My brother married one of my friends from my former workplace. They met at my wedding. She’s good people.
But she slowly out-brothered my brother over their years together, being pulled inexorably into his Fox/Limbaugh-esque brand of politics.
She never went there on our many get-togethers. He often did, sucking me into the vortex too many times.
But in her retirement, my SIL seemed to start off most mornings with coffee and some angry screed FB post that originated from some idiot whose Facebook page she followed but with whom her only connection was ideological extremism.
Little by little, her friends stopped clicking ‘like,’ eventually leaving only My One Crazy Uncle tacitly in her camp.
I felt like we were letting Dad drive long after somebody should have taken away the keys.
And I bit my tongue for a few years. Then I used the “snooze for 30 days” feature regularly. Then I unfollowed.
But I usually had to have just “one drink” every week or so, taking a peek at her page, and would find myself mildly infuriated anew.
So I very occasionally began commenting.
Out of love for both her and my brother, I was never insulting, never consciously condescending, and never ad hominem. I stayed focused on the issues and tended to link to reputable sources.
Never a reply, but the occasional ‘like’ from mutual friends/family.
I replied to two such comments of hers in the last couple days, staying civil and on message.
And … two hours later … her page had been stripped of all political posts.
I feel like a bunch of us were out to dinner, and I tried to politely point out to my SIL that she had lipstick on her front teeth. I feel like she came back from the ladies’ room looking somewhere between mortified and angry.
I’m having a hard time feeling good about this. Pyrrhic victory.
Many of us have talked about our extreme MAGA friends and family and the disasters we’ve experienced in nearly any flavor of confrontation. I remember very few stories of ‘the other person having backed down.’
Anybody have a similar experience, particularly if your feelings on the matter were surprisingly mixed in the aftermath ?
