Feature
Don’t Hate Me Because I’m Liberal
Politics aside, I am my father's daughter—and proud of it
The last time my father and I attended a tea party, my stuffed cat Aida was the guest of honor and the tea was served in Beatrix Potter Peter Rabbit teacups. Politics certainly wasn’t a conversation topic. Twenty-something years later, I’ve become a Liberal while my father is a Libertarian. And instead of doilies and cucumber sandwiches, the tea parties of 2010 are serving discord and controversy. One lump or two?
When my mother called and asked me to accompany my father to the Tax Day Tea Party in Washington, D.C., I tried to come up with any excuse to avoid the event: I would stand out as a leftist lamb amongst a pack of rabid wolves; I didn’t want to be mistaken for one of those people; I might catch whatever was wrong with those racist, homophobic, mouth-breathing miscreants.
But then I remembered a few things my father had done for me. When I was 8 years old and wanted to enter a race two hours from where we lived, my father not only drove me there and paid the registration fee (which I now know we really couldn’t afford), he ran with me—until he couldn’t keep up. When I stopped to wait for him, he urged me on and promised to meet me at the finish line. When I decided I wanted to be an artist, he told my grandmother to send art supplies for Christmas. When I started a collection of lizards, snakes and other creepy-crawlies, he spent hours building Plexiglass terrariums and even fitted his favorite wooden tool box with a screened lid to transport my herpetological captives. Not to mention the whole feeding, clothing and sheltering thing.
Compared to all that, what was one political rally? Sure, I’d have to listen to his seemingly endless recap of Fox News’ programming and somehow put up with him grinning and nodding in approval to every sign and speech for hours on end, but I kind of owed him. We haven’t always seen eye to eye, but we’ve existed in comfortable disagreement, as families do. He barely raised an eyebrow when I took to wearing fishnet stockings and piercing my face, and he listened in good humor when I tried to convince him the Reverend Horton Heat wasn’t all that different from Hank Williams. When I got kicked out of culinary school, he picked me up at the airport without a word of disappointment and never once fired a single bullet at the many drugged-out, unemployed, “when my band makes it big” boyfriends I brought home—even though we both know he wanted to.
So hey, I decided, I’m going to do something for dad for a change. Besides, I couldn’t deny wanting to see what took place at those tea parties. Maybe I’d luck out and hear or see those jackasses doing something outrageous, something to prove to my dad that I was right and, of course, intellectually superior to “those people.”
Upon arriving in D.C., we were immediately greeted by protesters carrying signs—signs bearing caricatures of President Obama, his African-American features grossly exaggerated, and all manner of slogans. Some were fairly tame, others cringe-worthy. “Tax and spend has got to end”; “I will not be a citizen of the USSA”; “Recycle Congress”; “Welfare Drug Testing”; “Keep it up jokers, Obamacare does not cover tar and feathers.”
I wanted these people to be the hate-spewing, scaly underbelly of America, the lunatic fringe, the monomaniac monsters that go bump in the right.
I did my best to seek out misspelled signs and racial epithets, but I only found one example to support my theory of how stupid and backwards the tea partiers were: a lone sign reading “Impeach Obuma.”
I admit; I was disappointed. I wanted these people to be the hate-spewing, scaly underbelly of America, the lunatic fringe, the monomaniac monsters that go bump in the right. I needed these so-called concerned citizens to be the impetus for my own political ire. Sure, Obama won, but I still wasn't over the insults hurled at me by the right. Weren’t these the brutes who had claimed I wasn’t a “real American,” the savages who deemed me an elitist, all while I tirelessly participated in the American political process? While I was canvassing for Obama and change by foot and phone, these "real Americans" painted me and my comrades as godless Communists out to destroy their country.
Wearing a homemade T-shirt that read “Don’t Hate Me Because I’m Liberal,” I wandered through the crowd, certain I was swimming with sharks, waiting for them to sink their teeth into me. As they told me their stories, I found their message to be the same rhetoric played ad nauseum on cable news and talk radio. There were small-business owners worried they were going to lose their shirts, grandmothers terrified their grandchildren would have no country to call home, and former Obama supporters who felt cheated and lied to. But none could offer evidence of their fears; they only told me what Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity had told them. In a way, I felt sorry for them. Their fears were as real to them as bogeymen hiding in a child's closet. Limbaugh and Hannity and the like had done such a great job of drawing these people into a horror story of socialist world-takeover I felt transported to 1938, Orson Welles' War of the Worlds narration playing through my mind.
And then there was my dad, the man who had worked his whole life to give me mine; the man who had more than once gone hungry so that my belly would be full. He always took me, the prodigal daughter, back into his home and arms, indulged my every interest and was my most spirited supporter. He sat across the political table from me, sometime shaking his head and rolling his eyes, but never projecting spite my way. Sure, we did occasionally engage in playful name-calling. He was a right-wing nut-job; I was a misinformed socialist dupe. But at that political table we shared a beer or two, broke bread and winked at each other across the dogmatic divide, reached over the crater of credo and high-fived.
He was a right-wing nut-job; I was a misinformed socialist dupe. But at that political table we shared a beer or two, broke bread and winked at each other across the dogmatic divide, reached over the crater of credo and high-fived.
Not everyone was as tolerant of me as my dad. There were a couple of people who yelled at me while I talked to protesters; others who warned my interviewees not to talk to me, that I would only print lies and paint them as rednecks or fanatics. And I was mistaken once for a tea partier. A young woman walked past us at the Washington Monument, pointed at us each in turn and said, "Bigot, bigot, bigot!"
Backstage at the rally, my dad proudly displayed his press pass, and we mingled with the voices of a movement. He acted as my assistant, pointing out radio personalities such as Neal Boortz and holding my coffee while I interviewed his idols. Victoria Jackson assured him I’d come around when I reached their age, and Dick Armey demanded to know where dad had gone so terribly wrong with me. There was a fair amount of ribbing—mostly at my expense—but more than anything there was fellowship. Each picture I snapped of dad with his arm around the usually inaccessible celebrities that toed the same line as him, each time I spied my father unable to fully conceal his glee, I found myself smiling. It was fun watching him have fun. Like when I crossed the finish line at that race all those years ago, adrenaline pumping, endorphins coursing, thrilled to be in that moment, my dad was there and excited because I was excited. He ran even though he hated running. We switched roles at the rally. This time, he was the one waiting for me to catch up. And while I didn't come around to his way of thinking, I did gain insight into our relationship.
Riding the Metro home, I was still a Liberal and he was still a nut-job, but we were both all smiles. He had an experience he would be bragging about for years, and I had a hand in that. I discovered that just as my father and I could get along, so could Ron Paul and I. I could shake hands with Andrew Breitbart and show off my tattoos to Tucker Carlson. We may not have found common ground in the arena of politics, but we were all more than happy to set aside our differences and show my dad a good time.
I wish I could end this story with "we are the world" sentiments. But the truth is, as long as the loudest voices deliver the most frightening tales, we are divided. When the volume of the extremist din is dialed down to a murmur in the background—and family, neighbors and co-workers can hear each other—we’ll at least have the chance to agree to disagree.
- Fantastic article, Maren! [ Wed Apr 21 2010 11:24 PM ]
Just sent it to my much-loved and quite conservative uncles.
- You will turn conservative [ Thu Apr 22 2010 9:13 AM ]
At 18 I was at Stanford during the hippy generation taking classes from a Black Panther and reading Mao's Little Red book. By thirty all my illuions of liberalism were well gone, smacked down by reality. As an engineer, I know from feedback and control theory that liberalism is unstable, a positive feedback explosion. As a businessman, I can read balance sheets and see the liberal system leads to bankruptcy. As an amateur historian, I cannot site a country in the history of the world that has not followed liberal theory into a death spiral - starting with Rome, National Socialism (nazism), then look at the Soviet Union and China (which now have started to prosper by backing away from liberalism), etc.
What your dad knows, and I know, is that liberal theory cannot pay the bills, it is a ponzi scheme - musical chairs where someone eventually gets left off the gravy train.
So, the only thing you liberals have is namecalling, claiming people like me are stupid sheep. But how does that work with me, a mechanical engineer from Stanford who has successful businesses and employs other people?? I write books on a varity of subjects (currently one on Harry Reid, a couple novels, some technical books), so I guess you can't call me illiterate. Most of my Tea Party friends are business owners, they aren't homeless people jabbering to sock puppets about Marxist theory. How does your "they're all stupd" meme hold up when confronted with flesh and blood people instead of cardboard cutouts???
In short, when some of you grow up and have to keep a family together, your view of where money magically comes from will change and we will see you at tea parties too, but as supporters rather than condescending twerps.
- Such talk-radio nonsense [ Thu Apr 22 2010 9:41 AM ]
As an amateur historian, I cannot site a country in the history of the world that has not followed liberal theory into a death spiral - starting with Rome, National Socialism (nazism), then look at the Soviet Union and China (which now have started to prosper by backing away from liberalism), etc.
Liberalism = Communist Russia and China, and Nazi Germany? Apparently "amateur historian" = brainwashed bonehead who gets his Movement Conservative version of "history" poured into his head by Reactionary Hate Radio and Faux News. That whole comment was exactly the incoherent mix of "screw everybody else but me" Randite ideology mixed with talk-radio political hate-mongering that we have all come to expect from the teabaggers. It's as if they live in their own shared pseudo-reality bubble.
- I must respectfully question one of your assumptions [ Thu Apr 22 2010 11:57 AM ]
Maren, a very nice article. As a conservative, I too have family members that are my political opposites, and yes, more people need to know that honest, caring conversations between sincere people of any persuasion are both possible and beneficial.
In that spirit, I wish to challenge one assumption you seem to make, that Tea Partiers and conservatives in general are all following a template designed for them by the conservative talking heads. I challenge it because it is no more than a stereotype. I am a licensed attorney in Illinois. I was on Law Review. I have listened to a wide range of talking heads, read a large number of primary sources in legal, political, and economic theory, and still ended up a conservative.
So you see it is possible for people who do not rely on Rush, Glenn, Sean et al to reach the same conclusions they do. The talking heads are not the leaders. They are the press secretaries. They articulate loudly what others have quietly analyzed. They are the Paul Revere’s. They see the signals and keep everyone informed. That’s a good thing.
But they did not invent the love of freedom and the fear of tyranny that gave birth to this country. And they did not invent the various tragic political experiments of the last century that would make any reasonable person tremble at the thought of an overly intrusive, ever expanding, self-infatuated government.
The fact is that the Tea Partier’s rejection of the harshly government-centric policies of the current administration is rooted in an accurate and rational view of history and economics. It is wonderful that you now see Tea Partiers in a more human context, but I would ask you now to go one step further and believe that they have chosen their own thoughts and feelings about public policy as freely and intelligently as you have. That’s when the real conversation begins.
Thanks
- Okay, let's see who is an 'idiot' [ Thu Apr 22 2010 12:35 PM ]
As an amateur historian, I cannot site a country in the history of the world that has not followed liberal theory into a death spiral - starting with Rome, National Socialism (nazism), then look at the Soviet Union and China (which now have started to prosper by backing away from liberalism), etc.
Liberalism = Communist Russia and China, and Nazi Germany? Apparently "amateur historian" = brainwashed bonehead who gets his Movement Conservative version of "history" poured into his head by Reactionary Hate Radio and Faux News. That whole comment was exactly the incoherent mix of "screw everybody else but me" Randite ideology mixed with talk-radio political hate-mongering that we have all come to expect from the teabaggers. It's as if they live in their own shared pseudo-reality bubble.
Okay, so I'm such an idiot. I guess the liberal theories in Greece (bankrupt!), Spain (bankrupt!), Britain (bankrupt!) are what makes you an expert. The strongest economies and currencies in the world right now are Singapore, Australia and Canada, all with higher free market indexes than the US. While Canada has been liberal in some ways (its healthcare is on the edge of bankrupt) its current tax levels are lower than the US. Australia's debt to GDP ratio is 15% versus while ours is at 80% and going to the moon.
I just got done moving $1 million into Australian currency. But i guess I'm a reactionary brainwashed bonehead Randite hate-mongerer compared to venuspluto who sits in his basement smoking dope.
How long are you guys going to play like you are genius material when you've got nothing to show for it but a bunch of spittle and foam?
I've got real accomplishments, you've got diddly squat. Who are people going to listen to?
Take away the name calling, which makes up half of venuspluto67's tyrade and you are left with wind.
By the way, I just published a book which recounts how your hero Harry Reid was delivered bags full of cash from pimp Joe Conforte of the Mustang Ranch. That ought to make you all proud to be a liberal American.
- "Don’t Hate Me Because I’m Liberal" on the front Politics page of Reddit.com [ Thu Apr 22 2010 1:57 PM ]
This story is blowing up over there. More than 250 comments, and counting.
- Spouting nonsense is a symptom of ignorance [ Thu Apr 22 2010 2:08 PM ]
I've got real accomplishments, you've got diddly squat. Who are people going to listen to?
That you have a good and accomplished career and money in the bank doesn't make you sound any less ignorant when you call the USSR and Nazi Germany "liberal". I could stoop to that level and call Augusto Pinochet's regime in Chile "conservative", but I don't because I understand historical and political nuances. Augusto Pinochet was a reactionary and an authoritiarian fascist. Adolf Hitler was an extreme-racist nationalist, reactionary, and totalitarian fascist. Joseph Stalin, head of history's most horrible regime, was a radical leftist and totalitarian-communist, as was Mao Zedong, who was responsible for that god-awful Cultural Revolution which brutalized China so badly.
That you were a Maoist as a young man and a Tea Partier now tells me that you are predisposed to gravitate towards extremist mindsets, though there's no question that Maoism would be the worst of those two options (though you likely might have been and perhaps were disillusioned with that nonsense upon finding out just how bad Cultural Revolution China really was). So perhaps I should credit you for improving at least somewhat.
ETA: Interestingly enough, this website lets people rate their own comments. I would humbly suggest to the site's webmaster that this feature should be changed. Until then, everybody give your own comments five stars. :-D
Last edited [4/22/10 2:16 PM] - Confused [ Thu Apr 22 2010 2:27 PM ]
Daxton, I am just a little confused as to why someone of your stature feels compelled to prove themselves to what you consider a bunch of "twerps" on Weekly Alibi's website. With all your investigative reporting and writing and research and money moving and investing don't you have more important things to do than attack a small time liberal journalist like Maren?
- Who knows? [ Thu Apr 22 2010 3:50 PM ]
That's the thing with the Internet, wineguy. You never really know who or what somebody using a screen-name actually is. I'll admit that I'm not much of a much at all (I probably would smoke marijuana if I had access to it, but certainly not every day) because 1) As long as you all know me only as "venuspluto 67", it's no skin off my nose to admit that and 2) I'm not desperately needy for other people's approval in order to validate what I have to say (which might or might not stand on its own merit).
But the fact that daxton needs to claim that we should take him seriously when he says ignorant and uninformed things because he has more money in his bank account than I do, at the very least confirms what I said about him being a Randite. And the whole "Hitler was a liberal/ socialist" is a very shop-worn talk-radio trope (not to mention a pretty flagrant violation of Godwin's Law, which says that anyone in an Internet discussion who compares something they detest to Hitler or the Nazi Germany has automatically conceded the argument by virtue of sheer intellectual laziness).
Fully realizing that I'm opening the whole can of worms about how social science should classify Hitler's ideology, I think it's worth pointing out that the political spectrum should be seen as a circle in which very extreme left (Mao and Lenin) and very extreme right (Mussolini and Hitler) are two points that meet each other at the point of the circle that one might call "Deep Fanaticism That Should Be Avoided". I can only hope that such subtleties are not entirely lost upon daxton.
Last edited [4/22/10 3:53 PM] - Daxton Brown [ Thu Apr 22 2010 5:14 PM ]
Some casual Googling has informed me that there is a Daxton Brown who wrote an expose book about Harry Reid (a lot of liberals know HR is a sleaze, BTW; the insititutional two-party system has a way of spawning corrupt reprobates, such as Republican Tom DeLay of Texas). Seeing how the book is not yet terribly well-known, there is no real reason for the commentor in question to say he's that author when in fact he's not.
- Hey Wineguy! [ Thu Apr 22 2010 7:41 PM ]
What's with this "small-time liberal journalist" bullshit? I thought I was a goddess to you. Sigh.
- I'm the real deal. [ Thu Apr 22 2010 11:15 PM ]
Some casual Googling has informed me that there is a Daxton Brown who wrote an expose book about Harry Reid (a lot of liberals know HR is a sleaze, BTW; the insititutional two-party system has a way of spawning corrupt reprobates, such as Republican Tom DeLay of Texas). Seeing how the book is not yet terribly well-known, there is no real reason for the commentor in question to say he's that author when in fact he's not.
The book is real, it involved meeting people right out of the movie Casino (mafia and swindlers). A LOT of people are afraid of Harry Reid because of his mob ties. Hell, I'm scared crapless. And he is the third in charge of the liberal establishment, that ought to tell you something. I have him on multiple examples of taking bribes.
Regarding Chile and Pinochet, you should be so lucky as to live in awful Chile, it is going gangbusters (tsunami excluded). Why you ask? Because it has the most rightwing and free economy in South America, again proving my point. I'm going to be looking at land there as well. Their social security system is a lot better (market oriented, look it up), their taxes lower. Do a little econ 101 and think where you would want to invest your own money or start a business, it sure isn't liberal countries. Former leftwing backwater countries like Vietnam or India are booming BECAUSE they are giving up their claptrap leftwing ideas. Do a little research.
- I got your real deal right here... [ Thu Apr 22 2010 11:32 PM ]
...and then I lost it. Damn margaritas.
Last edited [4/22/10 11:33 PM] - Thanks Nick Brown [ Fri Apr 23 2010 3:16 AM ]
Coming from you the well wishes mean a lot. Cheers.
- Goddess Maren!! [ Fri Apr 23 2010 7:00 AM ]
Of course you are a goddess Maren - and a brilliant and important journalist. I was only referring to Daxton's demeaning of your article by inferring you and your readers were "condescending twerps", in contrast to his boundless life experience. Daxton's arrogance is hilarious. I love how he tries to establish street cred by telling us about his experiences as a young Stanford revolutionary hanging with his Black Panther professor and how he has rubbed elbows with mobsters and swindlers - hahaha. Funny thing is, knowing Maren as I do, she is the one person that would not be scared crapless after writing a tell-all book involving the mob. Maren is the real deal, not Daxton. Daxton should move to Chile and establish himself as President, the way U.S. citizen William Walker did in Nicaragua, that way he could finally become the "real deal" he is so desperately seeking to be.
- Defending Pinochet??? [ Fri Apr 23 2010 7:57 AM ]
Post-Pinochet Chile may not be such a bad place to live, I don't really know. You see things through such ideologue's eyes that I'm dubious about taking your word for it, daxton. I hope you weren't defending Pinochet because it kind-of-sort-of sounded as though you were. That would certainly confirm all the worst things I've heard about Tea Partiers.
The Democratic Party may have more than its share of corrupt and shady characters in its heirarchy, but I no longer consider the Demoratic Party liberal, if it ever was. It is a spineless and passive centrist party. It would be a right-wing party in many countries constituted as it currently is. A good example of this fact is that the vaunted healthcare reform Obama strong-armed through Congress was originally a Republican counter-proposal to the Clintons' proposed healthcare reform in the 90's. It really disgusted me how the Democratic Party's Kool-Aid drinking supporters blindly embraced it as if it were a truly progressive reform. What this reform amounts to is a poll tax to be paid to private industry. I don't think even Francisco Franco would have instituted such an utterly right-wing fiscal policy! But such masochism is par for the course for the Democratic Party's supporters, who self-deceivingly champion a thorougly corrupted and corporatist insitution as a champion of progress and alternative to the Republican Party's outrages.
@wineguy: The ultraconservative counterculture that spawned the Tea Party movement has its own alternative "history" and its own alternative "facts". The need to keep this bubble in which they live intact and the insecurity this need necessarily generates explains the arrogance and bombast daxton brings to this comment-thread.
- A Very Good Article! [ Fri Apr 23 2010 6:07 PM ]
I especially appreciated the love and respect for your father that you maintained throughout, even if you don't happen to agree with his political position at the moment. As far as your observations of the proceedings went, you were not entirely unbiased, but much more so than most other admittedly liberal journalists are. Thanks!
