At a time when people politically right of center are routinely othered by Democrat party leaders as “semi-fascists,” “deplorable,” and “ist” and “phobe” epithets, I’d like to be called Uncle Dave. As long as we’re throwing around these political insults intended to divide instead of bring together Americans, in the hierarchy of insults, Uncle Dave isn’t so bad.
Make no mistake, there’s no life crisis here. This is not a they/them attempt to command obeisance from my confusion about the form and function of my body made by my God. Nope. But if we’re stuck with this incessant name-calling, and it appears we are until this generation grows up, for me, Uncle Dave is a pretty good avatar for what a conservative is.
It all started when my PJ Media colleague, Stacey Lennox, tweeted a letter from the Chicago Tribune advice columnist, Ask Amy.
I am Uncle Dave.
— Victoria Taft, The Adult in the Room, FITF Squad (@VictoriaTaft) July 1, 2023
The columnist, Amy Dickinson, received a missive from “Angry in Philadelphia,” though it could have been signed Karen and conveyed the same intention. My colleague Lincoln Brown writes about it. The letter seems unreal, though making up letters in these circumstances is unethical. You may insert your own one-liner here about journalists and ethics. But upon further reflection, the letter is entirely believable.
The letter reads in part, “Dear Amy: Four months before my daughter’s wedding, she told me that her uncle (my brother, “Dave”) would make her feel unsafe if he was a guest. She asked me not to invite him.”
Well, haven’t we all been there? We can imagine the too-touchy Dutch uncle, the guy who cops a feel while putting his around the waist of the bride, the creepy close-talker who invades one’s personal bubble or comes up from behind and whispers in your ear. A bride wants a flawless wedding day where she will be in a constant state of bliss: a day without blemish. She doesn’t want the creepy uncle scaring the bridesmaids.
The letter then states why the bride doesn’t want a man the writer calls “Uncle Dave,” who’s been in her life forever, from forever staining the biggest day of her life. “My daughter is very politically progressive, as are many of her friends,” the mother of the bride states. The MOB explains that her daughter and Uncle Dave “have always had a good relationship (I thought).” She says that she’s confounded by the request, stating, “Dave has always been very nice, so my daughter’s request surprised me.”
Is this one of those issues that keep mothers up all night? What if he’s that guy all the kids had a bad feeling about and she’s just hearing about it for the very first time? The metaphorical driver of that white van?! The creepy ice cream truck driver who gets too close to the kids? The weird uncle at the family picnic who leered at the bride during her summer of awkwardness at 12 years old, when she developed breasts. Could it be?
But — what ho! — it turns out that Uncle Dave is only the black sheep of the family. “Angry in Philadelphia” explains, ‘He is a conservative voter and has supported candidates we all abhor.” We can imagine the talk in the kitchen while whipping the Thanksgiving mashed potatoes: I can’t believe Uncle Dave voted for that man. Doesn’t he know he’s a Nazi/Fascist/Russian Spy?
Angry says she agreed to disinvite her own brother to her daughter’s wedding because, after all, it’s her day. She told Ask Amy, “I wrote Dave a very nice note, telling him that we would not be comfortable with him at the wedding and that he would not be invited.”
And, as hoped, “Dave did not respond and did not attend,” she explained. That was that. But the drama wasn’t over. Mom sent Uncle Dave a lovely parting note after the wedding was in the books, the honeymoon was over, and the couple was ensconced in their wedded lives. “Afterward, I sent him a card and pictures from the wedding, all in an effort to make him feel like he was not being totally left out,” though he had been totally left out.
Though Angry had not “heard from Dave since then,” when her “siblings found out what I had done they were angry with me.” And, then there was the other big predicament for Angry: The “problem is that Dave has not sent my daughter and son-in-law a wedding gift.”
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And it’s not like Uncle Dave sent a Chinese toaster to all the new brides and grooms of the family. “In the past,” Angry wrote, Uncle Dave “has given family members wedding checks in excess of $1,000.” And her daughter was “counting on receiving the same type of gift.”
Angry said her husband recommended she drop it. “But I can’t,” she wrote — and here is where many people believe the letter might be a fake but I believe is wholeheartedly true — “Dave’s behavior is upsetting and embarrassing to me.” She asked Amy to give her some advice to get “my brother to recognize and change his petty behavior.”
You can read what the columnist advised her to do, and it’s quite satisfying because old Karen gets her comeuppance. If you feel so led, please offer your advice for Angry in Philadelphia and her daughter in the comments below.
We’ve seen people like “Angry in Philadelphia” and her spawn screaming in peoples’ faces, cheering when Dr. Fauci claims he “is science,” berating parents at school board meetings who object to reading porn to fifth graders, at the DOJ seventh floor, and sometimes in our own families, like Uncle Dave.
I believe most conservatives are like Uncle Dave, and it’s why I like him. Uncle Dave is expected to show up when needed, gives generously, stays out of other peoples’ business, and can tell when he’s not wanted. We conservatives pay our taxes, give sacrificially to others, live productive lives, and only get riled up at idiots like Angry in Philadelphia when it really matters.
Then we are denigrated and othered by people who like our money but not our ideas.
And then we go on with our lives — if they would just leave us alone to conduct our own affairs.
The social media companies, at the behest of Democrats, have been preventing you from seeing our brand of opinion journalism for years now. They’re trying to starve us into compliance — or non-existence. PJ Media has been censored, disappeared, thrashed, and throttled by social media companies at the behest of political Leftists. It’s wrong and un-American. That’s where you come in.
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