourself listening to arguments about signature mismatches on mail in ballots or voter registries that are inaccurate and need to be audited. Or that republican poll watchers were not properly accommodated in observing the vote counts. Without such measures the results in key swing states that helped decide the election in Biden’s favour could very likely be tainted. Here’s the thing: they were audited. There was a hand recount and an audit in Georgia, and all it did was reaffirm Biden’s victory (it actually garnered him about 130 more votes). More importantly however, ask why haven’t any of these claims yielded any traction in court? Because these claims haven’t been made in court. Trump’s pundits and mouthpieces have all of the protection of the 1st amendment to say whatever the fuck they want in public and on the news, and good lord have they ever. Things work differently in a court of law where formal censures, fines, and disbarment await lawyers unscrupulous enough to make such outlandish claims without evidence. So they just haven’t for the most part. Even when one lawyer in a Michigan hearing did try it, it went horribly. The official GOP line was republican poll watchers were denied entrance into the polling stations to observe and confirm a fair process. In court however the lawyers for Trump were forced to admit in fact that a “non zero” number of republican watchers were there. None of these claims have been made in Pennsylvania or Georgia courts, instead there are vague claims to some votes seeming suspicious (in one case even confusing Michigan counties with Minnesota; the best people indeed). This isn’t a case of what your source of the news says versus their sources. This is solely the conservative side of things saying one thing in public to infuriate supporters and then something in else in court because they know they can’t back up the public claims. If the person you are arguing with claims, as Trump does, they are merely concerned for the integrity of the election and therefore the democratic health of the nation, ask them: Why is Trump only concerned about states he lost in? If this is purely about integrity where are his investigations into Texas or Florida or Kansas? That there isn’t any quickly reveals what bullshit that argument has always been.
Liberals need to be nicer and less condescending towards Conservatives
Sure ok, let’s have this conversation. The age old dictate that liberal pretention alienates moderate conservatives that could build a larger coalition. That liberals are needlessly condescending to conservative Americans (or in any country) and we make no effort to understand their life experiences that have shaped their ideology. This isn’t the worst idea on its face, but the argument is almost always made in bad faith or is astonishingly hypocritical. Putting aside how we exactly do liberals politely and gingerly address stuff like Qanon, ask the person making this claim what their objective in bringing it up is? Do they really want to provide constructive advise to how liberals can grow their votes and win elections? Is that their genuine and earnest reasoning? Biden won the election by 7 million votes. Democrats kept the house. The current conservative make up of the senate and Congress writ large has nothing to do with vote share and everything to do with gerrymandering and voter suppression. That there are (currently) more republican senators than democrats has nothing to with liberal ideas being alienating due to the posturing of its defenders. In the 2018 senate elections republicans nation wide received around 35 million votes and democrats received around 52 million. Yet, Republicans gained seats. It’s an entrenched and frustrating level of institutionalized suppression that prevents more wins on the liberal side. As far as convincing more people to their cause to win hearts and minds, regardless of ideological inclinations, that fight has long since been settled. The ‘liberals need to be nicer’ argument is moot on those grounds alone.
Furthermore, ask the person who is making such an argument if they have ever had the inverse conversation with their conservative colleagues. If liberals need to stop being condescending, any thoughts on if conservative attitudes need to change towards liberals? Should they stop calling those that live in California or New York ‘costal elites’ who aren’t real Americans? How about the Trump shirts that say “fuck your feelings” or Don Jr’s book called “Liberal Tears”? How about the stated policy goals of some right wing pundits being to “own the libs”? How about the death threats that AOC or Ilhan Omar get on the regular? How about the foiled plan to kidnap and possibly execute democratic Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer? Prominent figures in right wing government and media have literally called for the deaths of certain liberal figures. A 17 year old MSGA acolyte killed 2 people in protests in Wisconsin. A Proud Boy ran over a person and killed her in the 2017 Unite The Right rally. There simply is no facsimile in mainstream liberal discourse for this kind of behaviour or actions, but it’s liberals that need to take a hard look at themselves? Sure.
Anything They Don’t Like Is Socialism
Ask them to describe what socialism is. You might end up on a wild ride of non-sequitors with them, but ideology can be tricky somtimes. You might get some tautological responses like AOC is socialist and socialism is anything AOC does, which is not helpful for anyone so try to redirect the argument. Ask them instead to name a socialist country. If the highly bifurcated nebula of right wing media is any indication, they will likely bring up Venezuela. Indeed, Venezuela does have a litany of serious issues ranging from economic collapse to poverty to corruption. Why then did they not bring up Denmark or Norway? Those countries regularly make the list for highest quality of life across a vast spectrum of considerations (Not GDP though!), yet they are also socialist. Perhaps simply being socialist is not the key indicator to a country’s potential greatness or nadir. Venezuela’s issues for example are in part due to a decaying oil infrastructure that’s far too dependant on a single resource who’s attendant economy is in upheaval, as well as corrupt leaders using the mechanisms of government to enrich themselves often at the expense of their people. Leaving alone for a moment who this reminds you of, none of these are foundational attributes to socialism- the connections are purely specious. America, most western countries really, decided a long time ago what kind of nation it wanted to be. One where public goods, the kinds too important to the nation’s stability to be left to the volatile currents of the free market, were paid for through tax dollars. Cops, fire fighters, roads, that kind of thing. Ask them if health care seems roughly as important. Furthermore this socialism argument in general is a tired bogeyman. They’ve been calling any democratic policy initiative a ‘socialist plot’ for nearly 30 years. They called Bill Clinton a socialist back in 1992 and wow is that ever cute.
Bonus Round: The War On Christmas
We get this one every year right around the time we run out of Halloween candy. Liberals want to destroy Christmas. That seems very rude! Most years it’s best to just nod politely and get another drink. This year however is a bit different. Trump spent much of the summer doing his best to grind the Postal Service in the States into oblivion to prevent mail in voting as much as possible. If there is one government institution that is fundamental to the small C conservative values of a western traditional Christmas, it’s the Postal Service. It’s how grandma sends the cheques, how we send the cards and the gifts. Trump tried to destroy it for craven self-interest, and the core right wingers cheered him along. For that alone, conservative supporters forfeit in perpetuity any right to bitch about the war on Christmas. Perhaps liberals have due cause to pick up the invective torch, but maybe it’s best if we just let this one tradition die. Shit, maybe we are trying to destroy Christmas?