My father is a diehard Republican and Fox viewer. He is also a devout Catholic. It is difficult to reconcile the good moral person I know with the beliefs of the party he will never veer from. Put an ‘R’ after someone’s name and he will vote for them regardless of how opposite their actions are from what he believes as a Catholic. The hypocrisy is infuriating.
Over the past year or so, the amount of political email I have received has grown. For the most part, I just ignore the messages and delete. Occasionally, I will read a message that I am compelled to respond to. In my responses, I try to keep emotion and accusations out of my message. I try to educate with facts from unbiased sources. I try to get him to fact-check his messages and think more critically before passing something along. I try to get him to understand media bias and how anyone can manipulate data to meet their narrative. Putting together my responses is never easy. I agonize over my replies. I spend hours and hours crafting what I hope is a thoughtful and insightful response. My sister and I almost always talk before I send some sort of response. It’s nice to have an ally. She gets BCCed on everything I send. I push send and hope for the best. Sometimes the response is positive and other times not. I acknowledge that he will still always vote Republican – but any tiny baby step forward I will claim as a victory.