Wichita Boy–

I’ve struggled with the issue of how to reach my many LLL (or just Bush-hating) Democratic family and friends. This includes practically everyone I know, by the way.

It is hard, to say the least. I am considered in the nature of an apostate to a shared religion, just as you suggest, and am met with horror, stunned disbelief, and rage. I have tried to speak logically and patiently to them, but I have found that they fall into three camps on this.

The first camp–and the largest one, unfortunately–contains those who do not want to hear me and will not let me speak. Even when I’ve said just the simple sentence, “I’ve been a Democrat all my life, and I support Bush’s foreign policy,” I’ve been met with outbursts of intense RAGE from some friends and family. We have had to ban the topic of politics and world events ENTIRELY to have any sort of relationship. Interestingly enough, some of these people continue to wave a red flag in front of this bull by dropping the odd anti-Bush remark into conversations with me.

The second camp are those who will hear me out–to a point. They will listen for a while, but refuse to read anything I suggest that they read (or very little of it), and cut off the conversation before I’ve gone very far. They are really not interested in hearing me, and ultimately some have said they don’t have time to listen any more (not that I’ve spoken all THAT much about it); they don’t want to listen any more; and they think I’ve become too obsessive on the subject.

The third camp (the smallest of all) listens with some patience and interest. I try not to overdo it with them. Only one person (my estranged husband, strangely enough) seems to have left the Kerry camp as a result of my discussions with him.

So I’m left feeling rather desolate about the possibility of change. I wonder, though, whether Rathergate will act to cause some doubt in the liberal mentality, because I believe a great deal of it is based on longterm trust in the MSM, and if that trust begins to erode, the entire edifice might eventually come tumbling down. That was a huge factor in what happened to me in my evolution from liberal to what I guess might be called neocon.