Justice Kavanaugh will need to recuse himself from any case with the following:
Ant case pertaining to beer;
Any case where the defendant’s name is Bart;
Any case pertaining to 15 year old girls;
Any case pertaining to girls’ one-piece swimming suits.
But he may of course weigh in on any case about abortion, birth control, or the immunity of the President, or his family, from being responsible for any crimes or treason.
8
"America will never be the same again" in every respect, "EVERY"
10
By ignoring Trump's godawful damage to the image of America around the world, by letting pass Trump's obvious financial criminal behavior, and tossing off all his horrid treatment of people as his"crazy" moments, Kevin tells us all, in stark terms, that he is a coward who wants his conservative Supreme Court at any cost.
At any cost = immoral.
34
A great phrase: ...Trump's genius for hate and division....
Lies battle the truth and lead to hate. The man knows no truth because there's no truth in him. His being is filled with lies.
16
A tight catholic community. Jesuit prep schools where Jesuits mold a future of John Roberts, Neil Gorsuch and Bret Kavanaugh and at the college level a Clarence Thomas. Sorry! There's more of value to life than a superiority complex, cultural Catholicism, beer, Chamber of Commerce business ethics and Jesuit schooling. And, by the way Kevin, I saw a 16 year old's rant in a 50 year-old Judge Kavanaugh.
42
In essence, this piece reveals that Trump followers, even well educated ones, don’t care in the least that he’s a lying, crooked, nasty, misogynist, racist, nativist, and destroyer of our alliances and position in the world so long as right wing judges get appointed. These people don’t care about anything else and will explain away any of Trump’s fatal flaws.
Sorry, Maureen, but that’s the take away from your piece.
42
First it was Nixon as the worst leader of the U.S. next came Bush junior - less dishonest, yet lacking any intellect. Them comes trump - self serving, dishonest and willing to destroy those institutions that make the U.S. a trusted society.
When looking back at this, and recognizing so many people who were not too long ago members of maligned immigrant groups (Irish) supporting the destruction of our country due to racism & fear, I want to upchuck.
18
I wonder if Kevin reflects on your feelings and convictions and how painful his comments may affect you. To me it seems he does not.
24
Ms. Dowd writes about her brother, “When I pressed him about Trump’s pattern of egregious, lawless and value-free behavior, Kevin admitted that he often winces at the president’s “style” but simply waits for the “crazy” periods to pass and focuses on the things he likes.”
It seems to me that Ms. Dowd’s brother epitomizes the double standard by which many white conservative males, consciously or unconsciously, judge other white conservative males who have assaulted, and/or cheated, and/or lied, and/or misbehaved in a homophobic, and/or misogynistic, and/or racist, and/or xenophobic manner.
All that Kevin can muster is to “wince” at the president’s style? And apparently, the president’s substance—when it comes to lying, misogyny, racism, and xenophobia—is okay? But then, Ms. Dowd placates us by revealing that Kevin “does not, however, identify with Trump bashing the elites.” Wow, and they wonder what this “white male privilege” fuss is all about! You’re right, Ms. Dowd, we are never going to be able to “talk across our jangly, angry chasms.”
171
With what the likes of Trump and his complicit family and the GOP have done to America, and clearly to many American family's, is masterfully illuminated in a volume of essays by the
late Carol Bly titled "Changing the Bully Who Ruled the World."
Ms, Dowd, and your readers, I highly recommend it.
4
A beautiful column! My father, John Gunther, was one of the journalists who epitomized everything good about American journalism in the middle of the 20th century. I'm a lifelong liberal, dedicated to truth and fair process, which is why I got both a math Phd. and a Law Degree from the same school in Cambridge MA.
Yet I find myself bitterly (I must use that word) disappointed by the New York Times, a publication I and my family have supported our entire lives, because, as far as I can tell, it is unwilling to tolerate thoughtful dissenting views. Bret Stephens publishes the odd pretty right-wing column, but, most of the time, the few conservative editorials are caricatures, showing the paper gives some air time to far right crazies, but, of course, no serious, intelligent, educated moral person could take them seriously.
But there are serious, intelligent, educated, moral views that are, if nothing else, concerned with the practicalities of how Democrats win elections. Just for example, it is not vile racism to worry that Stacey Abrams was not the best candidate to run against Kemp, despite her obvious intelligence, poise, articulateness and clear arguments. Had I been Georgian I would proudly have voted for her and to her great credit she nearly won, but her opponent was monster, making her near-miss a little less remarkable. Sadly, her looks counted against her with voters outside her core constituency; seeking to maximize the chance of victory is no venal sin.
2
I found this article extremely depressing. Raised Catholic having to read about the patriarchal dictates and having to make excuses to not make them mad because of her own opinions and job. I wouldn't want to live in a family like that. I hope she sticks to her own opinions in articles, I could care less anymore what her brothers have to say, they have quite enough.
25
Didn't Trump try to pick a fight with the Pope? It takes a very special talent to remain oblivious to all the ways that Trump violates Christ's teachings. And your brother really can't be proud of the way Kavanaugh comported himself and spoke untruths at his confirmation hearing.
20
You are a wonderful, gifted writer, and you have enriched the lives of your readers by sharing your family emotional threads as you weave a story for your readers. My wife and I don't miss reading your column. Obviously. we share your narrative track of the government and the ebb and flow of politics. This column revealed your attachment to Michael and I must say that he was a great brother.
What I am bothered by is the question: how did your family become such strong conservatives? My wife and I became liberals because of John F. Kennedy and the strong position of our church in North Carolina to electing a Roman Catholic as President. We left the church and have never looked back. I just can't grasp how anyone would be loyal to a party that wants to politicize our blindfolded system of justice that promises equal treatment under the law and for the rule of law and the golden rule controls how we apply the law.
Anyhow, this column is a keeper.
12
Thanks for s thoughtful take on what we are all living through. And i’ M so grateful to the Times
2
Kevin appears to have no empathy and excuses Trump's most egregious qualities and policies do not impact him negatively.
I would ask Kevin how would he feel if he and his beloved family were the ones in Trump's crosshairs? After all, the Irish of the 19th and 20th century were the Mexicans of today.
23
Maureen, my first presidential ballot was for Barry Goldwater. I’ve always had fairly conservative leanings. My father was an outstanding Republican committee man. But TRUMP. Give me a break! Neither he nor your brother Kevin have an ounce of political conscience.
18
Such a shame that Trump’s genius for “hate and division” is affecting important relationships. And that’s the whole idea. Well, I would do a quick read of On Tyranny: 20 Lessons From the 20th Century, and then read Bloodlands, both by Timothy Snyder, a Central European historian. Read Hannah Arendt. Then read Victor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning. Good people sell out all the time and then eventually, and remarkably faster than you think, atrocity happens. Your brother has sold out, but you haven’t, not yet anyway. You write well, you still have the power to make a difference.
9
I hate Trump and all he stands for (my customary preface to conversations like this) but Kevin's ability to "compartmentalize" his personal assessment of Trump because of "all the 'good' he does" is exactly the same thing that most on the left, including an astonishing percentage of women) did for years with Bill Clinton, starting even before he became president. With Trump the stakes are quite a bit higher (being a slimeball not being contrary to Constitutional norms), but the same phenomenon. Maureen is trying to teach us (and learn herself) that two inconsistent thoughts can be held at the same time. Too bad our family ties as a nation are too frayed to make her example work for the rest of us.
I have to admit that I am conflicted about the idea that family trumps (no pun intended) politics. I think for the most part that should be true but there must be exceptions - think of the Civil War or the rise of the Nazis - to me breaking with family that supports slavery or genocide is right. I don't think Trump and the current GOP fall into those categories but to me the are doing great damage to this country and the world and people like Ms. Dowd's family enable them. If I were in Ms. Dowd's shoes I would not be able to discuss politics with these people if I wanted to maintain a civil relationship - the "we just focus on the parts we like" arguments would make me far too angry. It doesn't work like that - they own all of the GOP - if they have made the calculation that fetal heartbeats and tax cuts are more important than corruption, global warming, racism, the rule of law etc. so be it - but they are responsible for all of it.
13
"Think about... some of the later Kavanaugh accusers whose stories fell apart."
Really? Did those stories fall apart? Or is it that they were never rigorously investigated in the sham, interview-only-certain-people FBI investigation that the White House ordered? We'll never know. Until resoundingly disproven, I believe the other accusers as much as I believe Dr. Blasey Ford, which is completely.
16
For the last two years I’ve been a bitter man. Listening to CNN, MSNBC and FOX News. I would get so mad and then I realized... the heck with it. I now listen
Exclusively to the BBC on my radio- it’s made me a whole lot saner.
I did take one positive step - I give blood platelets 24 x per year. When I went in they had CNN on one wall TV and FOX on the other one. I went over and turned them both to kids tv. Blood bank asked what I was doing and I told them “it’s either this or my platelets- which do you want?” Turns out they wanted my platelets more!
7
I have to add a comment about Ms Dowd. She is absolutely the best writer in these times. The greatest critical thinker of our time. She understands the reality of our current system and the dangers the corruption portends for the future.
1
Abortion is such an easy one.
Birth control.
It will probably reduce abortions by 90%.
Evangelicals use birth control.
And just be looking at the number of children they have, all the Supreme Court Justices have used it.
Including the conservative Catholics, Thomas, Alito, Roberts, and Kavanaugh.
3
Ms. Dowd is torn between her family and her “duty”. So, the tie breaker, if you will, is what are you giving up by supporting the family. What Ms Dowd is giving up is her country. So the question is not family or duty but family or country. That’s the decision.
It would be sad if, many years from now, the family realizes its folly and blames Ms. Dowd for not being more forceful.
That’s when you feel the hurt. Not now.
4
If memory serves, I recall Maureen giving over a part of her column closest to Thanksgiving to her brother Kevin.
As an only child (now 66 years old) and even though I seldom agreed with Kevin, I got a tremendous kick "listening" to the Dowd siblings (who very obviously love each other) mix it up over some of the great issues of the day.
Arguing about politics, if done in a respectful, non aggressive sort of way can be (and should be) constructive, a valuable learning tool and hopefully fun.
Political polarization and stridency (on all sides) make columns like Maureen's all but inevitable.
Read it, learn from it and; may we all calm down.
Let's make America fun again.
Thank you Maureen. A Very Happy and Peaceful Holiday Season to all of the Dowd family. And to all.
9
Many of us obviously can relate to Maureen's family situation. Trump's election has made the pre-existing chasm over race and class in America more visible, which, in the long run, is probably a good thing. Because it has also awakened more Americans out of a dangerous sense of complacency around those same issues, which can only strengthen our resolve to find peaceful solutions to so many seemingly intractable problems competing for our attention. The record turnout in America's recent midterm elections is the product of that awakening. Shall it only be the beginning of a lasting trend during this critical period of mankind's and earth's history. There is no plan B, and there never was, for any of us. John Wayne was a myth.
9
Thank you for a heartfelt, painful, and honest look at how familial divisions rend our nation. I hope your family can heal.
11
Maureen: You can be grateful for the gift[s] of a brother like Michael without feeling the need for giving up your self as part of the deal. Though you pose Kevin as a similar case there is no evidence given of what he offers, other than being 'family.' He seems not to care much about your need -- or right -- to individual conviction. During the Civil War many families had divided loyalties in the border states, with brothers fighting against brothers on opposite sides. But the fact remains that one side was right and the other dead wrong. The same is true today. This is not a matter of civility but one of moral clarity versus moral blindness. Estrangement from family is a sad price to have to pay for the sake of conscience. Those who truly love you won't ask you to pay it. But even if they do, keeping faith with yourself is worth the cost.
32
Thank you, Ms. Dowd for reporting the American holiday experience so genuinely. Thank you for giving voice to what I knew but couldn't articulate. I feel stronger now, more able to
say, "You are my son/daughter/brother/friend. You will always be more important to me than any political party. Always."
8
A terrific heartfelt and heart rending article in these difficult times in the USA, almost all places in the world and my own neck of the woods.
In my country too, families and friends struggle to gloss or paint over our differences in world view. The paint here bubbles, its glistening patina a five day chimera before fault lines appear.
Yesterday, Oz time, a left social democrat government was re-elected in the State where I live. Electors here declared the alt-right types to be yapping into the dust of history.
Keep thinking and writing young Ms Dowd. In these peculiar times the world needs more lucid writers.
4
The attitude of people connected to this prep school consider it a great achievement to have two supreme court judges as graduates who ae likely to likely to close the door on the poor. But I assume that they dont think much about potato famines and themselvess being discriminated against. When they reckon their economic status I dont know if they understand that if America were not economically successful their economic success would have been comprimised.
19
Thank you so much for your bravery. This is a beautiful essay. We are at the end of an era. You are representing the beginning of the next era. In the meantime the patriarchy will protect itself with all its might. Of course it will. But we can push it away with a firm and loving stance. I suspect that the Trump voters in your family are secretly VERY proud of you. "Keep a goin'" !!!
7
I believe Oligarchy has supplanted our democracy. I voted Trump but a full Democratic ticket in 2016. The media’s obsession with him has forced Americans to confront the political & economic disasters of the past 60 years. So many institutions are abject failures. These institutions spawned Trump, Bret Kavanaughand Bill Clinton. If this is the archetype of American leadship then we are doomed regardless of political beliefs. If politics dominates your life then your in a sad condition.
1
You have to stop this 'white' thing for a little while. Kavanaugh was not a product of 'white privilege'. He was a product of male privilege and religious dominance.
I'm having the same basic fight with my in-laws right now, but it has nothing to do with being white. It is all about the male, authoritarian model of society.
Maybe I'm a minority or a stranger in this world, but I actually love my wife, and I love her enough to stick up for her against her brother and her father. It's really hard to do this especially if they try to use religion in the argument.
I can't get this across in a comment alone, it would require a column or a pamphlet or something bigger.
We're in an argument, which was begun by an assumption of family loyalty on my part, but spun out of control due to sibling rivalry based upon gender and the subservience of the wife.
It's really terrible that 2 out of 3 women in my wife's family never felt like their opinion mattered: The mother and the first daughter. It's an absolute tragedy.
How does this end? With a fistfight between me and her dad? I doubt it; with my wife's brother being honest with his father? I doubt it; with my dominance over my father-in-law? I doubt it.
It can probably only end one way, and that is with my unending support for my wife's views, a lot of praying, and perhaps an eventual understanding between me and him.
I rallied against Kavanaugh because it resonated with my experience. Perhaps only shame can prove wise.
25
Thank you Ms. Dowd for your poignant but well experienced phenomenon in many American families. Many of us who view Trump as a despotic leader and who denigrates and stomps on democratic principles every day, are flummoxed by some of friends and families who are willing to heed his cause. It is not just politics as usual and disagreements about policy, but the chasm created is rooted in basic morality, the adherence to facts and the rule of law. We wonder, how is it that Trump supporters can dispose of their own principles en masse to support this man? I do not have a cogent answer however I do think that their adherence to this amoral President is rooted in basic fear, sadly.
13
Do not be afraid of the future. To find an example of “how it’s done” - with regard to breaking thru an intense chasm - you need only look to a couple of WA state college football team marching bands.
Thursday evening, on the way to the Apple Cup game in Pullman, WA, a bus containing part of the UW Husky marching band flipped on its side on a freezing road. Many were injured, though not seriously, and the marching band called off its attendance to the game.
What did the WA State Cougars’ marching band do? Did they have schadenfreude for their rivals experiencing a bad setback? Did they mock and gloat that they would be the only band playing?
No. What they did was learn the UW fight song and play it at the game. That’s right, they honored their rivals and stood in for them during their absence.
This is what America needs from its political establishment, and the People will eat it up. No schadenfreude, no mocking, no shaming. Live in the shoes of your rival and honor their participation in the process that is the United States political establishment.
If two college bands can do it, surely our leaders can do it.
28
Oh, Maureen, it is lovely to read that you had a good birthday trip with your brother during this increasingly distressing time. Mine, too, is a family of opposite political views, but, thankfully, none of us has a job that requires voicing our opinions so publicly as yours does. Regardless, we can no longer talk anything related to our current president. This is a heartbreaking loss in our family dynamic as we used to be able to have civil if energetic debates without fear of alienating each other - we even enjoyed them. The thing this president has done is turned it so toxic that even family, not to mention friends, can not include their opinions in discussions without fear of estrangement. I am sending good karma that you and your brother remain above this.
13
Now that I'm 70 I find that I value family more than trying to convince my family (what's left of it) that I have the answers to all the complicated problems of the world. Looking back, these Thanksgiving political arguments did nothing more than drive a wedge between us. So much so that I have a brother who wants nothing to do with me, a mother who passed away resenting me and my politics, and a wife who passed away trying to make peace between us. For what? I don't know. I just know that life is too short to put politics over family and friends.
18
Maureen Dowd, you are a talented writer and a sensitive sister to your brothers. My family also lives by : "Your family is your support, if ever you need it. We do not give up our family, ever." Thanks for your heartfelt columns.
6
Did he tell you about Dashiell Hammett's Montana? Where he worked as a Pinkerton operative who murdered labor leaders opposed to the corrupt Anaconda Copper company that ran the Montana state gov't.
9
Why is it that Irish Catholic families tend to fall into two categories: those who love social justice and the diversity of the world, and those who embrace a punitive, authoritarian model for the organization of societies? The Dowds seem to harbor both of these. My own Irish Catholic family is to a person open, liberal, and anti-Trump. But with the exception of those in their eighth decade of life, all have abandoned the church. What tale does this tell?
38
This is my Irish Catholic family—to a person, liberal—siblings, grandchildren, great grandchildren. Raised under the influence of Dorothy day,who visited our home in Tucson annually for over a decade, we ten kids grew up with a world view that saw social justice and public service as the holy grail. But it still astounds me that anyone of any kind of discernment can support this toxic presidency. Because he appoints conservative judges? And at what a cost to our country!
23
@Tim Pat
I come from the Irish who love social justice and the diversity of the world and long ago abandoned the RC Church. But I recognize that 500 years of colonization by the British government and 1500 years of colonization by the Roman Catholic Church messed with the Irish collective mind.
I'm sure Kevin would recognize the damage done by the British but he probably hasn't ever wondered how much damage was done by the Church. All those years the Irish sought shelter with the Church to protect themselves from the British overlords.
4
While this is a beautifully written, moving and painfully personal column, it supports the misdirection of the Kavanaugh debate to Ford and alcohol, which serves Trump’s purpose perfectly. Kevin and his fellow rationalizers should be reminded that the reality as to why Mr. Kavanaugh was selected has nothing to do with his qualifications, his history or his potential ability to reverse of Roe v Wade. He was selected as part of Trump’s overall strategy to ensure he doesn’t get prosecuted for the crimes he knows he has committed. It is Kavanaugh’s public statements that put the president above the law that got him nominated and so he is not there to uphold the laws, but to uphold the Donald. That is the reality of the nomination. Whether Kavanaugh is qualified or will be a good judge is irrelevant when looked at in the light of what he will do to support the fascist leader of our country.
44
The Gospel of Mark, Chapter 3, verses 24 and 25: "And if a kingdom be divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand.
And if a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand."
When Trump is questioned he bypasses substance entirely and goes directly to divisiveness. He doesn't let the questioner (even a Fox News questioner) finish the question, he's so eager to pronounce someone "a Hillary Clinton backer" or an "Obama judge" or "sort of a Democrat". He cares not what he's saying about the person is a lie. He is a one-trick pony: he sows division.
He divides our country and divides our households. He cares not about our country or our households. He is more than happy to cut us in half. 1 Kings 3:23-28 is instructive.
31
Kevin generation , hopefully, are on their way out. That relevant he is
He may not be an elitist but certainly has the same lack of empathy and arrogance
16
@JRV I wish it was on the way out but the article says that Kevin's children also voted Trump. Ugh.
3
Fear. I hate fear. What are people like Kevin fearful of? He wants a conservative Supreme Court. What's behind that? Fear of losing the male-dominated, white, Christian society that was 50's America? Or is it the issue of abortion and women's reproductive rights? Otherwise "nice" people can twist themselves into pretzels trying to justify their support of Trump. Meanwhile, the country and the world wait to see what outrageous and dangerous acts the Donald will impose on us all. So sad.
26
@Taranto. Kevin’s like many in he Home of he Brave. His colors never run, except when they see various shades of brown.
4
Struck by the amount of vitriol directed toward Trump supporters in many of these comments. The hypocrisy of the noble and tolerant is just staggering.
8
@Didi get over it. It’s not going away.
3
I have a brother who voted for Trump. He didn't get enough oxygen at birth. I understand how he could have been duped by #45. I forgive him.
However Kevin presumably was taught to think critically and is capable of such thought. What's his excuse?
21
I suppose one could say that one loves cancer because it focuses the mind.
7
Wow! Talking about honesty here...as we should. Maureen, I do admire your standing with the truth, when based on the facts, and reality as is. Your brother Kevin, sending his kids to 'elite schools' did what he thought was best for their education...and to avoid the awful situation of having a poorly educated brutus ignoramus 'a la Trump' doing what he does best, sow fear, hate and division...when in power....to abuse it. Now, just because our love of family comes first, does not mean we have to give up our principles...nor speak up truth to power, especially for those unable to, while suffering the consequences of a runaway unscrupulous and malevolent destructor of this democracy. I trust that Kevin may agree that, even if influencing his family in 'conservative values', his main purpose as a father ought to be teaching children to 'think for themselves', however different their thoughts from his own. This would not only prevent them from falling in the paws of a demagogue, but as an exercise in prudence: doing what is right, however difficult and/or hazardous.
6
I appreciate Maureen Dowd a little more, knowing that she came from a family that is both patriarchal, not nearly as bright as she is, and condescending to her all the same. But I want to see her break away from these thick-headed people even more—quite honestly the way all Americans need to break away from Americans who are myopic and entitled and keeping us from making sensible laws to combat life and death issues like gun control and global warming.
303
As a Jesuit school, Georgetown Prep seems to have miserably failed its students...and thus now, our country.
27
Wow - that was really well done.
Even though I usually agree with about 75% of what you say substance-wise, the snark gets real old, real fast.
Not this. Nice job connecting the personal and the professional and continued good luck threading this needle with your family.
10
Your brothers are and were I'm sure fine men. And over history plenty of fine men and women have followed their constricted tribal views of life to support that which is venal, violent, and virulent. Perhaps the next time Kevin is at Mass, he will seriously ponder this when asked to call to mind our sins.
7
If patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel is family feeling the last refuge of the fascist?
17
I guess your family will be a lot like the Germans after WWII who kept saying to prosecutors, "How could we have known", How could we have known? Finally, prosecutors said, How could you not have known? I have always been able to put aside my personal political beliefs and support my president no matter the president. But Mr. Trump is a supreme liar who is destroying your country and not matter what you write in your column, you and your conservative family are a big part of the problem - intelligent people who have a voice and have decided to forgo all intelligence for ignorance -- "how could we know Trump was so bad, how could we know"? Well, my question to you is: How could you all not know? Shameful!
30
This is a well written piece about past loss and the threat of future loss, but where is Kevin’s remorse? If not now. When? To me, the difference between Hitler and his collaborators and apologists, and Trump’s, has nothing to do with the men, but with the social world in which Trump operates. Our current world is more diverse and has stronger institutions to counter the dictator want-to-be and his largely white male supporters. I am not saying it will be easy to prevail, nor do I wish to minimize the damage, physical, monetary and familial, but I think that even Kevin will come to realize that he has opted for a losing side of history. Not sure if I am correct? Take a look at the recent election results. That is only one sign of many.
7
I haven't read all the comments, so this may already have been mentioned, but Kevin Dowd's quote is dead on: “You’ve got news reporters becoming opinion writers, and that’s not what they’re supposed to be doing and that’s not a fair press.”
If someone had said decades ago that the above would become standard practice, I would have replied "That'll be the day."
5
Ken,
Regarding your inference that we no longer have a fair press, I do not need online print, cable news, political pundits, editorials, etc. to influence my observations about Mr. Trump. I need only to listen to him, view his actions and read his tweets to know that he is an amoral man, a pathological liar and a president who does not honor the rule of law.
8
@Ken
What you are describing is Fox News.
Sean Hannity has even admitted his show is not really news but commentary.
7
I consider your brother and his family as hate-filled as Donald Trump. I saw this in my own mother, who, as a Catholic, viewed herself to be morally superior to all others.
14
We have this division in our family. Complete breaks on ties. One hears about the need for family to meet in middle ground.
But the Trumpsters in my family are not forgotten white men. They are all doing ok. What they are, is racists who want their automatic weapons. Try as I might, I just don’t see a middle ground. Am I to become part racist? Or part uzi owner? I can’t see how to mend the fence.
18
When Justice Kavanaugh was asked by a US Senator if the character in the by his friend, Mark Judge, named Bart O’Kavanaugh, was based on himself, Bret Kavanaugh, the Justice yelled back, “Ash him! “
Well, did the FBI ask Mark Judge that question?
16
Kevin and Michael seem human enough.
But can they recognize that immigrants - described as disease-carrying, illegal criminals by the Party they support - are human also? That they too are doting fathers, recalcitrant sisters, errant sons?
11
.....and "Thanks. But No Thanks....or in every day language: Thanksgrieving ?!
6
All I see in this column is Maureen putting family first and Kevin putting Party first and neither putting our great Nation first. At some point we have to decide what kind of country we want a Democracy or an Autocracy/Cult. You can’t keeping giving family a pass in the face of racism, nazism, homophobia, anti-Semitism, etc.. One has to call it out or it festers into something really sinister. Standup for your beliefs Maureen. Your brother is. Don’t be that typical female just making nice to avoid a conflict.
20
Speaking of movies, can we once and for all dispense with the fiction that the Republican Party and people who support Trump are "conservative" and/or "Christian." Give us a break...thankfully the majority of Americans aren't that gullible and stupid.
11
Funny, ms.dowd, how you relentlessly excoriate Obama and Hillary Clinton, but give your brother a pass in the name of family togetherness.
24
Thanks
This is a Fox News interview from 2012 where Trump admires Hillary.
Seriously.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5A02pNcGHs
Maureen, show this to your brothers.
4
I loved this op ed! You write fabulous pieces for the NYT - it is my hope that someday the NYT will evolve into a news source that is worthy of many of its writers. While reading and enjoying this column again, I noticed your brother’s jacket! Looks like you both enjoyed this trip (I suspect you both learned things, too) I hope you all had a Happy Thanksgiving - hopefully together.
3
Selfish and greedy Kevins and Ivankas will eventuallly kill us if we let them. I don't want the dumbest and most devoid of character people to further poison our world. Do you?
13
Maureen, I have siblings like your brother, Kevin . . . they are shameful morons whom I avoid at all costs . . . you may wish to think about doing the same.
14
Maureen:
To even tolerate your family fascists is simply to enable them. They are ill and they need help. That's about the best I can say about them as should you.
9
@OmahaProfessor - Family members are entitled to their own opinions and whilst we can argue with our family members, politics is never more important than family.
1
This piece is written in good thoughts and candor while stating ‘what unites us, Americans’ in a narrative form. ‘We, Americans’, all know families, their memories, old and classic films, American landscapes, experiences shared, growing up together, separations, and reunion, or expectations of reunion for reconciliations. What fundamentally can connect readers to NYT columnists on a personal level is a column like this, I think. If I’m not wrong, the columnist has been for a longtime in NYT and an ardent supporter of Mr. Obama, and a dedicated feminist. The Kevanaugh incident and “MeToo” are also mentioned in this piece, as if, I sensed as such, a self-advocacy of the columnist for herself. This is my criticism. If I were a crude person, I would have said that her message seems to be “I’m an American like you. We are all Americans. If you can sob for my column, you’re American”. My comment started crumbling down here (sorry, but to whom?), but the point I want to make is that the columnist is taking a risk of unintentionally excluding immigrants, by emphasizing the Americanness. That may be an anti-Democrats approach. Additionally, the pain and loss of beloved ones, if written in a publication, would expose something unintentionally unfavorable to the writer, depending on how to be said in the intended context.
1
So sick of reading about Kevin Dowd. Supports a racist lying President and we are supposed to care? Really?
29
Honestly Maureen, your brother Kevin is a jerk. I'm trying to be kind.
26
My situation is not entirely like yours: I don't have a family to speak of and even when I did (most of them have passed on) we didn't discuss politics very often--although when we did I had the feeling that most of the members of my family would have been at least in the same book if not necessarily on the same page.
But I do have friends and professional colleagues on both sides of the aisle (as the saying has it) and I do have to be rather circumspect with what I say publicly. Not only that: two years ago there was a problem concerning my legal versus my actual address and because of that, I wasn't able to vote...while a lot of people made the distinction between *not being able* to vote and *choosing not to* vote (face it, we had the two worst choices in American political history, and you really couldn't blame some people for saying "a plague on BOTH your houses"), others said "well, you *could* have fixed the problem in time but you *didn't*" and because I didn't vote, I'd ceded my right to comment about Trump, no matter what he did or didn't do.
I've been biting my tongue so much it's a miracle it's still attached. So I can feel for what you're going through.
Oh, you may ask, then why am I writing here, as I have done with other nytimes.com articles/essays on this subject? I'm only known here by my initials and home town...and as to those friends and colleagues, I get a feeling most of them don't visit this site or read all the columns...
Ms Dowd I was moved by your column. It seems that since Trump we are constantly being riled up and set against each other. There is a ongoing sense of endless siege with his daily barrage of lies and his inability to be presidential. The midterms showed that many people are against him and want to move past his harmful ways. But I fear that that he will get worse as his power is challenged. There is worse to come.
4
The onetime prominence of John Wayne in American culture was due to eventual skills as an actor gradually honed through a large volume of work, notable star power burnished by longevity, and resonant roles in perceptive pictures informed and guided by directors John Ford, Howard Hawks, Raoul Walsh, Allan Dwan, Henry Hathaway, John Farrow, William Wellman, Michael Curtiz, Don Siegel, and John Sturges.
Wayne's embrace by political conservatives had more to do with his pronounced public positions in support of McCarthyism and the war in Vietnam. The nuanced complexity of history and society found in his best films escaped many conservatives. There is a disconnect between the "John Wayne - American" totem worshipped by the right and the flawed protagonist he so often portrayed. Look no further than two of the last pictures Wayne made with Ford, "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" and "Donovan's Reef."
"Liberty Valance" recapitulates the emergence of democracy in America, taking poetically pointed note of the nation's significant shortcomings relating to African-Americans. And the true measure of the characters played by Wayne and James Stewart is made by the woman who loved them both, played by Vera Miles, despite suffering essential neglect within the critical blind spots of each. "Donovan's Reef" posits a nation with no more frontiers, where multiculturalism reigns and racial prejudice is confronted head-on, where violence is ritualized as sport and intelligent women rule.
3
@Peter Myette wasn't a fan of Wayne's. Only when he did True Grit did I enjoy his acting. By then of course he was sick and had mellowed out a bit.
1
I am impressed, Ms Dowd, with your ability to place family above politics. As others have commented, I think your love for your brothers softens your usually erudite, insightful and rightfully scathing opinions regarding our present administration.
I experience a similar state of affairs in my own family. For example one family member has passionate beliefs based on her narrow religious world view. She too winces at Trump's crudeness but is willing to set this all aside because he is stocking the Supreme Court with justices she believes will eradicate homosexuality, abortion and allow her community to publicly espouse a narrow, right leaning Christian view without pesky inclusion laws. She lives within a bubble of alternative facts and is not interested in education.
I am not as generous as you are. I find her willful ignorance unbearable and I suspect it will affect our relationship for a long time to come. Sad.
11
Can’t you ignore your relative’s political views and concentrate on her good qualities
Reading many of the comments here, other thoughts come from this brilliant article where the central point was the relationships with discordant members in the family. While this isn't uncommon with politics it may become truly excruciating when related to the election of someone like Trump. Yes, it's difficult to understand why someone educated and principled as Michael and Kevin can oversight Trump's (and Kavanaugh) fallacy. I was myself raised and educated in a Catholic high class family with the Jesuits in Chile, and yes they were the 'elite' educators and yes, the majority of my classmates followed the tradition of their families and in politics later defended their interests primarily preserving their privileges. They even supported someone like Pinochet without second thoughts. Others however like myself, and I identify here with Ms Dowd, chose a different pathway, in my case to follow the teaching by the Jesuits with big emphasis in social justice at that time. Of course we collided with our families. It was comprehensible, and even I had to leave my country after 'savouring' Pinochet prisons. However, years (many) later, reason could prevail and the horror lived by too many was recognized. My conclusion is that with Maureen brothers, Michael went too early, perhaps it could take years after Trump's foolishness is recognized and reason and love can prevail. Education is in my experience the signature.
3
Irish roots and all sounds familiar, lively dinner tables and all that start at an early age. It is nice for Kevin to have a nice sister who takes polite notice of his nice little awakening to what/who he voted for in 2016.
Irish tears I have known are real. But when (normal looking guy) Kevin mentioned "elites" it struck home because he was talking about education.
Trump gets his voters at rallies to boo education itself. Somehow, a public high school science teacher with a Master's Degree is elite, but billionaires both here and abroad with incredible control of public opinion and financing are not?
"Financial Elites" is a term that cannot be overused.
9
Dear Ms. Dowd,
Thank you for this lovely and heartbreaking column. May it heal but also, may healing never dissuade you from telling the truth.
10
I was intrigued by Kevin's comment, "You should realize that family always is more important. I always used to teach my kids growing up, when they’d have fights, I said, ‘Just remember, when you really need somebody, the only one that’s going to be compelled to run toward you is your family, not your friends.’”
This to me more than anything typifies the Republicans I know and have loved. It represents a mindset that closes ranks, that values bloodline over community and personal advancement over the public good. It typically scorns "liberals" because it views that mindset as spending "their" money on the "undeserving" instead of taking the view that when the community at large is educated and healthy and employed, we are all better for it.
It's the key to the division, from which everything else springs forth.
20
By undeserving you mean minority or poor. Conservatives insure education is affordable only for the wealthy. I have many student with 200k in loans. Two of my children have gone to Germany where education is actually valued.
You are 180 degrees off in your thinking. Conservatives want to enslave the majority to insure an ample supply of weak minded ignorant people to exploit. Wake up.
10
Yes. It's the mindset of a tribal minority that feels itself under attack, and it is the mindset that emerges when people feel uncertain about their own relative status (no matter their actual absolute level of security). From reading Dowd over the tears, it seems that Irish Catholic culture still bears the scars of centuries of poverty and English oppression. You'd think that it might create some empathy for others (say, the descendants people kidnapped into slavery) -- but, unfortunately, that's not how anxious people behave. This is partially relevant as Trump is a master of creating and taking advantage of other's anxiety. That Dowd's brother gives the bully an easy pass tells you more than you might want to know about him and from where he comes. I've no doubt that Dowd is genuinely sad about this. She, as we all, should be.
7
The essence of this piece is the painful damage to important relationships caused by our President,through his divisive offensive, rhetoric. However, a family that would "mock" one of its members for opposing an unnecessary war suggests it is one that does not allow its members to be or think differently, nor respect their profession.
Though you differed with Kevin, it was Kevin who might have cancelled the trip,not you. Sad ,but it was and is not your fault.
8
Well, if the Pulitzer Prize people are paying attention, here's their 2018 winner for distinguished commentary writing. This piece is exceptional, Ms. Dowd. Thank you.
9
People of all political views treasure family, hard work, and core values. This unites us. The politics of division cannot be "ignored" or simply compartmentalized. We are in the hands of a Jim Jones type leader, and Kevin needs to face that.
Can it happen here? You bet. Keep on writing the truth.
12
Maureen, I know you didn't have much time for Australia when you visited us recently. But we are small, remote and of little or no consequence in the world at large so it probably doesn't matter what leading journalists in NYC think of us. What does matter is this beautifully written piece. You are a first rate journalist in a field that could do with more first raters. Even though you don't like us in Australia, we like your writing. Keep it going!
4
This time, let us bind up the nation's wounds before the civil war.
6
While I agree with commenters saying the people and facts of our daily lives are far more important than my occasionally simmering anger at Current Leader, I read NYT’s columnists for their convictions, not their conflictedness. Has Ms Dowd’s pillorying of Obama, lambasting of Hillary and flirtation with Trump been an effort to capture the spirit of iolder brother? Incidentally, it seems you were right about W, (Iraq, the Economy, Katrina etc)and he was wrong. Likewise there’s an awful lot of evidence that Kevin with his Jesuit training must see that he was wrong about Trump. Hillary’s vision included supporting our allies, maintains alliances, keeping authoritarians at arms length at least and a sane economic plan. The current economy is more leveraged than those now shuttered Atlantic City Casinos. And as far as the excellence of the Supreme Court justices, it seems to me Merrick Garland record of jurisprudence, like Hillary’s vision of America, is far more substantial and centered in American thought.
12
Michael sounded like a great guy.
2
Maureen Dowd has written a moving ode to The Clan. Her pain at deviating even a little bit from the code of her Conservative, White, Catholic brothers was evident. The beauty of the 'Monuments' and the memories of 'Vampires' could not obscure the divide between a critically harsh, nun-like Maureen and her even more clannish brothers. Many commenting here see Maureen as prime example of the clan, and, yet, in a very personal way, she showed how even the slightest deviation from clan loyalty can be wrenching. It's a sign of the times.
6
Ms. Dowd,
I am from a big Irish Catholic family, too. Thank God not one of us voted for Trump!
I wish I could feel sympathy for your brother, who doesn't seem to understand the pandora's box of hate that Herr Trump unleashed with his presidency. Nor does your brother understand what it's like to be hated each and everyday because of the color his skin or his sexual identity. Your brother, Catholic and educated, needs to examine why he chose to vote for a president who tweets hatred, intolerance and lies each and everyday. Your brother sees what he wants to see, and unfortunately, his point of view is the same as all the other sellout republicans, who voted for Trump (and Kavanaugh). Crying over Kavanaugh's appointment? Kevin should save his tears for the end of Democracy and the rule of law!
Sorry, no sympathy here.
27
Excellent opinion piece about the dilemma facing many of us who have close friends and relatives who think Trump is the savior of American values.
Maureen's brother shows his blind allegiance to the supreme leader of the right wing extremists , and Kevin obviously believes that overturning Roe v. Wade, abolishing Obamacare and removing protections for gay marriage are the most important factors in picking a Supreme Court Justice.
Does Kevin really know and support Kavanaugh's view that all gun control measures are unconstitutional and that public safety is not a justification for prohibiting the sale of any weapons?
Does he think a biased political hack should be a SCOTUS justice? Namely a nominee who wanted one set of rules for Bill Clinton and another set of rules for George W as to investigation, lying and impeachment . Did he even care if Kavanaugh boasted about his sexual escapades and drinking in his yearbook? and Did Kevin care that Kavanaugh repeatedly lied under oath during his hearing?
At one point do those of us who are appalled by the destruction of established presidential norms by Trump tell our relatives and friends that we cannot tolerate their blind obedience to a President who appears to be a closet fascist and tyrant?
Is a joint rip out west truly more important?
15
Mr. Trump is not worth alienating loved ones over. History will judge him harshly. His ignorant, mean spirited, criminal, ping pong like, behavior leaves something for everyone to loathe. The question is not than he is the “worst” president, it is that he may be the “last” president.
4
That was a craven column. How arbitrary her interviews and how uncomfortable it must be to be her brothers, subjected to her bias.
Maybe the takeaway: Don't use your family. We, be it the left, right, center, - we can all do that. Characterize family.
That's too easy.
1
Time will heal, Maureen. There will be a price to pay for Trump. When Mueller comes out with his report....or when the bottom falls out of the country...... Kevin will have to face the facts. On that day, he will say that you were right. Delusion and lies have a short shelf life.
4
In naming Trump’s “genius for hate and division,” Dowd reminds me of a passage I often quote from Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, when Albus Dumbledore says, “We are only as strong as we are united, as weak as we are divided. Lord Voldemort's gift for spreading discord and enmity is very great. We can fight it only by showing an equally strong bond of friendship and trust. Differences of habit and language are nothing at all if our aims are identical and our hearts are open." Dowd’s complex relationship with her Trump-supporting family members, and others like it, are threads in the fabric needed to hold our country together through these dark days. Our differences are deeper than habit or language, and many of our aims are not identical, but the heroic task of keeping our hearts open remains.
3
To me, the column stands for the proposition that a single man has intentionally and gleefully strove to turn people against each other, including family members, because of his innate need to be loved by some even if it means being despised by others.
4
There's a workshop that brings together people on opposite sides of the political spectrum and helps them create bridges of understanding. I can't recall the name of it but think another NY Times columnists wrote about this. The organization is offering the workshops in cities across the U.S. Would love for Ms. Dowd and her brother to sign up. It sure would be an interesting and unique adventure!!
Great wisdom, strength and empathy in ~800 words. This is what makes America great now, yesterday and in the tomorrows to come.
The dialogue of your family and the verbal back and forth, maybe some heated words but mostly civil exchanges, in all the other homes of your neighbourhood, that's what is important this weekend, sitting at the table, together, talking not browbeating.
Your column will make a difference. Justice John Roberts speaking up clearly and pointedly, neither strident nor repetitive, made a difference earlier this week. Demonstrating civility and understanding (along with some humour) while expressing opinion goes a very long way on a few levels, in a few directions. Having confidence in yourself, your family, your neighbours, your country, that's where the strength comes to be direct, yet embracing. Be this and do this, you get heard. As you did with this column.
.
4
Ms Dowd gets to the real heart of the intra-family conflicts centered around political and social issue differences expressed within families. I think the beauty of this editorial is Ms. Dowd's effort to find an honest and embracing vocabulary that helps bridge the differences that separate her from valued members of her family that hold opposite views and beliefs. I lament the way our current president has thrown a dagger onto the table of family gatherings and relationships.
As Ms Dowd's words guide us, we can rise above the partisan rancor, cheap taunts and inflammatory actions of this administration if we take a walk with our family and honestly try to share and understand our different perspectives. While we may never agree, we, at least, have a clearer understanding of each other and that is more important than winning the curentpolitial argument. Time matters. Issues morph. Key players are replaced. What is irreplaceable is family.
7
This is a beautiful, personal column. Thank you Ms. Dowd. Millions of families are like yours split between liberal and conservative and within each person a range of opinions and beliefs but the media profits on our divisions and exploits our worst sides and as a result the gaps get worse. I applaud you for continually trying to stay connected and listen to the other side.
5
Family should have a rule that political opinion short of murder should never be held account. The furies we have today will be gone by 2025. The hard part is to grasp that our society is changing and Mr. Trump fuels much of it. His antics cause us to think and to make decisions that Mr. Trump will never consider or act upon. The United States is now an urban civilization and the rules are different. The America of the old west John Wayne glorified does not work for us and it never will.
Ms. Dowd has changed in the last few years as she understands better what is happening. In Due time Bret Kavanaugh will reveal himself and the country will deal with it accordingly.
6
Somewhat off topic, but worth noting. The world of Wayne was the synthetic creation of the commercial needs if the movie industry. We can thank that medium for much of what we are dealing with now. DW Griffith begat not just the new Klan of the 1920s. The gun culture. Reagan. Trump. All consequences of the easy access that the repetition of loud noises and moving pictures have to our minds.
Ms. Dowd,
I am heartsick. Your column brought me instantly back to Yugoslavia in the early nineties, when the men determined to grab the power and money inserted a knife into every family, every friendship.
Choose, they said. Serb or Croat, Croat or Bosniak. I found my colleagues weeping in the office, forced to choose a side between their own mothers and fathers.
Your brothers know not what they do. Milosevic and Tudjman succeeded...200,000 dies, millions displaced, a beautiful and peaceful country ruined for decades. For nothing except lining the pockets of a few corrupt people.
We’re in deep trouble, and we must persist in moving forward no matter how uncomfortable.
I insist on loving every member of my family, and caring about all of my neighbors and fellow Americans. I simply will not allow would-be dictators to turn me against them. I accept that I may experience a few hurt feelings when I share my honest opinion about the power and money grabbing. So be it.
40
“You’ve got news reporters becoming opinion writers, and that’s not what they’re supposed to be doing and that’s not a fair press.”
Is Kevin wrong here?
Even lifelong Democrats have to acknowledge the manner in which major news outlets conflate illegal immigration with legal immigration, doing their best to erase any distinction between the two.
8
@Middleman MD
I must be watching different news outlets than you.
What I like is when Republicans say Democrats want open borders.
I have yet to talk with any Democrat who wants open borders.
On the other hand, an easy way to greatly reduce illegal immigration is for people to stop hiring them.
They are hired a lot in construction, farming, and slaughter houses.
And most of the people doing the hiring vote Republican.
Maybe lock up some of the people hiring and things would change?
11
Whatever your opinion about immigration, the liberal press rarely seems willing to distinguish between immigration that conforms to current law, and that which violates it. That law may be screwed up and need changes (I certainly think that), but it does no good to pretend that it isn't the law with euphemisms like 'undocumeted' as if what's at issue is merely a bunch of 'papers' (after all, we all hate paper-pushing bureaucracy).
No matter how much one would like it not to be the case, all of the poor and downtrodden of the world cannot come to the US without destroying what attracts the demand. An honest and relatively optimized immigration policy will become possible only when we stop talking in euphemisms about 'undocumeted' and 'guest workers' and cease pretended that corporate subsidization doesn't drive a lot if this.
3
“A lot of the stuff he says is taken out of context,” Kevin said. “You’ve got news reporters becoming opinion writers, and that’s not what they’re supposed to be doing and that’s not a fair press.”
I hope, Maureen, that you defended the MSM to your brother.
The reporters who report politically are not only your colleagues, they are friends as well, and if your family really had your back, they would not tolerate Trump's outrageous lies about the MSM and if they had respect for your work or for journalism, they should at least want to read good journalism.
If they choose to get their news from publications that routinely bash yours, I would call that putting politics over family. I hope you don't take this lying down.
20
"You should realize that family always is more important... ‘Just remember, when you really need somebody, the only one that’s going to be compelled to run toward you is your family, not your friends.’”
What does Kevin think about the people whose family chooses not to run towards them, perhaps because they refuse to accept their sexual orientation? What about the people who are running away from their families, because of abuse? What about the families that are in no position to help, because none of them are well off, or well connected, or because the families are dysfunctional? What advice would Kevin give to the children in the public schools, living in neighborhoods with gun violence where parents can't necessarily protect their children from getting hurt?
What are Kevin's solutions for people who have no family? For foster children? For sick people who can't afford insurance?
True, they're not part of his elite tribe, or his blood relatives. But don't we owe them something, as a society?
28
Thank you for including all the rest of the real world. So often it seems that “conservatives” cannot conceive of people in different circumstances than their own having any reality or validity whatsoever.
12
@Karen Green,
Conservatives argue that that it what charity is for. But what they don't get is that charity is inadequate, which is why despite our supposedly being extremely charitable, we have very high rates of child poverty, income inequality, rate of incarceration and uninsured. So called charity (which includes contributions to one's own places of worship and private schools) can't come close to gov't funded programs.
This plus the fact that at least 70% of Americans have inadequate funds saved for retirement, let alone unanticipated catastrophes or job loss, and the high levels of charity look like irresponsibility.
For these people, remaining uninformed - about other people's problems - is a source of strength and comfort. What you don't know can't challenge you.
3
How hard it is to see loved ones succumb to a cult mentality, because that is what it is. The Trump cult requires abandonment of fact, morality, science, democracy and fairness, and no amount of appeal to rational argument can penetrate the allegiance to Dear Leader, fostered and perpetuated by FOX and the rest of the right wing media. One can only watch in horror as friends and family become unrecognizable or unreachable.
22
After reading Maureen’s column, I think it proper to remind readers that the United States was created as a secular Nation, guided by our Constitution, but our founders would have never described it as “under God”, except perhaps under Nature’s God.
10
I would reduce exposure to any family members who "waits for the crazy period to pass." He's POTUS, we do not want crazy. Ever. Not one second. That's failing America, no other explanation possible.
Nothing about Donald Trump is respectful. Why would I want to tip toe around anyone who excuses his behavior? To get justices? A Faustian bargain at best.
To be fair, I thought giving Bill Clinton a pass was also wrong. I also think it's most of why Hillary is so unpalatable, joined at the hip as she remains. That was our Faustian bargain.
18
I have read the views of some well-informed people below, but I don't think Maureen is listening nor am I expecting her to open her eyes, ears and mind. Looking the other way seems to be in her nature and, perhaps, her genes.
3
There is another story in today's Times, of an all-boys school, St. Michaels in Toronto where the alumni return to teach and is a super tight-knit community where the youngsters on the sports teams were sexually hazing each other and sending the videos around.
No one could believe it- just like the Kavanaugh school where they all stuck together and gave him a standing O a few weeks ago. Except this time there were videos. Lots of them.
I'm sure lots of families are making people choose which reality to go with.
19
People like Kevin Dowd...(normal person supporting Trump), do not realize they themselves have a bigotry streak. They would prefer gays and transgender people be shunned and made to feel defective. They would want immigrants to be exploited, just like the land. You can bet they would be tolerant of slavery. Their conservative views are a euphemism for racism and arrogance. Maureen makes them normal seeming, but that is natural, when family is involved, as there are other good characteristics they possess that only those close to them know... one can be kind and generous to one's own favored group of people, but cruel to "others". That kind of vectorial goodness does not complete a person...but it will confuse a family member who sees both sides of the person...
12
And just who will your brother blame once there is no one left on the other side to blame?
10
I continue to seek ways to understand how people can be so committed to Trump. Reading how Maureen Dowd is surrounded by close family who are in that camp is fascinating. But even she can't explain it - her brother "admitted that he often winces at the president’s “style” but simply waits for the “crazy” periods to pass and focuses on the things he likes." Simply ignoring what a truly awful, lying, narcissistic, cheating, thieving, ignorant, but talented salesman he is. How can so many people be so blind?
“A lot of the stuff he says is taken out of context,” Kevin said. “You’ve got news reporters becoming opinion writers, and that’s not what they’re supposed to be doing and that’s not a fair press.”
7
Maybe it is growing up in ultra conservative Catholic Quebec and being Jewish with a father who was the first Jew in his town to graduate from the Jesuit High School. I understand privilege. Droit de Seigneur says it all. I heard , saw and sensed every lie and all the feigned outrage from Bret Kavanaugh. I saw it before and 70 years ago when I was born that was Catholic Quebec. Today we are non-believers and justice wears a blindfold and balance scale.
16
I’m glad you’ve broken free of the shackles of your upbringing Ms. Dowd. The rest of your family apparently subscribes to the entitlement that prep school affords - prep school proffered by an organization rife with pedophilia, abuse, and morally bankrupt superiority complexes. And this is our “Supreme Court feeder” system. No wonder we’re in so much hurt as a country. Fortunately it appears the tide is turning and I pray, as a white male survivor of that system, that you continue your good works. I find in my own life that standing up in the most public ways possible is liberating as well as personally satisfying regardless of what anyone else thinks or says.
10
Oh, no, not another Kevin column!
Its not about "balancing love of family, with my job." Its about balancing love of family with the TRUTH.
19
Bernard Shaw said, “the Irish are a just people, they never speak well of one another”. Eugene O’neil told us about the complexity of the Irish. Oh! The Guilt.
2
Ms. Dowd, I truly feel sorry for you and your family. Sorry for them because of their lack of morals, ethics, and honesty. Morals because they dismiss all the presidents' transgressions; consistent lies, racism, misogyny, ignorance, and divisiveness. Ethics, because he and his party and his followers have none. And lastly, because he doesn't have an honest bone in his body. I feel sorry for you because you have to put up with your partisan close-minded 'reward the wealthy and steal from the poor' family. Lastly, let me say a few words about John Wayne. This republican hero was as much of a draft dodger as Trump. His entire persona was built on a Hollywood groomed tough guy image that couldn't have been further from the truth.
18
If you want to hold up john wayne as an american icon, look to the writers who provided his every word, the directors who guided his every step and glance, the cinematographers and lighting crew who designed and flattered every angle, the wardrobe people who decked him in iconic gear, and the publicists who spun his racist, entitled and ugly political views into something far more palatable than his own actual identity as a person. Really, its hard to believe how people can still believe the actors embody much of anything without the vast apparatus of hollywood working its magic.
10
One of the finest pieces you've ever written, Ms. Dowd. I hope the loss of your fine brother does not cloud your judgement over the machinations of a man who cares nothing for America.
11
I worry too Mo'.
But you seem as if you are both enabling the views of your family and/or missing the point about valuing family first if it includes not being able to be true to yourself FIRST, and have them love you ANYWAY.
THAT'S LOVE, Mo'.
What you described here seems more like manipulation and shaming.
10
‘Just remember, when you really need somebody, the only one that’s going to be compelled to run toward you is your family, not your friends.’”
So completely untrue. My best friends and I would, without hesitation or even thinking, take a bullet for each other, if necessary. Whereas, my own sibling would likely sell tickets to watch it happen.
Not everyone has a loving family and not everyone has fake friends.
22
The Times has reported on some other Thanksgiving good news. Kevin's Trump Republicans, that is, the Trump Republicans in the House, have begun yet another politically motivated Congressional investigation of the Clinton emails. On the day before Thanksgiving, they sent out subpoenas to Mr. Comey and Ms. Lynch. The good people of Germany were brothers and sisters, fathers and mothers. They went to church every week. They coached sports. They didn't like the leader's style; disapproved of his thugs who marched in the streets and vandalized synagogues and shops; were happy to "simply wait for the 'crazy' periods to pass;" complained about being taken out of context; and focused on the things they liked.
19
I have a broken family. It is broken because my personality disordered husband abuses me. Because the ex-husband has also Transitioned and is now a woman, my children are in sympathy with the ex, despite continuing abuse. They think it's *okay* to abuse me while they look the other way. It's not their problem that the ex abuses me. They don't want to be "in between." Their therapist tells them they have a right to be happy and to love the abuser. They are not responsible for how I'm treated. They can shun me if I insist on showing them reality. They are not responsible for his behavior.
This is the same thing that happens in politics. We have some people who feel that they would rather live in fantasy where bad people don't do bad things. They don't victimize in secret and then show a pleasant face in public. The public thinks, "I'm not responsible for his private behavior. I can ignore his alcoholism, gambling, abuse of women, rape--whatever. It's not MY responsibility. As long as he shares my politics... whatever I want will get done. I can put this odious human in a position of power. You private pain is of no consequence. I'm not responsible."
But you ARE responsible.
This is the essence of what #MeToo is ABOUT. Bringing into the light the atrocities that (mostly) men have perpetrated for a 10,000 years, which power has allowed to be ignored. Because it's uncomfortable. It's easier to say, "It's not my responsibility."
But you ARE responsible.
9
Poor Brett Kavanaugh, denied the prize his elite history made him think was his by right. Forget Trump and the supposed lack of evidence against him (etc.). He should have been denied the SCOTUS post on the basis of his sniveling, paranoid, partisan response alone -- a response that reflected his reliance on that outward appearance that excused the alcoholic underpinning always hidden in the night and recessed memories. But the elites will have their way. Ms. Dowd comes from this heritage, the cherished myths about American history which are inspiring in their movie enhanced version, but which have always ignored (and now, especially, chastised with Trump's encouragement) the real story of the country. Kavenaugh is unrepresentative of the people the Court and the government is supposed to serve and Ms. Dowd's personal weakness when dealing with family conflicts are reflective of this warped perspective. Yes, the elites have the education and skills that could save the world, but if they don't get off their privileged pedestals, we'll all drown and burn with the climate destroyed results. And, why is Trump so easily excused by her and her family who so cherish the national parks he so blithely tries to shrink and foul by converting to petroleum industry exploitation? If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem.
14
Ms. Dowd, this is one of the best columns you have written. Your tendency to be sarcastic was left out, which in my view actually improves your writing gifts. You were honest and vulnerable while hanging on to some important core beliefs.
I really don't get the nasty comments directed your way for not condemning your family. As a liberal gay man, formerly a mental health professional, I do understand you as best I can. My older brother is a very conservative retired military officer; I would not think of writing him off.
7
Politics is nasty - it was nasty before Trump was on the scene and will be nasty when he is no longer in the White House. I guess the 24/7 news cycle and the internet does not help things, either. I hope you and your family can bridge a way through this and remain on good terms.
2
I don't recall DT ever being called racist, misogynous, or xenophobic until he became president. Maybe you are projecting. Actually, most of the things you can describe about other people would be invisible to you if they did not exist within you. That is what is so entertaining about this whole feverish scenario. Pretty much every negative thing one politician or pundit says about another is true of every single one of them. Politicians lying...universal. Politicians crooked...check. Rich people own the politicians...eternal. Government so large that it stifles the economy....never fails. Unnecessary wars in far away places squandering your fortune...always. Should not need to go on. The problems are universal and the idea that more or any government can solve the problems it has itself created is preposterous.
2
"I don't recall DT ever being called racist, misogynous, or xenophobic until he became president."
Then you weren't paying attention. How about his full page ad calling for the execution of black and Hispanic teens (the "Central Park Five") who were later exonerated? How about his tabloid fodder womanizing in the 80's and 90's? How about his absurd obsession with Obama's birth certificate? Trump is the same despicable con artist he has always been! Wake up man!
21
@Lucifer
My lord, I am recommending a comment by Lucifer!
1
Maureen...in the NYT today there is a story about a private, sports focused, all boys Catholic school in Toronto. It sounds like the same school that Kevin coached Kavanaugh. This week after several boys were charged with a violent sexual assault of other students everyone asked... How could this happen? Why didn't the coaches/teachers know? They are good, athletic, Catholic boys from good families paying $20,000 tuition. The alumni still can't accept it even though it is on video. Just like Kevin they refuse to see the truth of toxic masculinity and choose to believe in entitlement and teach winning at all costs.
11
Maureen your most touching column was when your mom died and you described so feelingly her experiences you shared . I wrote you understanding your pain and you replied.
Many families have difficulties when members disagree in some issues ....religion,politics sexual orientation which define who we are or choose to become. But the love we give each other as family should withstand what we believe in our hearts as an individual. .
No one reveals oneself exactly the same way to each person. A columnist's biggest challenge in my view is not to tip the scales either way and report his or her views truthfully ; and for their family to accept, it. if needed challenge in a comment like this.
1
It's no accident that in the recent election, widespread doubts and queasiness about Trump (Kevin Dowd notwithstanding) were exposed.
5
Ms Dowd, an intelligent and challenging essay, for which I thank you. Despite your impassioned advocacy for communication and family, I simply cannot understand why Kevin should support an obviously unfit chief executive. The evidence of his misogyny, cruelty, lawlessness, ignorance, racism, and overall character is overwhelming, and to any breathing citizen should be enough to condemn the man. You love your brother but he needs guidance.
12
"When Legend becomes fact, print the legend."
It's apt that the legend of John Wayne is featured in this piece. There is the American history personified by the characters Wayne played, but they were legend because the facts of America's history are too hard for many to bear. Better to cling to what we were taught as children, even if it was incomplete or false.
Trump is a cypher to many, a vessel to hold this fraying myth of western taciturn nobility, though nearly all of them have no personal connection to Trump other than through TV, the Internet, or his rallies. Like the darker side of our history, Trump's behaviors that would not be tolerated in others are papered over or ignored in the hope that somehow, someway the legend remains.
6
@DPearce
"When Legend becomes fact, print the legend."
That quote is not about John Wayne's character - it's about Jimmy Stewart's.
2
And how did he feel about the way the judge behaved DURING the hearings? That was there for all to see and no he said/she said.
18
for all those who are encouraging Ms.Dowd
to fight with her family, a cautionary tale.
I come from a family who fight with each
other over,literally,everything, be it the
cars one rides in at a funeral or a wedding,
a daughter in law, a nephew who is late
for Christmas dinner etc...and on and on.
when someone goes to dinner with one
member,one dares not the tell the other
feuding member. I can assure all these
anti Trump moralists it is not worth it.
if politics is an issue,don't discuss it.
I am no admirer of Trump, in fact I loathe
almost every thing he stands for. when I
go to a family member's house, I talk about
football or baseball, though even that
risks a shouting match. family enmity is
not worth it. fight Trump in the voting
booth or in the streets, peacefully. if
anyone brings up politics at Christmas
dinner, bring up Jake De Grom or Eli
Manning. there may be still be a fight,
but at least it won't last beyond dinner.
6
I don't know, Maureen. If you were a guy, would it be your job that got in the way of family relationships, or would it be the family's fault for not respecting what you did for a living? Perhaps, as with Kavanaugh, the crux of the issue is the very different way men relate to women versus men. Certainly Trump was able to get away with behavior and ignorance that would have sank Hillary.
If anything, I think your attitude towards Hillary seemed too influenced by your conservative soblibgs dissaproval. Why are you the obe always looking to make peace? Why are your attitudes the problem? You analyze political characters for a living, and work at one of the world's top Newspapers. Trump is a lyibg con man and you know it. If yiur family can overlook his flaws, they can make peace with you.
23
Anyone who is going to condemn Maureen for maintaining relationships with her siblings should rethink how they think about Donald Trump because they would be acting just like him. It’s a tough balancing act doing what she’s doing. I often disagree with her but give me a break some of you.
6
So, Trump is a disaster except for Hillary and the courts. Well, Hillary isn't going to be president, so to that extent, voting for Trump worked. What I am hoping, however, is that Roberts is correct, and that a number of Trump's judicial appointees will lean over backwards to avoid rendering partisan decisions. If that happens, then to that extent, voting for Trump would have failed.
6
Wonderful holiday piece by one of the best essayists on the planet. I feel for her having to suffer fools gladly, just to remain in the family. Don't fall for false equivalency. Ms. Dowd's conservative clan are sadly representative of mainstream America, while she soared above them intellectually. Unfortunately, they take her pieces personally, even though they lack the intellectual rigor to factually dispute her columns. They are probably personally goaded by her occasional snarkiness. They need to grow up. They probably won't. Evolution of conventional thinkers is rare.
Good neighbors and family don't necessarily make good citizens. Maureen's bros seem to fit that mold. And, if you don't have some friends on a par with your family, you haven't made the effort to develop real friends.
Stay great Maureen, we appreciated you, now more than ever!
4
I am glad that Maureen Dowd wrote the piece on the Kavanaugh hearings and I am sorry that her brother had trouble believing Christine Blasey Ford, an academic whose whole career is based on devotion to the truth. She is a heroine.
We can all be glad for social media and cellphones with video-taking capability. Thanks to this phenomenon there will never be a repeat of questions about what happened at Georgetown Prep. Evidence for this is the scandal engulfing St. Michael's College School, a Toronto school like Georgetown Prep. It is an elite private Catholic school that has many distinguished graduates and has had a tradition of high level sports. The scandal was the top news story for days.
Last week a video surfaced of the "sexual assault" with a broom handle of a boy at St. Mike's by members of the football team. It is horrific and almost unimaginable that such an act--on the level of the gang rape alleged at Georgetown Prep--has occurred. Several other disturbing videos have surfaced, although apparently less disturbing than this one. Eight boys were expelled and six boys, ages 14 and 15 have been arrested by the Toronto police. The football team has been disbanded. The principal and president of St. Mike's have resigned.
We can all wonder what might have happened to Brett Kavanaugh and Mark Judge if cellphones and social media had existed in the early 80s.
20
Hello, I am from Romania where people spent 45 years in a Communist dictatorship before rebelling as a people & executing Nicolae Ceausescu. In my experience, in the end it will come down to how different individuals, family members will react to surrounding individuals & immediate situations in their proximity, not to distant policy actions they can't directly influence. I say Romanians have something invisible, but essential (that's why our revolutions always surprise others) - it's common sense when confronted with absurd inhumanity. Will regular people risk to help a neighbour hide or defend him if hunted down? Will they a Mexican? (In our case a Hungarian or Palestinian doctor.) If colleagues at work shun a 'disident' will Kevin engage him in conversation? Will Kevin at least secretly slip 100 dollars in his pocket knowing he needs it, but fearful to be seen socializing with him? If abortion becomes illegal, will Kevin keep quiet on a neighbour's doctor knowing he gave her an illegal abortion as they did so often in Romania. A colleague of my mom had 19 abortions during Communism & the doctor who was my mom's connection told her at a certain moment: 'Please don't bring her to me anymore, I'm afraid she'll die on the table & we'll all be destroyed'. She still did, all women did abortions. (In 1990 there were 1 million legal abortions in Romania). My mother was not political and she herself was rather all right, but she is courageous and it was necessary. Will Kevin?
12
So your brother supports trump for the 'conservative justices' that he will appoint?
What good are justices of any stripe when trump expects them to do his bidding? trump negates the need for a supreme court entirely, anyone who supports him is supporting his vision of autocracy and the destruction of American democracy and the separation of powers.
In other words your brother is a right wing loon and in fact he is especially egregious as he is well educated and capable of thoughtful assessment of this horrendous situation yet by some sort of sick logic is willing to tolerate the endless ignorance, lies, affronts to democracy, civility and morality that the criminal in the White House daily forces upon us.
23
I'm sorry but after two years I can't accept that decent people support Trump. Conservatives could get their judges, their deregulation, their religious pandering with any garden variety Republican, Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, Mike Pence.
But you're happy with your p grabbing, race baiting, lying, greedy, corrupt man-baby.
Face it Trump supporters like Kevin-you want your party in power at any cost. And like Trump you cannot be gracious winners and reach out. No you must humiliate, demonize and threaten.
Blasey-Ford not credible. Really we're talking about credibility when we are lied to every single day multiple times.
Kevin sheds tears for Kavanaugh but has none for babies in cages separated from parents, Jamaal Kashoggi's family, victims of Trump's sexual violence, the Central Park 5 , the people cheated out of their savings by Trump University, the small business owners who Trump never paid for the work they performed and the Trump base who believe their hero will save them from the future.
Truly no decency.
53
The Kevin Ms. Dowd describes sounds like a decent, seemingly reasonable, honest human being. The president he and his family supports is none of those things. Only when decent, reasonable, honest Trump supporters awake and see what they are supporting will we be rid of this demon.
15
Thank you Maureen Dowd for this Thanksgiving weekend column. I have followed you since you first wrote opinion for the Times. This is the first time a tear made its way down my face. My views are fiercely held but my family feelings are conflicted. I don't know the answer but I do want to keep trying.
2
do you have any Muslim, or Jewish friends? Friends or relatives who belong in the LGBTQ community? Maybe you could bring them to Thanksgiving dinner next time. Maybe they can tell your family the damage this President has done, the damage your family isn't effected by or care about. Sometimes, people don't grasp the pain someone caused until they meet their victims. I'm not sure what the purpose of your column was: to feel some sort of empathy or understanding for Trump supporters? This is not just a political divide; it is a moral and ethical one. Anyone who doesn't see that isn't paying attention. I'm sorry that the brothers who taught you so much aren't willing to be taught by you.
19
Good column on different levels
I grew up in the same place and went to the same schools as Kavanaugh about 10 years later, so this world is familiar to me.
2
So sorry your professional life has put a rift between you and your brothers, Ms Dowd. Perhaps you are no different from most of America after all.
However, you and your brothers are not young but are highly educated, and even if we all as humans are blinded by our prejudice, there is still the modicum of truth based on reasons and respect. President Obama has been observant of that. The only thing I can recall is his disagreement of Citizens United and he was disagreeing with the ruling but not the individual judges. Even people like John McCain had managed to do that. Not like Trump, McConnell et al who have chosen to oppose the person and not necessary the policies.
I don't know your brothers - I don't even know you - but if people take disagreement so personally at an individual level, just how can we as Americans make a more perfect union?
8
Two thoughts: Kevin should know that the end (conservative Supreme Court justices) does not justify the means. This is an enormous character flaw.
Secondly, as many, many commenters here will tell you, family is certainly not the only respite who will "...run toward you" in times of trouble. Often, sadly, the opposite is true. Those who help in difficult times need not share a bloodline.
With that said, it is good that you both continue to share and communicate. Communication means hope will prevail.
10
I think this is a wonderful and very fair commentary. I don't what to say about Kavanaugh because, frankly, I don't know enough. Except however, for his presentation in defending himself when the chips were down, which was not encouraging as I consider the importance of the Court as regards steadiness and wisdom of its justices when arguing. I do hope and actually pray, that Ms Dowd's brother, Kevin, is correct: That this terrible, unstable time with Trump will pass ... that he won't steal the show forever. Would that all of America be able to disagree in the challenging yet civil and kind way members of Ms Dowd's family do. Unlike what Trump and many of his supporters appear to advocate, political disagreement does not have to be hateful. But when it is, it is a true loss for everyone ... and love is defeated in a suicidal way by hate.
1
A major problem that I see with the Kavanaugh appointment is diversity. Diversity of location and education. We have nine justices on the Supreme Court and two of them attended the same college prep school, which means they grew up in the same geographic area.
Why. what about diversity?
6
Beautiful essay, so nicely does it swing along the plains of myth-- famililal, local, national. Trouble is, tribal myths are based on illusions that spill over into moral falsehoods and serve as the spark, the rationale and the cheering section for war.
8
So, so conflicted. I had a 'sharp moment' with my (via husband's) niece last night at Thanksgiving, over a STATE political race -- Gov. -- now and well decided -- at least thinks me.
Now, usually this niece and I are very simpatico. I love and respect her, for herself, and for her career work as a police officer.
And, it's rough out there, on the streets, dealing with the criminal element. I worry about and for her. We all do.
So I hated to have that 'moment' with her, and yet, felt I had to push back -- very mildly -- butin some way, if only to balance the scales and the discussion in that moment.
And, maybe, as the elder, I should have just ignored?
But, as an elder, I feel a duty to try and impart a bit of my longer life experience, etc.?
We ended up finding a relatively safe middle ground, noting that the election here, and indeed everywhere, was so very close. That that seems to be the way it is, all over, at every level. That we are nation divided, nearly 50/50, and that whoever is in office now, of any party or persuasion, likely won't get a 2nd term, as a result of this continuous split.
I am grateful that she and I managed to sit next to each other and get along, and pass food gracefully, and laugh together on other things, and appreciated the holiday and family we had gathered.
Yet, like Maureen's last sentence, I carry with me today and going forward, the nagging worry that it will be a long time to get to a place of healing in the nation.
13
When I pressed him about Trump’s pattern of egregious, lawless and value-free behavior, Kevin admitted that he often winces at the president’s “style”…
Sorry, that ain't good enough. If you support Trump, you support the foundation of a fascist state. None of us want to permanently separate from family members, but Hey!… brothers killed each other for during the civil war.
I say stand up for what you believe in, and if your family can't deal with it, let that be their problem.
22
Your good Catholic relatives need only to look at the actual instructions Jesus gave us to determine whether Trump is a worthy leader.
Strangely enough, Jesus said nothing about abortion or gay marriage, nor did he say anything about a "conservative judiciary", but he did say quite a lot about feeding the hungry, protecting the vulnerable, providing for the poor, welcoming the stranger, giving children extra special care.
About treating others as we wish to be treated.
About behaving with humility, faithfulness, kindness and honesty.
He also said quite a lot about camels, eyes of needles, and the wealthy, and about those who flaunt their religiosity, pray loudly in public, claim to be better than others.
His followers summarized faithful behavior as being embodied by the 'fruits of the spirit', saying succinctly that 'by their fruits you shall know them'.
Your good Catholic brother should carefully consider whether Mr. Trump, his loyalists, and his policies actually follow the instructions Jesus gave us, whether they are embodiments of the fruits.
Taking the average between right and wrong does not somehow create a 'compromise right'. Sometimes it simply pollutes the right enough to make it wrong.
Sometimes 'to compromise' means to betray values, ethics, morals, decency.
Sometimes we all must stand up for what is right, even when it hurts.
Sometimes there simply is not a 'middle ground'.
37
@organic farmer Obviously your brother does not have to agree with all these sentiments, but if he chooses that, then at the very least, he must also acknowledge that he thinks Jesus was wrong.
12
I have always thought religion, politics and the misunderstood meaning of nationalism has caused more wars ( national, global, family, nation) than all the other issues history can produce.You cannot discuss or reason with fanatics in any of these areas. They are all conflated with personal reasoning that
denies rational thinking and the worst examples are the least informed, less educated and ones with a history of"being wronged"somewhere along the way.
I have to stop fighting the battle with family or best friends because there is no resolution.
9
Fair thoughts, Maureen.
But what is lost on the left (because we conservatives tend not to scream and castigate at the dinner table) is that as many of us, or more, saw Hillary Clinton as a "genius of hate and divisiveness" , lawless, unscrupulous, constitutionally incapable of being honest, visibly rageaholic, not to mention being a "public servant" getting shamelessly wealthy at whatever coffers.
I say this not to exempt Trump from his own personality problem but to help explain the justifiable "panic"hat many of us felt at the spectre of the two Clintons being rewarded with yet another term in our White House.
Add to that Obama's stagnant economy and ambivalent air about America, etc. and the opponent, however marginally, won the vote.
Whenever I see Mrs. Clinton speak in public nowadays, I am grateful for the result we "basket of deplorables" managed to finesse--those of us who get along just fine with many races, gay friends and family, women and men --and don't see how pervasive this supposed "hatred" is on Main Street and the realworld we inhabit.
Very often, in a mixed race encounter with people, (opening a door, doing business) I believe there is an unspoken gesture of love and goodwill among us, rarely to be highlighted by a never-happy, rarely joyful left.
10
Hillary Clinton is a 'rageaholic'? A lot of the criticism about Hillary is that she wasn't passionate enough! And have you ever been to, seen a video of, or read an eyewitness acciunt of a Trump rally? They often include a vilification of anyone who isn't with him, and an invitation to attack the press or other individuals he deems not worthy of life. And these are facts not alternative facts. Perhaps the real problem is that we are living in alternative universes.
16
@Marcia Stephens
"and don't see how pervasive this supposed "hatred" is on Main Street and the realworld we inhabit."
Perhaps this is the problem. The self described "basket of deplorables" unwilling or unable to understand other points of view.
Try telling the gay teenager bullied in school, or the black woman who has the police called on her simply because she's black that there isn't hatred in the real world. Or perhaps me, a sixty something white man, concerned about climate change, gerrymandering and voter suppression, and a host of other issues that there isn't "hatred" in the real world.
Yours is the world view of those who won't or cannot or will not see the world as it really is.
Everything is fine as long as you get the Supreme court Justices you want. Everything else is ignored.
8
@Marcia Stephens-Alternate reality. Whew!
www.pleasecutthecrap.obamasaccomplishments.
http://blount.tndp.org/president-obamas-accomplishments/
http://pleasecutthecrap.com/obama-accomplishments/
2
I still remember Kevin's column last year saying it would be OK if the bombs took out the coasts and left the heartland untouched. Given that he lives on a coast that was a little silly but still, his intent was obvious.
The far right's "anything goes" so long as they get a conservative judiciary is so hypocritical and self-defeating. The majority of Americans do not want that and will eventually elect a government that will pass laws circumventing the courts. Look what the conservative court did to the Voting Rights Act - they obviously don't believe in democracy. Just rule of the white male. Well, the country is changing & they can try to hold on to power and it may take a very painful period in American history but eventually they are going down
The mid-terms gave me hope.
34
Sorry Maureen, I would cut ties with this family if it were mine. There might be some polite interactions but my relationship with people like these who's core values are so different from my own would never be the same.
19
People like your brother Kevin are willing to overlook all of the despicable acts of Trump as long as they get the conservative biased Supreme Court they feel they must have. However it was that conservative Supreme Court led by Scalia and Thomas that gave us the 2nd Amendment ruling that has led to 30,000 Americans shot dead each year. We have had 307 mass murders so far year to date, but what has Trump and the Republicans who support him done to try and reduce the carnage? A: nothing. As you know, the slaughters will continue.
And I have to believe that many of those who stand by Trump despite all his egregious faults are racist at heart. After all would you argue against the belief that the slogan, Make America Great Again is mostly about Making America White (dominated) Again?
The Supreme Court for all its power cannot determine the culture. The people will overrule the Court and live their lives as they see fit regardless of their rulings. So the American that Kevin longs for will never come back. America has moved on and is fundamentally liberal in outlook. Kevin can join Trump and the cardboard cutout of the Duke behind the Supreme Court's circling of the wagons, but like Custer their demise is inevitable.
Bottom line to me is that your brother isn't worth being close to if he cannot respect your political opinions even if they are diametrically opposed to his. It shows a lack of respect at a level that cannot be overlooked.
31
Trump divided a nation - even worse he divided families.
30
@Aaron No, they divide themselves.
So we have two Supreme Court justices from the same Jesuit prep school. Can get some justices that went to public schools and state universities? How about some justices that were prosecutors, legal aid volunteers, ACLU interns? Can we get any justices that don't have rich parents and have seen how the poor and uneducated struggle in this country? Other than Sotomayor who has this background
34
Can we also get someone who doesn’t have an allegiance to the Vatican.
6
I feel so very fortunate that my family, mother father two brothers and all but one cousin, were and have always been on the same political side. The one cousin who isn't, proved to be a gigantic pain in the neck with his endless emails (all fact free and Fox informed) that I just had to cut him off completely. During Obama's time in office he wouldn't stop with harassing emails. Mostly I ignored him. And then when tRump was elected I thought he would stop, considering it was his guy who won. No such luck. At some point I told him to only be in touch if he would keep his politics private, he couldn't do it so I had to cut him off completely. Sad but true.
11
I find this depressing in that you have a highly educated, motivated, intelligent, seemingly caring family, and yet they accept this President because of what he will bring on the Supreme Court. This is the Mitch McConnell ethic. Anything is acceptable in the pursuit of power. Anything.
36
You can't separate politics from "real life". It's your worldview, your sense of justice, how you think people should be treated. That's what comprises real life. It's not just cabinet meetings and debates. Those are the mechanics. Deep privilege is being able to dismiss political events because you know you'll be fine regardless what happens. What a luxury.
14
The untethered Kevin who is an uncritical unconditional supporter of the draft dodger Mr. Trump also lionizes the draft dodger John Wayne. The fake tough guy Wayne could and should have served in WWII but instead asked for and was given a deferment. Likewise, the fake tough guy Mr. Trump asked for and was given four Vietnam deferments for a trivial and essentially dishonest medical excuse.
Perfectly exemplary.
30
Racism, misogyny, prejudice or xenophobia can never be excused or tolerated. Family or friend, it does not matter. You owe it to the people who are hurt by it to speak out and condemn it. Silence is consent. What is a relationship worth that requires avoiding championing such an essential principle of humanity.
16
There is nothing more disgusting than someone who knows better & actually has a powerful voice nationwide to call out the despicable & depraved—yet stands by silently b/c she fears losing an invitation to country club brunch or a weekend trip to nostalgically fetishize patriarchal American genocide. What a shame.
2
A moving, brutally honest column that I hope your brothers read and appreciate. Here in Paris, Texas (Lamar County had the highest percentage of Trump votes in Texas in 2016), we have learned to compartmentalize our relationships and our conversation. Politics is 'off the table' at family dinners. While Trump dominates the national discourse, ours becomes smaller and smaller. My rage about his ignorance, his incompetence, his clownish narcissism and his thuggish meanness, as well as the fact that his improbable election was due to outside forces, has actually led to a prescription for a hefty anti-depressant. Surely we can put all this behind us in 2020. But then I believed voters could see through his empty suit and bellicosity in 2016. I may have to double my medication. Thank you and the NYT for helping fight the continuing battle.
14
What's good here is that it has brought out some of the best nyt comments, and how everyone is struggling to put up with the "demonic ringmaster". Buried in this piece is an ode to John Wayne, who played the American as a "displaced person" carrying the "Center" within himself. A loner, but valuing family, and brave in the face of danger. We grew up with those movies, and not just the stories, but also the Western scenery. And there it is in her opening photo, the buttes and endless spaces in golden light and shadows. Walk out in this light on the sage in the morning at Mono Lake, imagine living in the little settlement on the left, or know that you've been there before when you drive through the rock formations coming down the other side of Lake Arrowhead. You value this. As an American, you realize it's yours.
There are two news stories also buried in this. Why is alcohol banned on the Navajo Reservation? When you report the grief behind this, tell us about recent encroachments, the pollution from Four Corners and that tribal workers weren't even warned that the stuff they were mining for Kerr-McGee was highly radioactive--they tracked it into their homes. How is the U.S. compensating them for this, or is more exploitation planned?
The other story: Ms Ford's testimony "sympathetic...but not credible". It was very credible and even that his friend wrote a book about it. Were Grassley and Graham also guilty of date rape, or just covering for drunken friends?
11
I thank Ms. Dowd for candidly sharing her observations, insights and feelings. The times are challenging for many Americans, especially middle-aged feminists during this "family-oriented" holiday. Trump is like ring worm. His negative, dishonest and narcissistic blathering sinks into one's inner core. One can try to treat it with open and honest and discussions with family members who are loved in spite of political differences but like ringworm, the disease keeps reappearing. Part of the challenge is that misogyny, racism and classism have never disappeared or been conquered. Mr. Trump embraces misogyny, racism and classism to cultivate fear and despondency in the American Public. For the first time in my 62 year old life, I spent the Thanksgiving Holiday alone. Not because my family wasn't nearby... but because they didn't want to spend the holiday with someone who supported Hillary Clinton, Al Franken and Amy Klobuchar. At first, I was devastated. Then I tried to convince myself that they would change their ways and include me. ( I was perfectly willing to keep politics off the table during dinner.) But no... the splintering of families is taking place all over America. All of us must keep fighting against the insanity that is erupting in our country. Did I spend my isolating Thanksgiving in despair? No... I celebrated the many things I am thankful for and roasted Fresh Alaskan Salmon instead of Turkey.
20
The trouble with Kavenaugh is that his defending response showed him to be emotionally impaired and paranoically partisan. Evidence and gender bias aside, he is not Supreme Court honor material. But in the end the "elite" clan closed ranks and left no doubts credible. Ms Dowd's enviable position, upbringing and connections exposes her to intra family tensions, but in the wider scope she is simply far removed from the country's people who are the Court's real constituents. Poor Kavenaugh, crying and whining because he might not get his expected elite clan prize. Forget Trump. The elite needs to clean up its act nevertheless, simply because they have power and if the powerful don't act quickly the world's climate damage will burn and flood us all away. Kavenaugh in power is not encouraging in this regard.
12
What the Democratic Party did not do is make a case as to why it is very reasonable to conclude based on the evidence that Kavanaugh did lie about the event and undoubtedly lied in his confirmation hearing. This case can and has been made, most notably in the blog at Current Affairs (https://www.currentaffairs.org/2018/09/how-we-know-kavanaugh-is-lying). There in a detailed analysis of Kavanaugh's testimony, his diary and other statements and evidence, the author makes a strong case as to why he should never have been confirmed.
Why the Democrats chose not to make this case themselves is an unanswered question that boggles my mind. Doing so would likely have given them a majority in in Senate as they lost the considerable momentum they were gaining during the confirmation hearing which they lost by the end of the Kavanaugh nomination.
3
As Kevin would understand, the Catholic Church would say love the sinner, hate the sin. Kevin's "sin" is willful indifference to an amoral president who tramples daily on national values. He won't change is mind, don't even try. Just value the Kevin who is a loving brother, and likely a good husband and father. While this is the pragmatism that holds many families together, there is a danger. No doubt that many Germans who supported the Third Reich were also loving family members. Yet their unwillingness to confront a moral monstrosity provoked the greatest tragedy of the 20th century. Might the course of history been altered if more of those family members had challenged the support of Nazism?
14
Trump is no genius of division and hate. Millions of average IQ folk know how to maintain acceptance from their buddies by giving voice to their presumably shared values. 'Presumably', because their hunger for inclusion supercedes any thought process; their conclusions are adopted, not researched and developed. It doesn't take a towering genius to spout that drivel.
4
Kevin is no different than the Republican senate: old, white men more concerned with controlling the country than accepting its changing demographics. And Trump is their old, white man getting the job done. And they're willing to ignore his immorality and incompetence so that everything can stay the same and advantageous to them. When O'Bama was elected, their fear mobilized them. They see nothing else. Not even the country's decline and desecration. Trump and the courts are their last gasp for generational dominance. They'll sacrifice anything, even their families, to win this war. And are incapable of confronting the reality of their own needs.
10
This is a gift from Maureen that brought a tear to my eye and warmth to my heart.
Appreciation of family and allegiance to values is something to be treasured by all Americans. What I find pathetic,shallow and obnoxious is a lack of anything other than ones own self interest.
This trait in an American President is a danger and a tragedy.
The cost plays out daily in far too many ways to count.
1
Nope. No free pass for this irritant, even if he is your beloved brother. Call him merely wayward if you wish; he is not my brother, and I call him shallow-thinking and selfish, and in this era, dangerous.
We all remember his gloating, almost-vicious, snide glee in his Thanksgiving piece right after the election....."there's a new sheriff in town" he said.
No, Kevin, you made this bed. And you made it with great relish, and much grade-school attitude. Now lie in it.
You, like so many Republicans, have checked your integrity at the door, bought into this train-wreck, all for your thirty pieces of silver.
Rest well.
21
Crying for Cavanaugh is hardly an issue anymore
After reading Ms. Dowd's heartfelt, honest column as well as many readers' comments, I am overwhelmed by just how much damage this one petty, self-centered, ignorant Narcissist-in Chief has done to the very fabric of our nation. He thrives on division and disunity, and creates it better than any outsider ever could. He would no doubt be pleased to read this column and see the damage he's done on his way to "making America great again."
I don't think anything is sacred to him, not this country, not even families...including his own.
10
If members of my family showed up at t-day dinner in brown shirts and greeted me with a hearty Nazi salute, they would be shown the door. Quit coddling fascism. Quit excusing violent white supremacy. Quit apologizing for pointed out the stupid.
18
True Maureen, U.S. has to be able to go beyond the myths even if they were wonderfully characterized by someone like John Wayne. It should be because that mythic U.S. was once pure White and based on conquering empty places where, notwithstanding, from time to time native Americans were crushed right away. The myth was then prolonged for almost a century when, after WWII U.S. was still able to continue conquering 'empty' places around the world, empty meaning here piles of rubble followed by piles of rubble. Up to the limit of today when U.S. has encountered walls, nations reconstructed, transformed in powerful nations demanding an interrelated world, rather balanced, where 'cowboys' as heroic as they could have been, don't have place anymore.
3
After growing up in a dysfunctional 1950's family (non-religious, thank goodness) I never saw or communicated with my Republican brothers. I've now connected with one older brother. I will never, ever talk about politics and take a chance of another separation. We talk about family, about our mutual love for our grandparents (long gone) and their farm, and nature.
Never, ever about politics. That's my rule.
3
Maureen,
Thank you for reminding me of my siblings and what they taught me (Not always good). I am one of seven (only 4 of us remain). I have tried to tell my son and daughter how important their relationship is and will be to them. Ephemeral politics pails in comparison.
2
Speaking of the great movie star (and sometimes-excellent actor), John Wayne -- I dunno; the Duke's animosity to those here first somewhat overshadows his undoubtably-American inclination for "making one's own code."
While there may indeed be need of "cleansing the world of things that ‘need killing,'’' look to Clint Eastwood's singular 'The Outlaw Josey Wales" for a most instructive lesson in
acceptance, getting along, and, possibly, thriving with those not duplicate copies of oneself.
Wonderful Thanksgiving essay, Mo!
Thank you.
6
No, Ms Dowd, this is not a moving column. Your family members support a vicious fascist who is subverting American democracy, inflaming hatred and violence against Jews, against Blacks, against Hispanics.
You may feel the need to pull your punches in your columns because of your right-wing family members. But you're wrong to do so. You should be standing up for what is right, for the rule of law, for tolerance within our society, not tolerance of your hateful family members.
Do the right thing: stand up for democracy, stand up for decency, stand up against bigotry. And if that means your family members are miffed, so be it.
721
@Sean, something to deeply think about. Akin to families making choices at the time of our Civil War. I can't believe I would write that sentence while discussing 2018.
43
@broz
Yes, and as with the Civil War, there is only one right side.
89
@Nancy
And yet you still love and mourn the loss of relationships with those who chose the unambiguously wrong side. I think that was the point here. No one is questioning that her brothers were/are clearly wrong. No one is questioning that they have made immoral choices.
If I found that my dear mother was a secret Neo-Nazi, it would make me infinitely angry with and ashamed of her, and I would end the relationship with her immediately. Yet, I would still mourn the loss of my love for her. I think this is what this column was getting at.
The Trump era has brought pain to us on a number of levels. And, even without Trump, life is complicated that way. Indeed, we have limbic structures (e.g., the anterior insula, the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex) that connect with the neocortex that are uniquely situated and suited for processing the emotional complexities that derive from these types of dilemmas (e.g., where do my loyalties lie, human decency or my beloved family members?). It's what makes us human, and we can't escape the pain that accompanies life's dilemmas with simplistic and moralistic proclamations that bias us to one choice over the other (refer to your favorite existentialist here).
But we can remember to mention the Navajo where appropriate (see my comment elsewhere).
37
Why have conservative judges become the ultimate value for Republicans, even those who cringe at Trump?
Do they really believe these judges can impose control and societal change to get rid all the things they identify as evil
--abortion, gay marriage, gun control, transgender people in the military and contraceptive coverage in insurance plans--while ensuring all the things they want, from school prayer to unlimited freedom for rich conservative donors to get their way?
Obviously, brother Kevin and many others like him didn't set out to condone authoritarian rule. But that's exactly what they support.
19
Thanks, Maureen Dowd, for this thoughtful column. I grew up in a family where we all seemed to disagree on politics, and we had amazing discussions at the dinner table. But, we did not stop loving each other, and we did not sever our relationships over it. Like many other liberals of my day, I gave Bill Clinton a pass by publicly supporting him and voting for him, even when I abhorred what he had done. I liked his policies. I'm sure many of my conservative family members voted for Trump. I haven't asked them because I don't want to hear them say it. But, I've discussed it with my sister. They would have voted for any Republican who had the nomination. They like his policies. There is nothing that I like about Trump. He is despicable and his policies are contributing to the sad, sad demise of our country. I will continue sharing my sentiments with my family (even if I don't ask them about their vote,) but we will remain family.
7
Let's simplify the things, subject has a vast crevices in it.
I am a registered democrat. I voted for Hillary.
This is the argument I would like to state.
Any American thinks that Gorge Herbert bush is not a good politician, I am sorry I have no respect for you , your political vision.
Because our main goal should be compromise about our differences for a good cause that is all.
That is why I throw GH Bush argument.
What we saw last 18 years in this country a clear hypocrite punditry nothing else.
That is and will be our demise.
3
I understand your dilemma, Maureen. I am appalled by Trump's actions, and the cover provided by the morally bereft Republican party. Fortunately, all of my very large family sees it the same way, so I do not have to deal with this conflict personally (though I do in an effort to remain civil with my neighbor).
I have to say, though, that Kevin's assertion that family is ultimately what matters, has troubling connotations for me. That sort of notion is what perpetuates egregious behaviors. There are clearly too many in this country who will defend abhorrent behavior only because the perpetrator belongs to their family, their political party, is a graduate of their prep school, etc. Trump has not said too many true things in the last 3 years, but he nailed it when he said that he could shoot a person on 5th Ave and not lose any of his supporters.
I always thought you attained goals and achieved based on your own efforts and behaviors. But Trump appeals to his base by promising to protect status that a person has by pure accident of birth: skin color, country of birth, family social connections, etc. And his supporters (apparently, including Kevin) will stand by him to the end, with the hope he delivers on that one promise.
I spend time with my birth family members because I find them pleasant, caring towards all, reasonable, and interested in truth and fairness. I will not spend time with them if they fall short in these areas, merely because we share parents.
12
Why is it Trumps fault? He has merely revealed the divisions and issues that were already present, but not discussed. Kevin's injured feelings that his children's "elite" school is derided by much of the new diverse America has nothing to do with Trump. It is quite symbolic of the differences between Americans. Sadly, it t will get worse, and very soon.
5
Maureen Dowd writes excellent prose. She also appears to love, cherish her Irish family heritage. This is good. More people should be like this. However, her political worldview somewhat misses the point. What is happening in America (and elsewhere) is not really about President Trump. Rather, it is the emerging repressed voice of freedom struggling to be free from endemic corruption of America's political elites/ruling class. This is a good time in America. We no longer have to pretend (pc), can speak to truth..
5
"When I pressed him about Trump’s pattern of egregious, lawless and value-free behavior, Kevin admitted that he often winces at the president’s “style” but simply waits for the “crazy” periods to pass and focuses on the things he likes." No one should be rewarded with permission for a distinction this false. If family means anything, it means protecting honesty.
11
Hi Maureen, And what does your brother think about the mass shootings? Is there a way to justify ownership, subject to a few obviously ineffective laws, just because the Second Amendment sort of says it is a constitutional right. By the way, if your brother is a gun owner, what does he call his “well-regulated militia?”
I have some Republican relatives who are good people but I find the thought of a political conversation with them toxic. I understand they were similarly disgusted during Democratic administrations but I might just leave the discussion go....
2
How does your brother know, both, that "something happened" to Dr. Blasey Ford and it was not Kavanaugh?
How can he possibly know that? She provided facts in her testimony.
People are complex. They can both do good things and do horrible things (especially when under the influence of alcohol).
Is not that what is so problematic about the Catholic Church? It does both good things and yet condones child abuse.
19
All politics aside, it feels like you grew up in a tribal culture. I wish your family could be more open minded to other ideas and the people they tend to idolize without ever realizing that perhaps they and their idols are imperfect people.
9
Family, quite frankly, is not the most important relationship in our lives. Being morally clear headed and faithful to things bigger than us, justice, truth, law, is more important. How your brother became blind to these things is the story or conservatisms triumph over the minds and hearts of the majority of “white” America. He’s wrong, you’re right, and his failure to see that should have consequences.
20
Brother Kevin has a good point about family and/or versa friends. However, in my decades of observation, often needless criticism and arguments by and with family often drives people to their friends for understanding and comfort. Yeah, I know it's a two way street, but what brother Kevin proposes is not an absolute.
Oh yeah. I have never looked at John Wayne or any of his movies for any type of anything, as far as our country goes, unless we are referring to mediocrity or a mythology based on ...... myth. The monuments however ...... speechless.
A New Yorker magazine cartoon I vividly remember .... "It's not everyone that gets to argue in front of the Parthenon."
And so I wish everyone who is at a most stunning locale on our planet or at the dinner table on Thanksgiving or any other day, enjoy where you are and who you are with and put the boxing gloves on at some other designated time.
I will not let politics end any relationship with family and friends. If I were to do that, then somebody would win and it would not be me.
4
I loved this piece for recounting how one family bridged the political gap, for at least a while. It made me teary and wanting to hug Kevin for not cancelling their trip and believing in maintaining his family connections. But, then I recalled how pivotal in our high-school days the phys-ed teachers and coaches were; we boys idolized them and took guidance from them. It is hard to believe that Coach Kevin was not aware of the drunken, abusive weekend behavior of his student athletes. What was his response upon hearing locker-room allusions to it? Does it give him doubts about K's veracity?
8
"....because he wanted a conservative Supreme Court and he didn’t want Hillary Clinton in the White House. And after Gorsuch and Kavanaugh, they all became fervent Trump supporters."
This statement perfectly encapsulates why it is an absolute waste of time arguing with certain people. Life is not Black and White, it is very complicated and very gray. It is impossible to have an intelligent, thoughtful conversation about complex issues when a person chooses to ignore all other facts and inconvenient realities so long as their narrow goals are met. Trump essentially framed the choice himself: "I can shoot somebody in the middle of 5th Avenue, and my supporters wouldn't care"...as long as I deliver the rabid masses their dream of transforming the SCOTUS.
Yes, I will share a turkey leg and mashed potatoes with some folks who ARE deplorable in their political choices, but they will keep their demented political (and frankly moral) thoughts to themselves, and refrain from politics at my Thanksgiving Day table.
My table, my house, my rules. Eat your pie, laugh out loud, count your blessings, and keep your insane thoughts to yourselves for one day of the year. If Abe Lincoln had the courage to inaugurate a Giving of Thanks during the darkest days of the Civil War, then we can surely enjoy a peaceful communion for a few hours.
3
Tell your brother that if Trump keeps ruling the roost with people like McConnell & Cotten & Kavanaugh, there won't be any Monument Valley anymore. There will pipe lines and oil wells in it's place.
20
@Doctor Woo
Her brother, and many others on the Trump Spectrum, couldn't care less about clean air or monuments or decency-- as long as the SCOTUS is secured in the hands of "conservatives" and Republican gerrymandering can help suppress the will of the majority, all is RIGHT in the world.
15
This is without doubt one of Maureen Dowd's most profound columns. It could even serve as a homily. She has risen above the temptation to ostracize, to avoid listening to other points of view and to accept blindly whatever may be said in one's comfort zone.
3
I guess Kevin Dowd has not thought of those whose families don’t feel compelled to help or can’t help or who don’t have families (as well as not thinking of friends who DO feel compelled to help). We are a society and we are all better off if assistance to the vulnerable is provided by a safety net available to all and not by variable personal connections.
5
Seems to me, Maureen, that your brothers' allegiance is to being right, to Catholicism and to old boy values is quite a bit stronger than their allegiance to you. As Catholics they are against abortion, period. Against climate change, immigration, women's rights, LGBT folks. What else? In fact their allegiance it is stronger than common sense and stronger, really, than their connection to you.
You, too, are a victim of brainwashing, which the Catholic church does very well.
Jesus said, Love One Another. Forgive. Do not judge. Turn the other cheek. Father, forgive them. He never said, Only white men are to lead. Women should be forced to have children, regardless. Lies, cheating, stealing, dishonesty of all kinds are Okey Dokey as long as you stop killing "unborn babies". Do you really believe that you have to go along with your family, no matter what, so they will love you? I hope not because that's not love.
Recently, the NYT published the widely held beliefs that evangelical "christians" were told by God to dominate the media, the government, and everything else, as a mandate. The media? God told them to dominate the media? Does that include you?
I believed Dr. Blasey-Ford. Most trauma survivors don't remember the details for decades and then only in a sketchy way. Regardless, Kavanaugh was agitated, arrogant, belligerent, paranoid and hardly what a SC justice should be. He "deserved" to be a Justice. Right.
Mourn your losses and stay your ground! Integrity first.
19
This was one of Ms. Dowd's best columns. Trump is the most polarizing political figure in my lifetime and I'm no youngster. My hope is that somehow the investigation into Kavanaugh that was absurdly and unnecessarily aborted can be completed so that once and for all we can know whether he was the very same man that Dr. Ford believed he was. If it turns out that she was mistaken, well that would be a relief as well to know that the most recent appointee to the Supreme Court is neither a rapist nor a liar.
5
Really! This is all quite simple. Kevin is trying to hold onto an America dominated by white men and Donald Trump is his foil.
I am a 59 year old white male. I have quite a number of white male friends going as far back as grade school and almost all of them adore Trump. Trump embodies their desires of the white male maintaining our status of power and control in society. These are good men who have raised families, work hard and actively contribute to our community. They also fear that changes in society threaten their position in the community and within their families.
The same goes for Kevin who lives in the past through mythical white male cowboy actors who starred on the silver screen.
Many white men believe Donald Trump is slowing change by making the Supreme Court more conservative and they like him a lot for that. Many also like anti-immigration and pro 2nd amendment policies being pushed by the Trump administration. Many of my friends carry weapons in their vehicles.
These men are very willing to overlook any and all questionable discourse and behavior on the part of President Trump who is with them in their quest to extend their high status in our society.
22
i.e. they pine for world where unqualified white men could rule roost over rest of world. I can state that in industry after industry, unqualified whites still rule rhe roost.
Meritocracy has managed to budge nothing except push more yellow, black, and brown into workforce, lorded by still more or less incompetent whites with right legacy, dicttion, and connections.
2
"I contemplated the world of white patriarchy and colonialism that is now over, no matter how hard Donald Trump tries to milk it, and the bitter struggle to break out of the chrysalis with a new, inclusive American identity."
Pure Genius, Maureen! This is the image I will carry with me into the New Year. America is in the midst of an identity crisis as it moves toward maturity as a nation. Like a caterpillar, we have consumed all the easily accessible things that gave earlier generations of Americans wealth, meaning, and purpose. It has fallen to our generation to engage in the all consuming struggle to emerge from our chrysalis transformed into whatever it is we will become. All the old values and currents in our culture still find resonances in our hearts, but like all that is nostalgia, they can only sing siren promises that lead us onto the shoals and destruction. It. is up to this generation of Americans to decide who we will be, and our future is hopeful as long as we cling to love and family and community. Thank You.
5
Lovely comment, thank you.
Maureen, you should not have to choose.
Family loyalty does not inform your truth.
It's not either/or.
3
Well done Moe
4
If you passed through Navajo Nation and all you came from it with this is...
I mean, wow.
Talk about missing the point.
Remember who was on this land first.
13
Your brother is an absolute fool. From the staggering amount of corruption in the Trump admin, look at the Cabinet members that had to resign in disgrace for ripping off the American taxpayers, from Tom Price to Scott Pruitt and more. To Trump University, ripping off hard working Americans, and now settling for $25 million dollars. Does your brother like scam artists and corrupt people??? How about Trump's attaches on John McCain an actual war hero or Trump does not even paying respects and visit soldiers graves on Veterans day in Arlington. Does your brother go after John McCain as well and have no respect for our soldiers who keep us safe??? Imagine if Obama did not pay respects on Veterans Day and visit Arlington, oh wait...he did pay respect and never went after war heroes. What about the new acting Attorney General Whitaker that Trump put in, he was involved with a company that scammed people out of their hard earned money. What about Michael Flynn, Trump's head of National Security, who was working for Turkey and Russia and what about Paul Manafort, head of the Trump campaign and now a convicted criminal. I could go on and on and on...like I said your brother is an absolute fool and possibly, like Trump, a traitor.
31
I suspect she knows he's a fool. Her point is, he's still her brother, and she loves him. You put up with stuff for people you love, if you want to keep them in your life.
2
I am sorry for your pain and I understand it, but your brother is a fool. "simply waits for the “crazy” periods to pass"? Is he serious? "focuses on the things he likes"??? Sorry Kevin, but you are trying to do something impossible. You can't make trump into a good person, a leader, or a decent human being.
PS. When I call somebody a fool, it is the very worst thing I can call him/her. No swear word even comes close.
23
This is Maureen at her very best.
2
Sorry you have such a horrible family Maureen. I’m thankful that I do not.
13
What if he were the opinion columnist....
What would he do?
Stop being so Catholic, Maureen.
4
November 23, 2018
Our nation's family is going through some interesting and bizarre narratives because of Trump and his tyrannical grip on the political system ('s.) However for my own sense of family and the conversations that are calibrated require a cipher mathematical theory of commutations that speaks to ones own greater self worth and character that is individualized and by universal right that America respects come hell or high water with one man in office - for our national family is in this hour of testing requires that we all see America's vision and ideology with tolerance for yielding to the macro - as to say macro and micro of spirit in self and in America true. Yet not to be calibrated by the fault of Trump's interpretive personal stranglehold to what we - or for me mostly is sick humor satire or what?
3
I sure feel bad for Maureen’s family, whining to her that she didn’t defend their $35,000 per year high school.
10
A thoughtful and civil piece. Given that Ms. Dowd is capable of such pieces, why then did we have years of snide, snarky, and condescending "Barry" pieces from her during the Obama years? Perhaps she has more of her family's conservative mentality implanted in her then she realizes.
13
We had an intervention for my alcoholic father 30 years ago before they became common place. At the time we learned many important lessons about family and the roles we assume without knowing we are playing a part predestined by placement in the family, history of the larger family and the role religion plays in assigning us to those roles. My family's patriarchy was so well established that the intervention and my fathers rehab might have been the defining moments of how, as a family, we were able to move forward after we broke out of our comfort zones and established new, and improved, rules for interacting with family and humanity in general. I marvel at the courage we,collectively, showed in that fractious period. The courage was reflected when we had to face what to do if dad decided not to go to rehab. The therapist explained that we had to come to grips with not seeing my father ever again if he didn't stop his dangerous and hurtful behavior. When we protested that that seemed harsh, the therapist asked if we were treated so shabbily by a friend would we keep that person as a friend. If we wouldn't let a friend treat us that way, we shouldn't let a parent get away with it just because of his assigned role. He stayed sober for 20 years till his death. 25 years ago my mom fell into a FOXhole and no one has seen hide nor hair of the loving, Christian women who raised us since. I cannot countenance her support for Trump just because she plays the role of MOM. I wont.
13
My impression of Maureen's brother Kevin is of a man wearing figurative permanent blinders. He sees what he wants to see, ditto to hear. His association with Judge Kavanaugh is heavily anchored in past nostalgic remembrances of rose colored school days and pedestal boosting encomiums where seeming strength of character is a deceptive shield hiding flaws that were brought up as troubling possibilities at Kavanaugh's recent chaotic hearings.
This is one of Ms. Dowd's best pieces. It precisely shows where our country is at right now. Families and friends are being torn asunder by the human wrecking ball who occupies The White House. It's not only Red and Blue States ; the divisions are even more insidious than that. Trump's method, or whatever name you want to call it, has burrowed its way into the fabric of the daily life of each individual. It's an American Tragedy.
18
You either try to live up to principles and moral values or you do not. You either support people who espouse principles and moral values or you do not. When you decide to tell the truth when it is convenient, or have moral values when it suits your purpose, you have sold out your self respect and somewhere down the line you are going to have to pay for it.
18
This is a wonderful column. We can all identify with the conflicts about politics that can poison family relations.
Brother Kevin though does seem to have a true grip on what is most important in life.
"But politics should not be the determining factor in your life, high up on your emotional scale. You should realize that family always is more important. I always used to teach my kids growing up, when they’d have fights, I said, ‘Just remember, when you really need somebody, the only one that’s going to be compelled to run toward you is your family, not your friends.’”
But unfortunately, reading many of the comments here it is dismayingly apparent that that point was totally lost.
6
Ms. Dowd,
Now that is a beautiful and profound column! Thank you and I fervently hope our anger and divisions will be subsumed to our pride in being Americans.
5
I almost commented when this first came out, but I needed time to process. To me the pain expressed and the feelings of regret and loss are real, and beautifully presented. Most of us can easily empathize because of our own family situations. However there is something here that doesn’t add up. An undercurrent of denial and willful omissions of facts and reason throughout.
For just two examples:
The Kavanaugh “investigation” was a predetermined sham. Multiple and credible accounts of his behavior were available for anyone willing to look.
The president and those in his inner circle have committed multiple illegal and possibly treasonous acts. Also information we are all surrounded by.
Supporting any of this is unAmerican and unacceptable.
Sorry, I’m not buying it.
19
Thank you Maureen for your heartfelt disclosure of a family saga so common these days. I too struggle with feeling disconnected from a son and some close friends on the political front. It is so sad that we cannot have a rational debate about political differences in this era of trump is and that is because the narrative has become so insulting and personalized due to Trump’s vulgarity and lack of civility. It permeates our country’s political discourse unfortunately.
I grew up in Italy during the Second World War and my whole family was involved in The Resistance and saving the few Jews who managed to escape. So political discourse is in my blood and I have always enjoyed a political debate with my parents and grand parents who although more conservative than myself were civil and intelligent in their discussions with me and my friends. I am grateful that I experienced that but I miss it here in America.
14
I believe principles matter and we looked the other way instead of standing up.
5
As a latecomer to this column, I have little to add, except this:
If the occupant of the White House were a Democrat whose ideology I shared, but whose authoritarianism and contempt for other individuals and for institutions including government and democratic norms were beyond the pale; and who made no secret of his support and envy for the most unsavory of dictators; and who were a demonstrated lair and cheat; I would do more than wince. I would urge the party I identify with to rid itself of his leadership, especially if it had full control of Congress. No ifs or buts.
No agenda is worth having a scoundrel as as the nation's chief executive and C-in-C. I can think of no other occupant of his office who packed so many poisonous attributes into one person.
42
@mancuroc
That person would go nowhere in today's Democratic Party.
2
Maureen Dowd is right to "worry that it will be a long time before we can talk across our jangly, angry chasms." But those chasms are not without precedent. In 1968 Robert Kennedy stated that to be engaged in social change in a time when divisions are deep and inequities profound, that IS the United States. Fifty years on it remains a call to action.
Kennedy understood--and himself experienced--the process by which tribal defensiveness in the face of criticism could "break out of the chrysalis" of inaction through righteous anger, morphing from reactionary rage to constructive outrage. He implored people living in comfort and convenience--"Nothing in excess!"-- to identify with the suffering of fellow Americans, to make up for their privilege by doing something to lessen that suffering. They should see opportunities for responsibility and service, compassion and sacrifice as the only excuse for their existence, some kind of redemption.
That so many social issues of 1968--racism, violence, economic and social inequity, abuse of women--persist in 2018 testifies to the vibrant urgency of Robert Kennedy's example, a visceral embrace of those with little and a confrontational challenge to those with much. That the rationales of inclusion, fairness and decency are the tenets that underpin today's progressive agenda recalls Kennedy's abiding commitment to justice for all. There is no sounder starting point for dialogue across angry chasms.
9
The alienation with my family started with Dubya. I just cannot be comfortable around people with a world view that I despise.
22
I can't imagine anyone who'd want Trump as a friend, certainly not as an exemplar. As a tool - yes. And these are the most dangerous: The Any Means to a Glorious End Crowd, The Shining City on the Hill Bunch. Whether right or left (but they're mostly right), they make me nervous. And when they reach for tools like Trump, especially like Tump, I don't sleep easy.
15
"...it seems that Donald Trump’s genius for hate and division has driven us all into a canyon that we won’t easily be able to climb out of."
The Democrats have fostered a policy of hate and division for decades. They have played identity politics since the 60's and 70's, attacking white people in general, and white males in particular. And the Dems seem to harbor a special hatred for women and minorities who disagree with them on abortion, illegal immigration, etc. The Democrats have cultivated victim status for as many groups of people as they can, in an effort to build their angry coalition. Now they flood the country with illegal immigrants in a transparent effort to minoritize white people in order to try to gain permanent political power, dividing the country further, and risking civil conflict.
The Democrats' policies and philosophy of divisiveness, intolerance and hatred for those who disagree with them are the reason Trump left the Democrats and got elected. And with the wave of angry, anarchist, left wing Democrats who are about to take over the House of Representatives, the Democrats have probably assured Trump's re-election.
3
What a load of nonsense, your take on things reminds me of trump and how he sees things, meaning the direct opposite of reality , of truth !
16
@dgbu
Oh please.
I live in the South.
The Republicans are at fault starting with the Southern Strategy to appeal to the segregationist George Wallace voters.
Then came Reagan's dog whistle politics of "welfare queens" and States Rights.
Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh put the politics of divide into full gear.
Add Fox News to that a few years later.
With Obama, Republicans gave us the Tea Party, birtherism, and the support of the Confederate flag.
And you vote for Republicans who then cut taxes for the rich and run up the deficit.
Then try to cut Social Security and Medicare.
Ryan and McConnell are already talking about those cuts. Again.
All so the billionaire class can have more billions they will never even spend.
The billionaire class is laughing all the way to the bank. Literally.
16
@dgbu Your grasp of history is rather limited. Identity politics began as a 19th century phenomenon among the Southern White aristocrats, who rejected Jefferson and the
values expressed in the Declaration of Independence. After the defeat of Confederacy another identity was created centered around a myth, The Lost Cause, which argued that slavery was a benign institution, that the North invaded the South, and that slavery was not the cause of the war. This identity became imbedded in popular culture in films such as Birth of A Nation and Gone With The Wind. This identity was on full display during the debates over the Civil Rights Acts of the sixties, when led by Strom Thurmond led his southern colleagues in a filibuster, broken only Dirksen and a handful of other Republicans joined liberal Democrats to end the delay. This Southern white identity is on full display today in the Mississippi senatorial race in which the conservative candidate once proposed naming a state highway after Jefferson Davis. What kind of person would name a highway after a traitor? Of course, she finds kindred people in the Georgia legislature that named a federally funded bridge after Eugene Talmadge, surely as vicious a governor as George Wallace ever was, who at least spent his final days repudiating his policies and, in fact, deploring his former identity.
4
There is no explaining the likes of your brother to those of use who see trump for what he is. This is not merely offering perceptions from different points of view. You write your brother acknowledges the 'craziness' and just hopes it will end soon, or he will stop saying those out loud. But thats not reasonable disagreement is it? Its willful blindness because there are other things your brother and his family want more than others - I'm guessing the end to a woman right to choose is high on the list because of his comments about judges.
This America is no longer divided over issues like womens rights - because in that quest a large segment is willing to cede almost all other rights of our democracy, for trump is a autocrat or worse in the making by undermining a Nations faith in every single institution. This is not a difference like the Iraq war and your brother - W believed in the Country as a beacon of freedom flawed tho it may be and we all disagreed with how to be that. trump believes that its his private company - just read his 'message' to the troops yesterday.
We are living in the Matrix and your brother refuses to see outside it.
He will always be your brother and you should love him for that. But he will also be one of those the enabled the fall of democracy and for that he and those like him, should never be forgiven.
The bitter white man is losing his place in line, not his freedom, to keep that place he will willingly take aways all our freedoms.
16
good luck with your brother. if i hear one more trump supporter say they "focus on the good things he doe"s? they will probably have to lock me up.
11
Kind of ironic that Trump, the great appointee of judges to the Supreme Court, is attacking John Roberts. Don the Con has no principles whatsoever much less an understanding of the three branches of government.
12
Maureen's brothers--Kevin and Michael--embody the morally blind, hopelessly idealistic sentimentality that forces republicans into this ethical cul-de-sac where they just cannot accept the idea that the heroes who come out of their social and political class could possibly be capable of evil. Kavanaugh was one of these heroes. Republicans find themselves in the same ethical cul-de-sac when it somes to the nauseating conduct of Donald Trump. So they rationalize, they hem, haw and in the end resort to outright dissembling just to preserve that class sentimentality even though in their hearts they know Trump comes out of a class that is notorious for its venality and dishonesty.
21
Maureen, your family is willing to tolerate Trump's racism because they want conservative justices on the SCOTUS. They are not good people.
25
Wow. She is confident that the world of white patriarchy and colonialism is over. If only.
7
How wonderful, how delightful! Maureen is guilty for many things--such as, loving classical music, playing 'scrabble'--and knowing the difference between 'nauseous' and 'nauseated'.... criminal activity, perhaps--she should be put into prison, for rejecting John Wayne's America which is rotting away, as if some kind of disgustinging, degenerate vampire has bitten it Can the US endure? Should it?
Perhaps, a dragon from Hades has come and is chewing the nation up, spitting the remnants out to fecundate a newer soil, struggling to be born.
2
Good column, Mo but ...
"it seems that Donald Trump’s genius for hate and division has driven us all into a canyon that we won’t easily be able to climb out of."
No, Mo -- you've driven yourself into that "canyon". You and your like-minded "liberals" (really "radicals") have demonized folks who don't buy silliness (like Obama's putative "wisdom").
One of these days you may realize the rest of your family had it right all along. That's if you ever grow up.
1
Sadly, conservatives are never viewed well by history. We progressives are on the proper side of the arc of history and it’s inexorable bend toward justice, and you are not.
3
To paraphrase a book title: What' the Matter With Kevin?
6
Great column! I have different differences with my siblings but the end result is similar. And the sentiments about being stuck in our angry canyons resonates strongly with me. I also yearn for more of a sense of community and family, with the human family as well as my own. Thanks, Maureen.
6
I understand the impulse to maintain family bonds at all cost. But:
1) looking at my own adolescence, I know that acting like the responsible grownup in public can be a cover for the out of control thoughts and behavior going on in private. I was a problem drinker and drugger who acted accordingly when i wasn't getting straight As. As others note, ther was plenty of testimony that Kavanuagh's actions weren't always responsible and caring.
2) There has to be a line past which family bonds cannot be maintained. What would Dowd's brother have to overlook that Trump has not yet done that would be that line? I fear we may yet find out.
8
I admire you and your brother. It’s a difficult line to walk, but important. I’m sure there have been many deathbed regrets related to family estrangement by politics.
2
After 240 years what have we Americans become? To have a Trump arrive on the scene at this late date to debase the country’s heritage is more than depressing.
As an expatriate I’m embarrassed for my country although my neighbors from all over Europe are too kind to criticize America to my face.
When I left the United States in 2003 over the Bush wars, I never thought I would not return. But now it’s fifteen years since I have set foot in America and there is nothing that draws me back.
13
There seems to be some polarizing political views within the well connected Dowds extended family and at first blush it seems as if there is little in common.
But for all their brilliance, they share a lack of introspection bordering on denial.
There's an old (and corny) joke, which goes, "Q: What is 'Denial'? A: It's a river in Egypt."
There is a phenomena known to scientists where there is an absolute denial about the circumstances of ones body. It was written about by the neurologist Oliver Sacks.
He describes a case where a patient had their arm amputated and would not accept it. When asked to lift something with the missing arm, he would find all sorts of excuses for saying he had a need to lift it with the other arm.
We see similar characteristics with cases of anorexia where the person despite being little more than skin and bones sees themselves as being over-weight.
For all their brilliance the Dowds have difficulty challenging their own assumptions, be it from the left or the right.
But thanks for the beauty in your ode to Thanksgiving and family. Please keep it and your chin up!
5
The Bard can help us here: "To thine ownself be true, and it will follow as the day the night, thou can'st be false to any man."
Pause for a moment of peace, Ms. Dowd and reflect on this maxim from Merton: "If there will be peace in the world, peace must begin with me." Loosely translated, it means blaming Trump is like blaming Clinton is like blaming Kevin and etc ad ennui.....doing so is place oneself in a chasm deep.
Listen to one another. Love one another. Find peace with each other. Kevin can no more think like you than you can think like him. Accept it. Love each other anyway. Prize accord where you can find it and accept discord for what it is: a tone we cannot hear.
5
The weight must be immense on you connected and consequential people! But, my, how you can drop names!
4
An incredible and honest column as usual Ms. Dowd - you are superb! My wish for you is that you continue to get along with you brother and sister in spite of the different views you siblings share. Continue writing!
1
Keep the dialogue going, Ms. Dowd. You’re doing great!
2
An sensitive, intelligent and conflicted essay Maureen. Thank you. An now let me give you a politically incorrect joke that I hope you and your family can enjoy along as have my Irish friends and family. "What do an Irishman and a computer have in common? You have to punch the information into both of them."
Happy Thanksgiving!
4
Full marks to Maureen for attempting to help us understand how the present situation makes it almost impossible to reconcile our various friendships. For sure much of the President's "stuff" is taken out of context, he's the President what did he expect? And while I don't agree with his current thinking on immigration, the economy and just about everything else these are after all just GOP policies.
What I will never forgive Trump is his denial of climate change and abandonment of any attempt to correct a situation that will be hell on earth for our children's children.
2
The good economy is thanks to Trump and the GOP?? Might I suggest you google “US economy 10 years graph”. Please notice the steady upward trajectory through the Obama years. The last two years are, primarily, a continuation of the previous administration’s work. Most improvement behind that is simply the destruction by Trump of any regulations that protected us, the community, from the avarice of the corporations.
- Best
1
Maureen, you really nailed it this week. That is a beautiful story that weaves in family and the political state of our country perfectly. The healing of family conflicts is an important topic, especially where politics seems to have reached the height of division. I think we are turning a corner, and I believe people of all political persuasions are getting tired of Trump, and his one trick pony act of hate and divisiveness. In the end, we all long for the time when people split tickets and voted for the best person and were able to have respectful debates among family and friends. Women, minorities and veterans are becoming more and more active in the political process and they are hard to demonize. Good is winning out over evil.
2
Listen. We will never know the depths of Trump's deceptions until he is out of office. On the surface he's as transparent as cellophane. He can't keep away from the cameras and the microphones, so he always talking and blurting out sometimes truths and oftentimes lies. When someone remarks that 'he was taken out of context', I want to shout 'but those were his exact words'.
I liken this situation we are in to when a loved one is stricken with a terminal illness. We have no recourse but to ride it out until its final outcome. We wring our hands, some of us pray, some of us get angry, some of us vote, but we have no power to stop its dreaded progression. The situation is in the hands of the doctors/Congress.
Many of us have witnessed or participated in self-serving/destructive behavior. Much of its' harm affects a small circle. Trump's behavior affects our country, democracy as we were taught it to be and the world. I ask myself, 'why don't his supporters see this'? The answer is, I believe, too terrible to contemplate.
10
@Rosalie Rinaldi yes. i had a supporter complain that an article was biased because it made "held trump responsible for his words".
3
We have a Kevin in our family. Earlier this year I asked him which of the Ten Commandments was optional, pointing out to him that trump had violated all but one (this was before trump ratified the killing of a Washington Post Journalist). He and his family did not show up to the family Thanksgiving Dinner this year.
31
It bears repeating over and over and over again, there is a rank hypocrisy at the heart of Catholics who oppose abortion and birth control for others, while apparently more than 90 percent of American Catholics use birth control at some point during their married lives, and I'm not referring to the rhythm method.
Those same Catholics who wink at the birth control provision of their patriarchal church still want to appoint Supreme Court justices who are Catholic in the majority and who are male and who will vote in favor of "religious freedom," a disguised way of saying that women should be denied contraceptive services and defined by their having babies every post-partum moment their bodies are able to conceive, whether those women are religious or true Catholic believers or winking at the Pope.
Again and again I would say if you don't like abortion, don't have one. If you don't believe in contraception or planning parenthood, have at it without protection, zygotes galore. Just leave my woman's body out of it, keep your Catholic hands off my womb.
And finally, my reading on Kavanaugh, the goody two shoes at the elite school, was that he was conflicted about his goodiness and that he got roaring drunk on occasion to impress his fellow man boys and that it got out of hand with Miss Blasey, and that he doesn't "remember" it because such an episode is out of keeping with his self image as an altar boy with no sin, only an earnest striving to out achieve.
26
I admire your strength and courage in how you deal with your family, Maureen. I find that my tolerance for Trump and trumpists has expired. Perhaps the straw that broke the camel's back is the new summons issued to Comey and Lynch to again thrash Hillary over the her emails when the real story now is Ivanka and hers (and honestly, in the big picture, so what?). Or maybe that "straw" was the disgraceful Mitch McConnell pocketing Merrick Garland's nomination. Maybe it was Trump sending soldiers to the Mexican border, more of them than we have in Afghanistan, both being places they should not be. Or his racism. Or his perpetual denial of actual facts. There are so many events, from embarrassing to disgraceful, happening almost daily, that I can't really remember which one(s) have turned me partisan in a way I would never have believed I could become. I no longer find myself able to contain my disgust with anyone who can support or even tolerate Trump and his sycophants and supporters. Maybe a few more columns like this would help pull me back from the edge. Please try.
PS - I went to an elite college and can attest that both excellence and Animal House type behavior can coexist astonishingly well; the former does not excuse the latter.
16
Trump is the symptom, not the problem.
The problem is all the people who voted for Trump.
The problem has been in the making for 35 years, going back to Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh. And then they added Fox News.
As far as abortion, give women birth control and reduce abortion by 90%.
Evangelicals use birth control.
Catholics use birth control including the Kavanaugh family.
I would bet everyone in Dowd's brothers' families uses birth control.
15
Beautiful job Maureen, I hope you have many happy Thanksgivings and thanks for your honesty. It makes me trust.
2
Trump is all about pretense. Kevin buys the lies that fit his political bent and pretends to be appalled when Trump's pretense is exposed.
11
How about reprinting the column which you allowed Kevin to write after Trump's election. Nothing as changed Kevin's view of Trump-- not the lying, thievery and abandoning of democratic principles by Trump. Please, no more columns about a white supremacist who hide under the conservative label.
13
People like Kevin who are willing to endure a vulgar, petty, mean, dishonest, ignorant, dangerous bully who exhibits genuine signs of mental impairment just so they can get a couple of SCOTUS picks and tax cuts are unpatriotic and selfish.
25
I thank Maureen Dowd for this personal and wonderful column. AND I am moved to comment on her brother's remark ,“If you (Maureen) did an unfair hatchet job on him, I’d be very upset,” Kevin said of Kavanaugh. “But politics should not be the determining factor in your life, high up on your emotional scale. You should realize that family always is more important." Later in the column, Maureen mentions tight knit Irish Catholic communities. Well, I was a sixth grade Catholic school girl of mostly Irish descent when my life was demolished within such a community following some sexual antics by older boys. I say "boys" plural because often, as Professor Blasey Ford remembered, when one guy is groping, or worse, one of two more are laughing or out there wanting to try their luck themselves. It was in tight knit Irish Catholic communities in Ireland and here in the NE USA, that, until the 1960's, penitential, medieval, "Magdalene" facilities existed behind walls in the same cities as good Catholic high schools and colleges. To Kevin I'll quote Tip O'Neill: "All politics is local." Politics, especially gender politics, determines which individuals and families get to remain mentally, emotionally and physically intact. Politics starts in families within the larger sphere of hierarchical religious, ideological and socioeconomic political thought. I try not to judge or label others, still, we must keep talking.
8
Mo, did you discuss with Kevin Trump’s sucking up to and love of autocrats and destroying loyal allies built over decades of friendship?
Picking an unnecessary fight with China over trade? Building a ridiculous wall, which everyone knows is asinine.? (Immigrants coming over the Wall are Catholics, isn’t that a good thing in his mind?)
How about Kav’s judicial temperament, on display at this hearing, not just women he crossed paths with? His own words hurt him. I was in the FFFF club, for about one year in my teens. Then you grow up.
These actions have been analyzed by far smarter people than me and conclude this is a Russian agenda. Money laundering through Deutsche Bank and buying over inflated-priced buildings in NY will eventually catch up to you.
Step away from your family bonds and see a middle aged guy, steeped in dogma and prejudice all his life. You have no cause to apologize for challenging ignorance.
BTW, Georgetown Prep, per my children’s observations (NCS and St Andrews), is a bastion of smug self-entitlement that spawns Kavanaughs every year.
13
Very good column. Vulnerable in all the best ways.
The politics of Trumpism is in many ways the politics of a certain kind of religion. The voting right (as opposed to the moneyed right, which has its own reason for being) is comprised of many people from conservative religious groups, the Catholics among them. Catholicism has always been deeply misogynistic, hierarchical, science skeptical, authoritarian, and obedience oriented. That was the glue that held the Irish in place - and the priests in power - for centuries.
Those qualities are part of Trump's appeal for conservative Catholics and evangelicals. They may couch support in terms of immigration or deregulation but at heart they are comforted by authoritarian leaders. Deeply religious people may believe they are spiritual, but they are also averse to change and introspection. It is uncomfortable to live in a world that is unpredictable - and the modern world is nothing if not unpredictable - and they want predictable at almost any price. Trump makes them feel like there is someone in control, even if that is an illusion for the man cannot even control himself. Let's just say that "there are none so blind as those who will not see."
As for the coach, I guess Kevin never saw his "good boy" Kavanaugh stumbling drunk. There are two Kavanaughs: the adapted child who performs perfectly for adults, and the rebellious one who does as he pleases when no authority is looking. Sort of like the priests themselves.
19
White patriarchy is over? Have you seen a group photo of the U.S. Senate lately?
Great column, for anyone remotely involved in politics today, you can almost be assured that they also have these conflicts and issues within their families. I do, and most folks I know do.
10
I envy you the closeness of your family. Thank you for this heartfelt and personal column.
1
Ms. Dowd's article made me realize just how far out of the mainstream our family is.
A mess of cognac sniffing, moonshine sipping, beer drinking blue collars, techies, and professionals, who after sitting around the holiday table discussing, often heatedly, nearly every subject from religion, politics and Bach to Trump, pitch in, wash the dishes and after divvying up the leftovers and multiple rounds of hugs and kisses head for home elated to be alive.
10
I wonder why Ms Dowd and so many of those who share her views feel obligated to raise political issues with their family members that they know are going to cause personal rifts. Perhaps it is because those views form a central part of who they are and they feel compelled to "clear the air" with those close to them.
But there are many others who are able to separate their opinions, political and otherwise, from their self-identity. They can live with differing views and they are happier for it. I get the impression that Ms Dowd's brother Kevin is closer to that state than she is. Perhaps she could learn from him.
3
@ERP
When Trump goes on television and supports neo-Nazis (who also support him), and my sisters and brothers vociferously support Trump, it is impossible to separate "self-identities" from politics. My Jewish wife and I have a hard time saying "You support Nazis, but, hey, you're my sister and I love you."
Trump is a hateful man and I question the morality of his supporters... including my family and formerly good friends.
16
@NJNative
There are many many of us out here who are painted into that same sad corner. Having to witness/endure friends and family supporting Trump when I myself am in a perrenial state of "how could you?" I've been told point blank that "I don't care what Trump says, as long as he gets 'stuff' done"
Well, the 'stuff' that I'm seeing I'm not liking.
5
this is a beautiful piece written straight from maureen dowd's heart. it was important to me because of the insights into myself that her writing brought.
4
You're stuck with him, Maureen, but I think I speak for most of your readers when I say that I positively deplore your brother Kevin. If he was my friend he would be my ex-friend now. Anyone who can look at this freak show "presidency" without disgust has earned OUR disgust.
19
@Mike Kaplan Thank you so much for expressing how I feel. I cannot rid myself of the distaste and disgust I feel for dear brother Kevin.
5
ms. dowd: this is your best work in years, coming from a place of vulnerability, rather than pseudo-intellectual elitism. your readers offer you compassion, a gift it seems many in your family lack. you are right that we are on the brink of another civil war, fomented by trump and his neo-confederate minions. when the conflagration burns our national house, we will all have to make the searing choice and pick a side. there will be blood; there will be senseless deaths; there will be grief for generations. we must all choose, and there is only one right choice.
8
I have not stopped thinking about this column. If Maureen Dowd were a man, I do not think her family would so easily condemn her politics, especially her writing skill. Even if Dr. Ford is mistaken, it was clear that other women and men had stories about Kavanaugh's alcohol issues, as well as his easy lying and his disegard for women's rights; not to mention his bias against Democrats. The fact is, Ms. Dowd is experiencing what many of us have had to deal with over the past two years. If you're an intelligent women who does not support the white male power structure of the Republican Party then some of those men and the women who support them dismiss you and threaten their "love." Let them go. They don't love you. They love themselves and the structure that allows them to feel good about themselves. It's sad for those of us who truly love them, but it's dishonest to think they actually love you.
590
@Donna
Well stated.
30
I don’t think this piece is about Ms. Dowd’s brother threatening his love. It is simply and also very much not simply, a deeply sad, and very moving account of the author’s own experience, and the pain of division.
She is not being didactic. She is not writing about Kavanaugh. She is writing about America, and she is simply (and not at all simply) SHOWING her pain.
That is what a great writer does; and for me the point is that, by sharing her own very personal experience with the pain of division, we might all stop to assess our own situations and divisions and somehow, perhaps, look one another in the eyes with compassion.
That is how we heal.
57
@Donna
Agreed. This is possibly a piece about the very different types of relationships men have with other men versus their relationships with women.
Kavanaugh was a great guy to the bros and more aggressive with the girls. Fits perfectly into the jock mold.
Maureen's brothers love her as a sister but don't respect her as a reporter.
35
I wonder....Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama were to speak or behave in the way that Donald Trump does, would brother Kevin "wince and simply wait for the crazy periods to pass"?
1046
@rancecool. It sounds like Kevin is just another one of those people who cannot admit that he was wrong in supporting Trump. Certainly he knows the "crazy periods" are not passing, but he denies it. Someday, perhaps as he nears the end of his own life, Kevin will admit to himself he was wrong, but it will probably be far too late for the US and for his family. Remember you family, Kevin? They're the ones who will inherit your mistakes.
52
@rancecool
Actually Dowd stated so we are nor becoming a nation tolerating crazy people in power not only on us . on world.
@rancecool I wonder too. Thank you for calling out the 'family thing'and previous writers stating that maybe if Maureen were male the contempt would lesson. Wow. Glad my family loves dignity and transparency and wait for Kavanaugh to have one beer too many. as 'sweet and kind' as he is.
7
What screams attention in this article is the "out of context" defense. Trump gets asked a question and he gives and outrageous answer. Or, even more starkly, how can one's Twitter tweets be out of context? Direct quotes from the President are not out of context. Next Kevin will be saying there was no Russian meddling in the election because no one took the voters hand and moved it in the ballot box, another favorite Republican Trump defense, which makes no sense, but which is so absurd that one almost does not know how to answer.
14
And I cried after reading this! I want our country back and that won't happen until Donald Trump is long gone.
8
Your column nails a sad but fascinating dynamic that seems to be pervasive in this country. The Republicans can disparage, ridicule and mock Democrats endlessly and somehow that is fine. Yet as soon as a critical comment is leveled at their own, they rage. Not only is the comment made unfair, unwarranted and "fake," so too is the source. At the extreme, families are split or even bullets fired.
As an optimist, I would like to believe that "this too shall pass." As a realist, I conclude that as long as the fomenter-in-chief remains in office, things will only further deteriorate.
22
@Tom Q Yes. Yes. Yes.
1
@Tom Q, yes, Trump must be gone, but as I have wanted to come in on so many of these posts, a long period of reeducation of trumpists wmust necessarily follow. We may excise Trump, but education is the only way to excise trumpism.
3
This is the type of stellar writing that makes me always renew my Times subscription. Thank you, Ms. Dowd, for a poignant piece.
7
Like Maureen Dowd, I come from an Irish-American family which has been torn apart over the past three years by Trump's campaign and presidency. Surprisingly, it is the faithful Catholic women, like my aunt and mother, who attend Mass daily and say the Rosary, who are most vehement against Trump. I'm proud to join them, along with my poet uncle and agnostic father, in standing against an administration built upon cruelty, scapegoating, amorality in national and international politics, and the creation of an "us vs. them" mentality running deep throughout America. Like Dowd, I must ask how to approach them "them" when "they" are my own brothers, who I share a lifetime of memories with. For the women of my family, dealing with some of the men of our tribe is a difficult balancing act. Especially at Holiday dinner tables.
18
Please don't blame the tribalization of American politics on Trump. He simply walked into a situation that needed a demagogue to exploit and he did it. Hate radio drove one group of Americans to hate everybody else -- including their own family members who happened to disagree with Rush Limbaugh and Co. Trump does not have the intellectual and oratorial ability to persuade people of anything. These folks were waiting for the "right" leader to arrive and Trump happened to say the right words when he declared his candidacy for president -- label "Mexicans" as rapists and Muslims as terrorists and Obama as a Kenyan. The hate in those words was the magic that drew the millions to support him
31
@Alfred Yul
Well said, this is what people need to understand.
Trump is the symptom, not the problem.
The problem is all the people who voted for Trump.
The problem has been in the making for 35 years, going back to Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh. And then they added Fox News.
As far as abortion, give women birth control and reduce abortion by 90%.
Evangelicals use birth control.
Catholics use birth control including the Kavanaugh family.
I would bet everyone in Dowd's brothers' families use birth control.
12
I understand that we have a range of political opinions within a family and that just out of probability everyone will not have identical views. It particularly hard to remain silent politically during the holidays with family members that support Trump.
Trumps very being has been about denigrating anything in opposition his racist views and fascist envy has made him so from normal.
The right tolerate trump as long as they get what they want. You can’t cherry pick what you like and ignore the rest. Silence may keep the peace at the table today but silence is what will destroy our democracy.
8
Sorry but family is not worth giving up your principles, Maureen.
You feel bad because Michael passed away.
But what Kevin believes in supporting Trump is harming his own children and all the other children at Georgetown Prep and the rest of the younger generations in your family.
Don't you see the harm in not confronting him? In not making it clear that he is ultimately wrong by ignoring Trump's disastrous undemocratic authoritarian presidency in order to get conservative judges on the Supreme Court because he is a Catholic?
Isn't that one thought - that this nation is not a theocracy - worth pressing so that the young in your own family don't continue this unAmerican drive of your Catholic family members?
Wake up, Maureen, if not you, who?
17
Thankful to have such a columnist with such insight. Added this to my list of blessings. Good message for us all.
3
Trump simply brought the problems we are facing to everyone's attention. The problems and feelings were there all along-just no one was discussing them. The longer they stayed below the surface and were not being addressed the worse they became. It is important to get the issues people are concerned about out in the open-even when it makes individuals uneasy and causes distress. This is a very good article and address that process.
8
Dowd what a loving family you are coming from, consider yourself be blessed to have them around you !
How could such a family support such wrong people is beyond me ?
I am for inclusion of all and they are not if they support trump, Brett Kavanaugh ?
On W in spite of all his shortcomings he is a better person than trump. I am also thankful for the generous family I am coming from, they are for generations as liberal as can be.
Lastly I hope you had a great Thanksgiving !
Yesterday, went to grocery superstore, asked the Fish Lay, " you are here every day, arn`t you celebrating " ?
She said...yes I am celebrating that I have a job and have good health !!!
3
She nails it—I fight hard to oppose Trump without becoming dehumanized myself and thereby losing the the values I try to live and fight for.
7
I went to an all-boy Jesuit High School in NYC, graduating during the culturally tumultuous year of 1968. I learned more there than I learned in college. When I read the contents of Kavanaugh's yearbook, I couldn't believe these words came from a publication supported by Jesuits and from students educated by Jesuits. It would not have been allowed in my High School, nor should it have been allowed in any High School, public or private. There have been many failings in our public and private High Schools, and sadly Georgetown Prep, by allowing such writings in a school publication, failed it's students too
25
Dear Ms Dowd
There’s one thing no one has touched on in the comments I saw but that jumps out to me most about your piece, which is no doubt from the heart and moving for both its intellect and emotion. What strikes me is the social and economic privilege it exudes compared to many of white rural Americans who voted our current president. Patching or preventing the divide between you and your brother is the inner circle of the multilayered effort we must all engage in if we are all to be our brothers’ (and sisters’) keepers. I believe many of my friends could have recited the words printed on the Budweiser label but would have no idea about which wine to buy!
3
Thanks for such a heart felt article Ms. Dowd. There is a vital honesty that rings out with every word. You touched all of us, as we try to find a way to relate to many in our own families. There have been times when I've walked away from your writing, finding it catty and even viciously and needlessly unkind. I hope this reality that you are experiencing is more present in your future articles. Less clever turns and more heartfelt reality....
I may actually remember this article the rest of my life. Thanks again....
7
John Wayne was no hero, no model of the "American myth". He refused to serve in WW2 because he was married and had children.
Other actors of the time, some with families, served, even in combat--Robert Montgomery, Clark Gable, Robert Taylor, James Stewart.
As a decorated, combat-disabled veteran, I respect people who serve in the military. I respect people who don't serve, but support peace. I have no respect for people who never serve, but claim to be "patriotic", and "love America", and push for war. Their "patriotism" costs them nothing. They have made no sacrifice. That is the "patriotism" of John Wayne. As a cowboy or soldier, he was always playing "John Wayne".
31
I completely agree! My father served in WWII. My husband's father was a conscientious objector who worked for the Fellowship for Reconciliation. My husband sometimes feels embarrassed by this. I have told him that I admire those who served as well as those who were committed to peace. What I can't abide are "chicken hawks". There are lots of them out there now. I guess John Wayne would have been their cheer leader.
21
Your brother Kevin says "the #MeToo movement “certainly had a legitimate reason for being invented, but they run a terrible risk, just like the feminists did with Bill Clinton when they decided to give him a pass even though what he was accused of would have been death for any other politician."
Well, "any other politician" up until Trump. What Clinton was accused of is, in hindsight, almost quaint compared against what Trump has *bragged* about doing. And those constant lies - Clinton was impeached for lying, and Trump lies a dozen times a day, over and over the same lies.
Politicians are now allowed to "get away" with a whole lot more now that Trump has proved that 'lies don't matter'; infidelity (and hush money payoffs) don't matter; and allegations of sexual assaults (and bragging about them) don't matter. All these things are ignored and forgotten for Trump - which is the new 'standard', until Trump goes to the next lower depth of disgusting... and is forgiven for it, again, by his craven apologists.
Sorry Maureen, I like your columns, but I think your brother Kevin has some serious critical thinking problems. Morals matter, character matters, and honesty matters... no matter what the politics.
38
My cousin in Boston and I have stopped talking to each other since I told her that I thank God every day for having spent the past fifty years outside the United States.
19
This thoughtful column just raised you in my estimation. As painful as your being apart from your family, you are still partially responsible for this country having to endure Trump.
12
Maureen, I know it’s hard, but somebody has got to tell Kevin, please or offend, that you don’t vote for conservative Catholic judges because your priest tells you to, and regardless of Trump’s other depredations.
11
@We'll always have Paris
Based on the priests that I have known, I would hazard a guess that support for trump is much less common among them than among the catholic laity, the abortion issue notwithstanding.
Diversity.
Some get it, some understand it's the way of the future, it's the way of the heart. But some are deprived of the experience of learning to love and understand those who are different, and that deprivation carries through into adulthood and often to death.
Trump is about the second, Maureen, you are about the first.
Hugh
2
Brava.
Thanks for quoting Kevin that family trumps politics.
2
Why lose a friend or a relationship with a family member over a subject that won't change a mind? It is pointless. We have a family rule, no politics or religion at family get-togethers. Why grieve over a willfully ignorant brother or sister? They are still family and there are plenty of discussions to have that strengthen your bond. The majority of Trump voters were simply ignorant. Your brothers and sister didn't or don't have that excuse. They were as willfully ignorant as Sean Hannity as were my mine. I didn't/don't love them any less.
5
It is ironic that so many who support Trump out of principle overlook the fact that he is so blissfully absent of principle.
38
such a breath of fresh air to read something like this in the Times. Extremely well articulated and honest. thankful for it.
5
Maureen, one of your best columns ever. Taking the time to live and talk to each other is the basis for relationships within family, work or society. Modern tech can reduce us to letters or pixels on a screen. How pale compared with life and the wondrous beauty that surrounds us if we take the time.
4
I still find it nearly impossible to accept that anyone who gives Trump a pass or waits for the craziness to abate is someone I want in my life, family or not. Degrading Americans is not what I want for my country. I don't hate those who support Trump. I almost respect those who virulently support him versus those who hold their noses and support him for his SCOTUS picks. What sort of choices does a mean and nasty person make? Who does he choose? I wish America to be far better than that. I cannot bring those who support this ugliness into my life.
19
A very honest column. We don't choose the family we are born into, but we do choose to do a job. You state your opinions honestly, without regard for criticism you might receive from people you work with or read your column and disagree with you, but I can't think of even one column where you seemed to be stretching the truth. You have been critical, comical, snarky to Republicans and Democrats, and you have changed your mind about people.
You are blessed, Maureen, because you have a family who may get upset with you, and you with them, but you keep on honoring them as family members...and vice versa.
Not all families are as honest and forthright. Some lie to each other, some are intolerant and demanding. So take comfort that you have a seat at your family's table.
And keep doing your job.
9
I just don't know how any man of character can accept Mr Trump as being one of them.
29
That statement is so true when it’s changed to ‘any person if character...’. Women who support Trump are just as culpable.
7
This is very well done.
I shed a tear as well, Ms. Dowd, for the soul of your brother and those like him who conveniently and repeatedly turn a blind eye to the worst forms of racism, sexism, greed and corruption for a couple of judges.
He is lucky to have you.
The path to unity - if there is one - will take longer to forge than it took the Colorado River to form the Grand Canyon.
10
For years I have listened to my SC family make the most egregious comments, both racist and political. I've watched them vote against their own best interests time and again. Apparently, logic cannot compete with God in this respect, and those who claim to be Christians focus more on Old Testament laws than they do Jesus' calls to love one another.
The conservative view is simply a view that is resistant to change, but change is inevitable. It's time for Kevin and his ilk to grow up and get a clue. This is not lily-white Christian male America anymore, and really it never was. Stacking the courts with conservative judges is the last gasp of a breed of ancient white men who absolutely refuse to relinquish power and who with their chicanery, have so crippled America that it will take years, if not decades, to amend the damage.
40
Awesome!
Yes. Trump is personal. The way to deal with Trump is to get personal!
2
Ms. Dowd writes a sensitive and thoughtful piece on the importance of political beliefs and the equally, or more important, value of family. Ms. Dowd has learned through experience, and shares her education with us.
But, based on these comments, her wisdom is lost on many.
4
@You can only be amused
Her article moved me to tears.
" ...... just like the feminists did with Bill Clinton when they decided to give him a pass even though what he was accused of would have been death for any other politician."
Does Kevin, who voted for Trump because he is a conservative, didn't want Hillary in the White House and wants a conservative Supreme Court, see the irony here?
6
Conservative judges. For what? Abortion, is that it? For people who generally don't want the government to control any aspect of their lives, they're sure willing to slap it on our bodies. What else? Voting rights? For big believers in democracy and patriotism, they sure don't seem to care about John Roberts's obsession to gut the Voting Rights Act. Don't they want people to vote? Is it health care? The boot strap thing? Don't these traditional, religious people know that there will always be people that need lifting up?
None of this makes sense to me. I know you love your brother, Maureen, and I'm glad you're taking care. But he infuriates me. His mind-bending rationalizations are horrifying.
38
Many commenters have already addressed the fallacy of Brother Kevin opining that the end justifies the means. And why should we care about the political opinions of a high school basketball coach anyways?
But I'll comment on the blood is thicker than water sentiment. Some notion of the Ten Commandment's "honor thy father and mother" is perhaps necessary so things don't unravel completely when kids are rebellious teenagers prone to challenging parental authority. After that, it's all hogwash.
How many families have split apart not over politics, but over who inherits what when a parent dies? How many conservative parents disowned their child when they came out as gay? (Ask the homeless teens roaming Salt Lake City about that topic.) How many excommunicated their kids when their politics were too liberal, or when they married out of the preferred religion or chose a non-white spouse? Deadbeat dads who could impregnate just fine but didn't feel compelled to support their children and the new moms? Please.
This is cultural brainwashing from the party of purported "family values." We all know friends that would be there for us through thick and thin, and we all know stories of family members that weren't there when stuff hit the fan.
27
Maureen, I've been reading your stories for years and love them. I think this may be one of your best. Thank you
8
Normally I avoid Maureen Dowd's articles, but I could see at a glance that this was different. I'm glad she used her writing talent to discuss the personal and painful problems within families. The surprising shatter of relationships long close with the same viewpoints, driven inexplicably and sharply apart by events far from the core of the family.
There have always been disagreements between friends and family. But I have never seen such strong and dangerous divisions ever before, on so many things.
8
If we don’t put politics first, how are we going to defend our nation’s values that this President clearly has no reverence for? To disagree with your siblings is the biggest love of all.
13
Why has politics taken over our lives to the point where siblings become estranged? Taking political sides is not some sort of moral imperative, because politicians are failures and political parties are failed institutions. Why would anyone take sides in such an ugly spectacle?
@David Ricardo. There is no more moral imperative than participating in politics because “ politics” is how we organize our relationships with each other. Of course politics will disrupt personal relationships and it should; each of us has the moral responsibility to consider and endorse or reject the values and actions of our government.
4
Thank you Ms. Dowd.
What saddens me is that your brother’s offspring support Trump. You, are on the right side of history.
6
A thoughtful, heartfelt, beautifully written piece. Maureen without snark - bravo!
5
Uh, there was one problem with Wayne. He couldn't act. His delivery was an unconvincing monotone.
3
In the Bible, Jesus makes it plain that his loyalty is first to his family of choice, those with whom he shares values. I hope Ms. Dowd is correct that the world of white patriarchy is over, but her family of origin is clearly determined to make her wrong. I cannot simply agree to disagree with anti-democratic conservatives who excuse Trump's amorality so that they can pack the courts with anti-abortion judges and justices who will hand control of women's bodies to men.
12
This is the best Maureen Dowd column I have ever read. It puts aside the snark for a genuinely emotional and thoughtful consideration of how politics can tear families apart in this miserable time.
The late 1960s and early 1970s with their generation gap were bad enough — those too young to remember it can see a sitcom version in "All in the Family" — but it is incredible how Trump has weaponized everything in this country. The Washington Post website just excerpted comments from readers on Thanksgiving holidays in the Trump era. One woman told of how her family shunned her when they learned she voted for Hillary and asked how anyone can consider someone Trump more important than family.
I feel sorrow for what happened between Maureen and Michael and how it never had a chance to heal before Michael's death, and how the same sort of chasm threatens to open between Maureen and Kevin. I am fortunate not to have any Trumpophiles in my family, but I have tried to get the ones I know to open up about why and how they can support him. It's hard to get a rational answer. The man's hypnotic power is little short of satanic.
But one day he will be gone. May it not be too late for the Maureens and Kevins all over America to recover from this insanity.
4
excellent opinion, on the mark, a realization of what this president has done, a demagogue that must be contained, i believe the world has had enough of this president.
1
Maureen, I want you to know that every Thanksgiving I look forward to reading Kevin's column. I do not agree with him politically, but he is a terrific writer with a barbed sense of humor. And it is clear there is love in the family.
But I challenge Kevin on two fronts. 1) Prof. Ford had no facts. Wrong. There was one very important fact: She knew Brett Kavanaugh. And she knew Mark Judge.
2) Kevin feels Georgetown Prep has been treated unfairly. I disagree. I think the hard drinking party culture that Kavanaugh and his crew were part of is credible. That culture went way beyond Prep, but that is beside the point This might be a moment of reflection for the school, to re-examine what it means to be a "man for others." But I don't see that happening.
In my high school days I was part of a drinking culture, and in another lifetime I might have been right there with Kavanaugh at Beach Week. I know very well what it means to have memory gaps -- blackouts -- concerning events the night before. I found Judge Kavanaugh's blanket assertion that he never blacked out to be -- at best -- disingenuous.
Funny how our biases lead us in different directions. I agree with Kevin that something happened to Christine Blasey, but I find it credible that Brett Kavanaugh was involved. Not attempted rape, but aggressive horseplay by a very drunk and sexually inexperienced 17-year-old who was showing off for his friend.
Michael Caruso, Georgetown Prep Class of 1967
18
Thank you for writing this and signing your name. It’s important.
4
I have such faith that Trump will leave office in utter, abject disgrace that I feel much more forgiving of errant relatives who support him. Trump is the product of a mania -- a temporary insanity -- that will leave many of his supporters aghast at the fact that they supported him once that fetid fever breaks. And when that time comes and I am asked "How did you know how bad he was?" I can simply reply that it was always clear to me but don't feel bad about backing him; he was a talented con artist who fooled a lot of others, too.
Trump's "gift" (also the German word for poison) is the ability to divide people. He has a real talent for this. Once he is gone, we must not let the poison he has injected into out nation, friendships and families to linger. So be magnanimous with your Trump supporting relatives and friends. In a very real way, they are victims of a great con artist. When the con is exposed, a little generosity toward former supporters may go a long way toward healing the divisions Trump has skillfully exploited.
5
Perhaps you are a better, braver woman than I. I do not want Trump supporters in my life. I avoid them. I block them from my Facebook feed. I did well with the Times' quiz on how to talk with people over Thanksgiving. I chose the right approaches. But that's online. In person, I don't want to personally face these divisions. This is what Trump has given to this country. We are all living in a swamp, shore to shore.
I only hope that as you say, this is our culture emerging from a chrysalis, and this is a tough temporary situation. The band-aid that was hiding so much soreness has been ripped off. Will we heal or will we scar?
9
Kevin, like many has been captured by a repressive Catholic Church. It's really simple. When you are taught to believe that the Church is the sole means to reach heaven and God then that Church and its conservative rules must be obeyed. If the Church liberalized it would become extinct. To stay intact the Church must be conservative and repressive. It's not hard to understand.
8
America owes its unprecedented power to its two century spongelike absorption of ambitious individuals arriving daily and fully embodying the very essence of exotic cultures that formerly bloomed in isolation in every corner of the planet. America is where humanity's rubber hits the road. Families like Ms Dowd's are on the philosophical front line. Will America embrace her founding role of being a light unto the world, or will shego dark over irrational fears and the inherent selfishness of the over fed?
4
Most of you reading this, like Kevin and his sister, are not objective about these things. This is not a criticism, but a fact. Yet, it is distressing that so many are either unable or unwilling to recognize just how biased they are.
Blasey Ford seemed more credible than Kavanaugh, but what an injustice to him if she were lying or mistaken! However, the much larger tragedy is the failure of so many to recognize and condemn the toxic personality currently residing in the Oval. I can applaud some of his policy outcomes, but still call for his ouster because I can hold seemingly contradictory ideas in my brain: Evil leaders can sometimes achieve good results. On a personal note, Kevin will need his sister when it all comes crashing down in a year or two.
6
This chasm between family members is beautifully depicted
and the heartfelt incredulity that each member sees issues so very differently, is, in a way a tribute to an inner resiliency, especially yours, as you "hung in there, and searched for understanding." Kudos on that. Disagree with Kevin re: family vs friends. Friends are the new family!
3
Thank you, Maureen, for yet another honest, fearless (but fearful), heart wrenching column. I live this same divide in my own family (with family members at Holton-Arms and G-Town Prep), and yet ... and yet ... one thing we must all share is an allegiance to truth, to facts that can be determined, verified, and used to make meaningful decisions. Trump has eviscerated his credibility on truth, of any kind, and he has viciously attacked those who attempt to hold him accountable to publicly verifiable truths. Thankfully, my family members all recognize this, and it gives me some hope for the future of the Republican party (or whatever party emerges from the wreckage of Trumpism).
7
Dear Ms. Dowd: I want to offer my heartfelt condolences to you for the loss of your brother, Michael, and to thank you for sharing some of what he meant to you. Very moving and poignant. I also want to offer my condolences to you for the loss of your brother Kevin who you have striven hard to stay connected to, in spite of the arrogance and ego he has displayed in the past. I'm glad you got to travel out to Utah (my home state) and hope you'll plan another trip to Bears Ears; ask a retired park ranger to be your guide. And bring the nephews too.
4
Just wanted to share my gratitude for Maureen. This column brought tears to my eyes and deep thought to my mind.
Maureen, I have been reading your columns for about 12 years when I was 19 and hit by a car as a student at NYU and had nothing to do at the hospital so I started reading the paper. Your honesty and bravery have made me look for your columns every week, I read my favorite out loud to my husband.
This personal sharing is profoundly meaningful, thank you for sharing and helping give honest voice to something that is so hard to describe.
I am forever grateful I get the privilege of reading your work.
All the best,
Alex
9
So glad I live in Minnesota among many, many liberals. Also so glad I am an only child right now, of increasingly liberal parents. Proud to be with an equally liberal partner, and have progressive children with progressive partners. Sorry, but I can't deal with people whose "fond memories" of their prep school are deemed more "real" than many other people's memories of binge drinking, endless parties and sexual conquests, not all of them consensual. Denial: not just a river in Egypt. Sorry when it's your family and glad it's not mine.
25
I was staggered to see that the latest opinion polls show that approval of Trump is up and disapproval of him is down, despite the drubbing he got in the mid-terms.
As Winston Churchill observed: “You can always count on the Americans to do the right thing. After they have exhausted every other possibility.”
15
Wonderful article. Thanks, Ms Dowd.
Best part of it, for me, is this quote which is very relevant in this day of "Me Too" and men losing their reputations and jobs based on unproven statements:
"I disagreed with Democrats who said that women should automatically be believed. Think about Rolling Stone and the “Jackie” story it entirely retracted because it was based on a made-up account of gang rape and some of the later Kavanaugh accusers whose stories fell apart. But women have an absolute right not to be disbelieved without further examination."
1
Reading the comments I can’t help but come to the conclusion that Trump haters also hate Trump supporters viewing them as evil. Trump and his supporters, like FDR, welcome their hate. I find it all amusing.
5
Trump's hate-mongering, his disregard for the rule of law, his pathological lying and his embrace of murderous dictators are more than a matter of "style." And no number of conservative justices on the Supreme Court is worth having him in the White House,
23
"I said, ‘Just remember, when you really need somebody, the only one that’s going to be compelled to run toward you is your family, not your friends.’" -- Kevin Dowd
Well, when Kevin's friends really need his help, we know which way Kevin will run. That's about all we need to know.
13
‘........ something happened to her but it wasn’t him.” Your brother, Kevin, much like all of the other “old, white patriarchs”, refuses to ever walk a mile in an assault victims shoes. Yes, in the moment of the attack itself, lots of the little, unimportant facts of the time and surroundings are lost to the terror and fear involved in the feeling of being trapped, but, HIS FACE, no, you never get “confused” or forget HIS FACE - no matter how many years have passed. And, as for his oh so “stellar” reputation, when my attacker died in 2007 and I read his obituary, I almost threw up - military “hero”, lawyer, judge, big man in the community, devout Catholic, loving grandpop, etc., etc. The other point Kevin and all of the other conservatives needs to understand is that the Bill Clinton debacle involved a young woman that was a WILLING participant and, tacky and disgusting as that whole Lewinsky affair was, once again they’re pointing to a “false equivalency” for what they think justifies their continuing support of a world class misogynist. Bah! Happy Thanksgiving Angry Uncle Kevin!
21
Beautifully said.
2
Kevin and Susan Collins both in attempting to be kind to Kavanaugh's accuser state that they believe something happened to her, but not by Kavanaugh. Do they really believe that if someone they knew assulted and attempted to rape them, they would be mistaken about the identity?
21
@jzam
It is just not the sort of thing you forget. Bill tried to rape me. No, wait, it was Bob. Or was it Joe? Come on, nobody believes you forget which guy tried to rape you.
4
Isn't the destruction of women's lives and preying upon the vulnerable the purpose of a Catholic education? Of course Kevin would be proud that Kavanaugh is now on the court.
17
A beautiful, heart-felt column without her usual rancor.
Jim, Wilmette, Il.
1
Ms Dowd,
Your best column ever. No snark or sarcasm, just a genuine narrative of so much that goes on within families and circle of beloved friends.
Your brother Michael sounds like a great older brother. Wish I had known him.
1
The war over what sort of country we want predates Trump. The war is between those who want a New Deal sort of country (with much disagreement on the details) and those who dont. In 1964, the choice was clear and a majority wanted the New Deal sort of country, although many wanted to restrict it to white people as was largely true when it was originally passed.
Now the war is much more even. The anti-New-Deal forces recognize the popularity of New Deal programs and have a long-term strategy -- run up the deficit and the national debt while crusading against government, takers, and taxes, to produce a fiscal emergency that can force, or be sold as forcing, backtracking on New Deal commitments. To protect this long-term strategy, they must disable any reasonable, fact-based discussion of what is going on, and Trump is a master at making such discussions (or any others) impossible.
Conservatives rely on faith (Christianity, libertarianism, or Confederate ideology) and back it with reasoning that persuades only the faithful.
16
After reading this piece, so grateful that no one in my extended family is drinking the Trump Kool Aid. Maybe because entering my 70th decade, I want to spent as little time as possible trying to figure out a Trump supporter...as spending an extended vacation with them...no... time is too short
16
Maureen - My life is not dissimilar to yours. I came from a very Catholic family where a Catholic education was very important, loyalty, community and faith was ingrained. I was in college in the Washington D.C. area when Watergate happened. Few of my classmates were interested in watching Panorama - that noontime news show hosted by Maury Povich -as the Watergate hearings were in full-swing - everyone showed up there - Ellen Drew and all. At the time, I was a history major. Now I think how fortunate I was to be nearby history unfolding. Being 20 or so, I never really worried about my country. I was a Catholic against the Vietnam War - I even met Jane Fonda.My father slapped my face because I was against the Vietnam war. I loved my father but I will never forget the slap. What I know and feel now is that Trump is a very real threat to us - more than a distant war in Vietnam or Afghanistan. It's here and now.
29
Thanks for this painful look at the chasm many families face these days. I think about your brother's focus on the importance of family--on his love for his children--and think about the coming catastrophes due to climate change denial.
One would think that Trump's obstructive policies on reducing carbon emissions, would alone be enough to sour anyone on his Presidency. Being a "conservative" who refuses to delve into critical issues is a recipe for disaster.
13
@Ira Shorr Dear Ira, Let's not forget that the administration of George W. Bush did nothing about climate change / global warming. As a result we "lost" valuable time in dealing with man induced environmental change. Eight valuable years wasted. I hold George W. Bush responsible for destroying the world.
Barack Obama moved us in the right direction and now Donald Trump is moving us back in the wrong direction.
I believe we've moved passed the tipping point and no matter what we do ... we're done for.
4
Excellent piece, I appreciate there is no tidy wrapping up of this relationship...both familial and country-wide. I long ago left my family over politics and many other values. I still feel pain 40+ years later. Ms Dowd has expressed this chasm for many of us. I, too, had tears as I read the last lines.
5
I thought the punchline was going to be Kevin wanting to preserve the public lands that you all found so moving, necessitating jumping well off the destructive Trump train.
One of many upsetting parts of Kavanaugh’s original confirmation hearings was when Ted Cruz and he went (and I paraphrase), “Wink wink smug snarky gonna sell the west to corporations to exploit.”
But, no. Making abortion unsafe and illegal is worth literally the Earth? Because, elite religious single-sex rape-y prep school loyalty?
I guess I don’t understand what your family understands America to be, Maureen. But thank you for sharing. I will think about it.
20
Family gets a free pass to be loved. It's part of the human condition. It is an act of love, a moral imperative, to tell a family member when they are wrong and self destructive.
You did not fail your brother Michael, nor Kevin. You did the right thing.
3
Maureen, as you try to be thoughtful and considerate and kind, your brother Kevin does not try to be any of those things. Over the years, he has sounded like a low-empathy and kind-of mean delusional Neanderthal, not someone who deserves the platform you have generously given to him in the name of family.
John Wayne, like all actors, was pretending to be someone actually doing something. And movies, the American art form, is better at creating myths and delusions than most. We need to be more careful choosing our heroes than we have been.
19
I have been aware of Donald J. Trump in real time starting in the late 1970's. His absence of moral character and his ruthless self serving, narcissistic behavior; from his Casino building days of non payment and lawsuits against workers, contractors and sub contractors, through his racist Central Park Five rantings that called for the death penalty against the innocent African American youths, and through his later, too numerous to list examples of self promotion at other's expense, and further moral and business bankruptcies and lawsuits.
Still, disgusted, I understood why people voted for Trump in 2016.
The question several months after he assumed office however was: "How can anyone still support him"? Ignorance, disbelief or simply not caring about his past, combined with intense dislike for Hillary Clinton at election time was one thing, but as POTUS, all Americans had real time access to who he is. How was anyone not revolted by his words and actions? Re: Trump and Racism, at what point is enough, enough?
I was an educational product of Dominican Nuns and Christian Brothers. What did the Jesuits teach the Dowd boys and "Bart" Kavanaugh?
Evangelicals "Christians"?
Thanksgiving?
The turkeys should be eating the American voters.
21
Dear Kevin,
Thank your God that you are white, elite, and financially secure. Thank your God that you have the means to withstand the devastation that your party and your president are waging on those poor tired huddled masses of Americans for whom your party has so much contempt. Thank your God that you possess the moral blinders that allow you to admire a man who lacks basic decency, civility and humanity-a man who can mock the disabled, disparage women, and insult any and all who offend his childish need for approval. Thank your God you can sit in his House on Sunday and pray like a pious man who follows His teachings and not be struck down for the sin of hypocrisy. But mostly, thank your God for a sister whose heart is larger than the combined myocardium of the Republican party, a sister whom your president would prefer to "grab by her (privates)", and exclude from expressing herself in any public forum, a sister who can still struggle to love a brother who can defend the dregs of humanity.
70
Amen, Beth. Said very well.
2
Maureen, your family practices an odd form of Catholicism. It's not progressive versus conservative, or Democrat versus Republican. It's good versus evil. Honesty, courage, compassion - good. Lying, bullying, cheating - bad. Georgetown Prep's curriculum must includes ethics, comparative religious studies, something?
14
Trump's warts and shortomings are visible for all to see. Ill-tempered, xenophobic, loose with the facts, ignorant of American history and the workings of government, ad nauseum. On the other hand, Obama was a suave, smooth talking Nobel Prize winner, who unleashed drone attacks on Pakistani wedding parties, village elder meetinfs and American citizens in Yemen. He also viciously prosecuted whistleblowers, who revealed illegal activities of the government. W was warm. funny, and cuddley, but he lied about WMD's in Iraq and ran a torture program all over the world. Clinton, the silver-tounged liberal Rhodes scholar, quadrupled the prison population, mostly minorities, with the "three strikes and you're out" decree and he endorsed NAFTA, which wiped out American manufacturing.
Can we judge a book by it's cover?
3
@Warren Parsons Only by actions. Take a list of Obama's wrongs and rights by action - put them next to Trump's. No bias here - you have to list ALL of them on both sides and if you need help, ask supporter's and opinion's. Trump's actions will tip the sale on the wrong side. Not entirely sure about how far down Obama's actions will go on the wrong side, but I am sure it won't be as far as Trump's and on the right side, it will be higher.
I don't care about politicians: they're all flawed like the rest of us. But some of them mean better than others.
The other thing is that crediting the actions of an administration (and even the system itself) to one person is a big mistake so it should really be actions that occurred during a person's time in office, some of which may not be causal but that's the box you've started in.
3
Dear Ms Dowd,
I confess that I gave up reading your column a while ago after I got tired of what I saw as your snarky bias regarding Obama. I am glad that I made the exception and read this one. When you write from your heart -and your family is clearly your heart- you are without question one of the most gifted members of the NYT Opinion staff. Thank you for this and Happy Thanksgiving!
5
Maureen you are the reason I read this paper. You got me all teary eyed this Thanksgiving, that I almost had to work, due to the Right wing owners. Just amazing!
Wait until Mueller finally reports, then we will see some right wingers losing their minds.
3
I greatly admire your courage and your ability to shine an excruciatingly personal light on the great divide that is damaging our country. But at the end of the day, your brother Kevin is an enabler. Of Trump. Of vicious, uninformed partisan politics. Of flagrant, repeated, outright hurtful lies. Of sexism. Of assaults on the press. Of assaults on women. Of marginalization of minorities. Of a lack of decency. Of your family's mistreatment of you because they lack your critical thinking skills. And most disturbingly, of Kavanaugh.
20
So many comments on how touching this column is.
I don't see it that way. It reads like an instruction manual for white privilege. No mention of race. Or sexism. Just why does your prep-school raised family love Kavanaugh so much, again?
22
My subscription to NYT is very much a result of Maureen Dowd's wonderful columns which are the first thing I flick to after collecting NYT off the driveway. When I'm expecting the column and for whatever reason it isn't there, the let down is palpable. I find myself fumbling with the sections looking for something else to slake my Dowd thirst and, more often than not, I wander grumpily away from the paper.
Dowd's writing is like music. There is a melody to each column, an exceptional wholeness that carries it forward, despite and beyond the dissonance of hard thoughts and difficult ideas. Like with any great writer, occasionally and often Maureen Dowd leaves you spellbound. Such a gift for us all to have. Thank you NYT and Maureen.
"Of Monuments" is quintessential Dowd. She makes us all belong. Even her brothers.
3
I am a Jew who has endorsed the Palestinian call to boycott Israel until it grants them equal rights. As a result I have become estranged from my religious community. Like Maureen Dowd I have lost a brother too. Thanksgiving dinners and such were not the problem. It was just the fact that they knew I supported BDS that earned their anger. I suppose cut issues break up families in countries and societies across the world.
5
You had me up to John Wayne, that phony Hollywood actor who as never in the armed forces and was named Marion.
7
John Wayne was a drunken lout and draft dodger. He beat and cheated on his wives and girlfriends. And therein lies the problem. Americans havent a clue as to which acts and traits and ideals merit admiration. We believe lies, have lost the ability to confront them.
28
The partisan divide in the US is so bitter because it is stupid and petty. America did not go through the same ideological horrors as Europe did in the last century and the Middle East is going right now. So every superficial disagreement is exaggerated into an apocalyptic chasm. Trump who I abhor is not Hitler. Neither was Bush. The Iraq war was a mistake but not a criminal aggression like the Nazi invasion of Poland or Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait. I am a liberal and a woman and I disbelieved Dr. Ford. I’d rather Kavanaugh did not sit on the Supreme Court but even if he does, he is not like Soviet judges that sent people to the gulag or the contemporary Pakistani judges who sentence people to death for “blasphemy”. Take a deep breath, America. What is required is a little modesty; a little knowledge of history and the ability to put things in perspective. Learn these useful skills and you’ll have a happy and peaceful Thanksgiving.
6
@Mor, history has not been written yet for the last 2 years nor is it known what will happen in the next 2 years.
1
This piece gave me something else to be thankful for - that our family agrees politically. We won't talk politics, if we can avoid it, because we are all so angry at what has happened to our country. When the president praises neo-Nazis and embraces Saudi Arabia no matter what the royal family does because of money, it is a sad day for our country. It is too bad that Kevin Dowd is so shortsighted.
10
Thanks Ms. Doud for your viewpoint. Sounds like your brother
was a great influence to you and others.
Maybe readers will find out anothe team Brock
and Bryson Thompson.
They are kids who have have a foundation for epileptic
children, Helmets 4Helmets.com
Hope all will help, just like your brother.
1
I don't know how to talk to Trumpers. I don't know how to tell them to see him for what he is. Their desire for a simplistic narrative is so great, they'll overlook anything and everything, even the obvious signs of mental incapacity Trump gives us on a daily, hourly basis. Their 'fear of hillary' affliction was so great, they chose idiocy over intelligence, and dropped us all into a stinking hole. I don't know how to talk to these people, so I don't try. I can only vote, and hope the our country regains its balance and stands up and says 'No, we reject this.' If Trumpers feel pushed to the margins, that's too bad.
17
Well done. Again by Maureen. I have seen family splits over current political issues. I consider it really stupid. And, very short sighted. These times will pass. I note that I am not related to Maureen. Although, our ancestors probably spent time scrounging around the same potato fields looking for something to eat.
1
I had a colleague who I thought was very intelligent tell me, if he had a choice in the voting booth between Adolph Hitler and Clinton, he would have had a hard decision. He voted of course for Trump. I’ve often wanted to ask if has any buyers remorse. My fear is that he has none.
If the ability to hold seemingly contradictory ideas in one’s mind simultaneously is a mark of intelligence, as Fitzgerald said, then what is it when a person can hold to a loathsome person or politician and still be an honorable person in society? I think this question deserves real scrutiny. Many people are in that category, and you’re not going to change them at Thanksgiving.
7
@Phaedrus It is called realpolitik and this is how politics should be conducted. I’d never vote for Trump because I disagree with his policies, but if I thought he was doing the right thing for America and the world, I’d vote for him in a heartbeat, all of his well-documented moral shortcoming notwithstanding. Hitler was a fine upstanding man in personal life: a vegetarian, a teetotaler, treated his secretaries well. But anybody who had read “Mein Kampf” would know that Auschwitz was inevitable when they decided to vote for him. What was in Clinton’s political program that is comparable to genocide? Maybe ask your colleague that.
His name was Marion Morrison, and like Trump he had three wives. Trump chose foreign-born, twice; John Wayne chose Hispanic all three times.
6
Maureen,
Your family are descendents of Irish emigrants. They should know firsthand how they were discriminated against by the "blue blood WASPs" who never accepted them as legitimate or equal.
I am sure your late father told you all stories about how stores used to put signed for help wanted and beneath it- Irish Don't Apply.
For your family-in general- to completely forget this history and embrace Trump vile shameful rhetoric against all non-whites, non-Christians is a total disgrace.
20
I’m so sorry for you, Maureen. I don’t know I I could manage a Trump family. My deepest sympathies.
6
Good column. I am fortunate my whole family all conservative think Trump is a pathological liar. Lights went on. This administration is an embarassment to our country. The world thinks we lost the plot. Imagine a President praising the prince in Saudi Arabia who kills people and tortures women in jails but buys arms and then castigates our Chief Justice of the Supreme Court on Thanksgiving morning! It’s nuts. Wake up America. Sally Bott
13
Yes indeed, Trump’s greatest talent is his “genius for hate and division.”
George Wallace pales next to Donald Trump. Where are we when our President is someone I wouldn’t want my children around, someone who would scoff at the idea of being a role model for anything but greed and vindictiveness, someone who lies so much that he even tells lies about his own lies?
Your brother is a good man, Maureen.
How can he compartmentalise all of that goodness for a terrible “leader”
(there is no leader there) - all for the sake of two Supreme Court justices?
I’m thinking of so many of the Psalms here. Read psalm 15, Kevin. I know you know it.
2
Blessings on you, Ms. Dowd, for this moving personal account. Shame on you, Donald Trump, for the division you sow, for breaking so many hearts.
3
beautiful column - thank you.
1
I fear that, for many of Trump’s supporters, they’re coming perilously close to that cliche about Mussolini (and other fascists), “At least he made the trains run on time.”
Exactly what price are these folks willing to pay for “conservative” judges? It’s one thing to vote for and support conservative politicians; continuing to support an irrational, un-American demagogue is another matter altogether.
10
William F Buckley years ago set me thinking about American Catholicism. Your writing does not let me drop the subject. Thank you.
Family is important. I only wonder why the person most worried about breaking the bond between you and your brother is you. Does your brother not care at all about keeping his bond with you?
10
I recall Kevin's comments from Thanksgiving columns in years past and awoke this morning looking forward to his perspective in his own voice, disagree though I might (all respect to your writing, Maureen). I do not wish to put words into the mouths of those whose perspectives I oppose nor judge without understanding (understanding being key). The sad part is seeing the poison of incivility tearing the social fabric even at the family level.
It’s grand that your brother can wait out the craziness in order to get his right wing judge. How nice the world will be for Kevin. How terrible the world will be for women who lose their reproductive rights.
12
It would be useful to learn how Maureen broke out of that family belief system. That family may be “educated “ but they are fools and worse.
8
I am sorry for Ms Dowd's unfortunate relations. I would like to ask all of the all of the people like her brother Kevin what they mean by a "conservative court"
For people who think like her brother, I have to ask them if they think incessant lying is okay and is forcibly taking children away from their parents is okay.
Trump is not someone with poor manners he is a sick criminal.
17
I do not understand how you can write that "the world of white patriarchy and colonialism is now over". How so? It exists every single day.
Re: Trump's genius for hate and divisiveness that has "driven us all into a canyon...": Trump is just riding the wave of white supremacist patriarchy, he did not create it. We've driven ourselves over the cliff. That world of white patriarchy and colonialism that you think died, is every bit alive and rearing it's ugly head. It never went away. Can we talk now about how to dismantle it?
8
"a killer but cleansing the world of things that ‘need killing,’ ....."
Maureen, could you and Kevin ever be in recognition of the profound damage to persons, families, communities that such arrogance propagates? Unarmed urban black people need killing? Wedding parties and children you both will never know who need killing? I fear for the fate of my own children who face a world of people outside the Fox-Republican bubble who rightly regard the American vision championed by Kevin with righteous wrath.
10
Excellent editorial. One point to add - the complicit actions and inaction of Pence, various Cabinet members and Mitch Connell. Trump didn’t dig this hole by himself.
4
Family members are not the only ones who run toward you when you are in danger. In fact, family members are often the ones who put you in danger. Please spare me the family-loves-you-no-matter-what platitudes.
Trump is a horrific person with no integrity, no ethical compass other than the imperative to maximize his own power, and anyone who merely winces at his behavior is deeply morally compromised.
And the church, which teaches that the next life is the most important life, and which claims to be your only ticket there, is the real vampire in your story, Ms. Dowd.
18
Dear Mo,
One of your best columns and I’m not a fan.
Your brother and most Republicans have embraced our “transactional” President. They will overlook murder, absolute destruction of our image worldwide, put children in cages, destroying of our most vital agencies (read The Fifth Risk) to fill two seats (one stolen) on the Supreme Court.
Family is important, but so is your integrity and values. I struggle with trying to rationalize what could be so important that I’d be willing to support a President and party that put power ($$$) over our morality and reputation. Have a nice thanksgiving dinner.
6
There's only two things I agree with in this opinion.
1) Older siblings can teach you a lot of stuff.
2) Utah is beautiful.
Everything else is pretty much wrong in my experience. As an example, Maureen Dowd shouldn't ever write a column with her family in mind. If they don't like what she has to say, they don't have to read the column. It's that simple.
Fortunately, there are no gaping discrepancies in my immediate family's world view. Even if there were though, who cares? I'm not going to change my professional behavior on account of some family member's political grievance. I don't criticize them about their jobs. Giving Ms. Dowd static over her writing is like telling a sibling they're terrible at their job. "Well Bill, I'm no carpenter... but wow! I'd never hire you to do my cabinets." Who does that?
4
I think Kavanaugh and his drunk friend attempted a rape as a joke on a scared little girl, because they were laughing and let her escape. It was similar to Al Franken's joke harassment ( for which there was over-reaction).
Trump lies si much that he and his supporters do not know what is true-it is all a big joke. They care about his results, the courts and tax cut. The ACA repeal was a big charade- it was never going to pass because someone would always stop it at the last chance.
Unfortunately, the corruption of America is hidden by the theatrics of Trumpism and will reqire Democrats to correct it with difficulty and blame.
1
@Andrew Mitchell: No, it was not similar to Al Franken’s joke harassment. Franken did not touch the woman and the photo in question was staged, whereas Kavanaugh was on top of the girl, with his hand over her mouth to prevent her from screaming.
1
Maureen, family and friends are far more important than politics and religion. In my family we have a rule, we don't discuss either at get-togethers and I certainly don't discuss politics with a friend or family member I know disagrees with me. There is no point. You can't change a mind. The misinformed and ignorant elected Donald Trump. Simple ignorance is the lack of knowledge and can be forgiven. The willfully ignorant like Sean Hannity and your brothers and sister have no excuse and deserve no forgiveness.
6
"Don't discuss religion and politics." This is an age old maxim, that comes in handy. Relax people. Shut your mouth, listen, nod, remove yourself, get another drink, etc. We live in a world were everyone thinks their opinion is straight from the Oracle at Delphi. It's not. It's just arrogance. "This to, will come to pass."
2
I have always believed that you cannot choose your family, but you can choose your ideas, your friends and your politicians. Personally, I love my family, but I would never let it intrude on the choices I can make.
4
Trying to fashion John Wayne as the embodiment of America makes about as much sense as casting Wallace and Gromit in that role. John Wayne was a fictional character--no more and no less than Batman, Dracula, Kermit the Frog, Willie Wonka, and the Little Engine That Could.
Sorry, conservatives, but America is not about some fantasy of roaming the prairies with your gun, shooting at people (while comforting yourself that you still are holding on to your center, even as you kill). America is about freedom--freedom of *and from* religion, freedom to love who you want, freedom to shake off repressive gender roles, freedom to procreate or not, freedom to educate yourself in any direction you choose, freedom to say anything you want without government prosecution, freedom to fairly elect your representatives, etc.
White males with fantasies about being gun-toting, prairie-roaming cowboys: sorry to burst your bubble here. Time to grow up, maybe?
23
Abortion is such an easy one.
Birth control.
It will probably reduce abortions by 90%.
And just be looking at the number of children they have, all the Supreme Court Justices have used it.
Including the conservative Catholics, Thomas, Alito, Roberts, and Kavanaugh.
4
Maureen - if a single column could win a Pulitzer, this would be it. Thank you so much. I am not alone.
5
I have neighbors who still think the Clintons had Vince Foster murdered.
I have a day dream that once again the Confederate States ask to secede.
This time we let them. And they take some of the other red states with them.
I would have to move, but it would be worth it.
On the other hand, that won't help Maureen with her brothers.
8
So according to the many people like Kevin, the ends justify the means. Well, no Supreme Court Justice is worth selling out your sense of basic decency to an amoral, utterly self-serving thug like a Trump. This is the man who cynically sends American troops to squat in tents on the border doing nothing simply to amplify his base's irrational xenophobia. This is the man who makes excuses for the horrific assassination ordered by the Saudi psychopath Trump claims as an ally. This is the most degraded and degrading man who has ever soiled the Oval Office, and good people like Maureen's relatives voted for him to have a Supreme Court far to the right of the American people, one that lets states hack away at a woman's access to abortion while it lets the wealthy and corporations turn our democracy into a plutocracy. When the depth of the Trump family’s corruption is finally exposed - and it will be - I hope these good people are ashamed of their choice.
19
"Kevin admitted that he often winces at the president’s “style” but simply waits for the “crazy” periods to pass and focuses on the things he likes." Ms Dowd's brother's support for Trump sounds like his support for the Catholic Church. One wonders how anyone can keep waiting for the sexual abuse of small boys to continue.
9
Excellent reflection on your older, wiser brothers.
I am not sure how anybody could get the notion that shrieking at your elderly brother, who had loved and guarded you his whole life, would make you a hero.
Maybe I am naive. The primary requirement to be a judge should be that political beliefs cannot be detected by courtroom decisions. The Blind Lady of Justice should not be tipping the scale due to political beliefs.
4
I’m sorry this happening to you. My family is like-minded in politics so I can not relate.
I don’t know what else to say to try and comfort you or make it more understanding. I guess all that’s left is physical; a hug of your brother.
What a terrible place to be.
My guess is that your brother never would have allowed someone like Trump on his team no matter how good he was. Great coaches teach life lessons above anything else. Kevin is reduced to the ends justify the means. That's not what they teach at Georgetown prep. Character matters. Truth matters. Integrity matters. A lifetime of good works is erased by throwing in with Trump. The ends don't justify the means. Sad for Kevin.
12
Maureen is facing a common problem: interacting with a family member who voted for Trump. My progressive friends and I were extremely stressed about the midterms. These are the people I can be myself with. My son voted for Trump. I would not have felt comforted by contact with him. I have found that it is beneficial to maintain contact with most family members. However, it’s not a pleasant experience to talk politics with those on “The Other Side’. Therefore, I have concluded that the best solution is to NOT talk politics with them. Accept that in these times it’s better to share the other aspects of life. I love my grandchildren and am happy that they never liked Trump. I don’t understand my son, don’t think I can enlighten him, and thus focus on stress free interactions with him.
3
This is the type of story that needs to be read and reread to fully appreciate the significance. I hope the Times leaves the comment section open indefinitely because so many of these comments stand on their own. A great teaching moment for almost all of us!
4
What a missed opportunity, Maureen! Instead of heading south to Canyon de Chelly, you and Kevin could have headed a little bit further north to see the magnificence of the Bears Ears National Monument so both of you could have a first hand understanding of the abrogation of the Antiquities Act by Trump and Zinke in downsizing the "Sistene Chapel" of rock art and unique archeological sites in favor of uranium and oil and gas development.
18
Maureen.. I especially resonate with your sadness about the distance that grew between you and your brother Michael. It wasn't just caused by your "work"; it was caused by your beliefs and values and by your cherished brother's inability to validate them. It is unutterably sad when someone we love, someone who loves us, is unable to enter into our own perspective on deeply felt values. It is an especially painful form of emotional dissonance that many of us are wrestling with as we attempt to weigh political and intellectual integrity vs. the possibility of damaging or losing lifelong relationships. Your column did a good job of elucidating this struggle and I respect you for it. Thank you.
2
I, too have lost part of my family, self-acclaimed “ultra-conservatives” and Evangelicals. I mourn my loss (they dismissed me years ago as one of those “you liberals” people), but I cannot tolerate the hate that they espouse and accept. It includes demonizing gays and claiming a first-Amendment right to discriminate, or opposing immigration (legal or otherwise) of those of different color or religion, volunteering to teach evolution at public schools after hours, and a serious effort to split our own state in two to establish a conservative homeland. Their Facebook posts with links to gateway-Supremicist websites and defend-the-intolerant pleas for contributions set my teeth on edge.
Some years ago, I stood at Budapest’s “Shoes” memorial, where some of my wife’s family was marched, stripped, and shot into the Danube in 1944, and wept. I see the same sort of intolerance and inhumanity developing in this country. It was too late then to stop it there, but it is still not too late to stop it here. If the choice is between my family relations and higher principles, I have to side with the latter.
16
I decided long ago that I will not discuss politics with my family. I respond with: “I do not want to talk about politics wIth you. You know what I think. Let’s talk about something else.” I happily block all their political posts on Facebook without unfreezing them. I “like” photos of children and pets and hobbies and birthdays and anniversaries and old family photos and memories and vacations. There is far more to discuss than politics. It is utterly ridiculous to cut off ties with family members because of politics.
". . . we've gotten so much stronger people don't even believe it."
OK, for once he's right: people don't even believe it.
4
If your older brother, Michael, and Kevin, taught you to hold democracy, like a vinyl record, not to smudge it, and hold it with care, then, I would respect them. However, their no holds barred, holding up a tyrant like Trump who hates immigrants, although we all came here as such except Native Americans, and believing in Georgetown Prep and friendship over democracy, thereby hurting all not in their clan or clique, is exceptionally small minded.
For Kevin to worship John Wayne shows a belief in mythic America, not the reality of native reservations and rights being diminished under Trump.
That he believes in the lie that Blasey was mistaken in her accusation of Kavanaugh shows that he is as near sighted as Kavanaugh was drunk. I understand that you didn’t want to alienate him as with Michael, but family members can be toxic, and sometimes make for bad company.
10
Your recipe for a successful Thanksgiving main course has the right ingredients, preparation time, and leftovers-tasate-better quality that should inspire us all. Kevin must be thankful for a sister like you;m family is more important thatn politics.
That said, we cannot abandon our principles and character at the family door. What we can do is to love and respect, not just our siblings, our crazy uncle are shrieking great aunt, but our neighbors, co-workers, and people we casually meet and encounter in our lives. Show them some respect, acknowledge the differences in opinions they might have with you without demeaning or belittling them.
When they see you as another person, like them, not some "other", you may have a slim chance of one day changing a heart or mind. Otherwise, you have none.
Buy a cake for Kevin, just so he knows you love him as much as your column shows.
1
Why is it we all have to deal with Trumpy people but not the other way around.
14
Sometimes a family of one is the only family we truly have. And must learn to live with. Even though we share genes, environment, looks, names, whatever, with others we are individuals, essentially. We need to honor that individuality while acknowledging our family heritage.
When I think of the 'us' of me and my siblings, I think, not of bonds of familial attraction but of completely disparate entities who went their own ways and who are always slightly uncomfortable around the Thanksgiving Table as we struggle to maintain our own 'Me-ness' in the presence of those individuals who, disparate as always, raised us, hopefully, with the best of their abilities.
2
Super, but women in America will suffer with Kavanugh for decades. Glad you got your bro though. Yay?
8
Maureen,
question on syntax:
"The Saturday we arrived, Mitch McConnell rammed through Kavanaugh."
Yes, if only he had rammed through Kavanaugh but in truth he rammed him through.
Thank you for a moving and pertinent piece, that sums up well the well we've fallen into:
"And then I started to cry, too, because I was thinking of Michael and what was lost, and Kevin and what I hope won’t be lost. And because, more and more, it seems that Donald Trump’s genius for hate and division has driven us all into a canyon that we won’t easily be able to climb out of."
3
Two things:
During the civil war, some families were split over the slavery issue and became mortal enemies. There are times when taking a moral stand trumps family connections and this is one of those times.
If the old-style Western movies were made today, Trump supporters would be wearing the black hats.
7
Out of context, not so. Not so. Very sad, family must agree to disagree, and loudly. This is a sad piece, shows the ability to not see what you don't want to see.
9
I read and appreciate all of your articles. You have so much sardonic wit. This article, however, was very personal and moved me. I appreciate and share your ideology as a married white male. It was a great Thanksgiving article. Keep fighting the battle for all of us.
3
This is a beautifully written essay but in my opinion it weaves in too many exotic themes while omitting obvious truths. Many Irish Catholics (like Maureen's brother Kevin?) ignore everything awful about Trump for one overarching reason: desire to overturn Roe v. Wade. They don't want a conservative U.S. Supreme Court to turn back worker-protective labor laws, suppress voting rights, imperil the environment, etc., etc. (although they may well get those things and are willing to bear them). They passionately want an end to legal and safe abortion.
10
@SMG You’re wrong.
@Bill Brennan
My wrongness: absolutely a strong possibility (I'm just another nobody given the opportunity to express an opinion online, after all). But, I know quite a few Irish Catholics (my original tribe). So, my "many" assertion does have some empirical and anecdotal basis.
1
That Ford and John Wayne. script writers converted a Native American landscape and history into a white Christian male hero narrative is terribly sad. Native Americans, whose land we now enjoy, were turned into savage villains, their actual histories erased. We grew up missing the beauty of a Native narrative and values. Now, when thousands of acres of the West is on fire because of that individualistic, paternalistic story, we are reaping the results. I came from a family of Jews in the arts and journalism. We thought John Wayne was unbearable, not because we understood the Native story, but we recognized something, a sense of the group, of being dark and outsiders — John Wayne’s characters were driven to domination and self-absorption, and as Jews, we recognized the oppressor.
I miss the Irish Catholic story of fighting liberals like the Kennedys, and the radical attorneys from Notre Dame who staffed the public and appellate defenders offices I remember.
10
Your words are especially heartfelt today...Happy Thanksgiving. Life can be hard and certainly this is one of the hardest. My thoughts are that the generational divide won't soon disappear until our President is no longer in the White House. It puzzles me that Twitter will not drop him or that the other media outlets will stop covering him. The more time is given, we continue to be at odds.
Hope to you and all of us.
2
Dear Ms. Dowd,
Your brother is very wise. Family ought to trump politics. Indeed, EVERYTHING ought to trump politics. In an enlightened culture, politics ought to be ruthlessly relegated to the farthest, darkest, dankest, nastiest corner of the nation’s collective dwelling.
Cordially,
S.A. Traina
2
Both sides of the political divide should be careful of too much dualism: a person is usually not good or evil. It is quite possible the person who for his coach and for his teachers and his parents also drank himself silly (and perhaps into blackouts) and does not even remember pinning Ford-Blasey to the bed or rifling her clothes or that at the time he thought it was hysterically funny. The other accusations seemed far-fetched, but that Kavanaugh drank, often to excess, and often became belligerent and did not remember became more credible as his anger came out. Sadly, he is just the kind of person to be a functioning alcoholic: a perfectionist. That doesn't mean he was or is, but we all must remember that we see only the sides of people that they show us. With all of the evidence that surfaced suggesting that he had a drinking problem as a high school and college student, how sad that he could not have said he did not remember and if he did hold her down, he did not mean to hurt her and he is sorry.
5
Beautifully, unnervingly written as only Maureen Down can, touches the very core of the disturbing circumstances prevalent today, most especially the disdainful, disrespectful atmosphere of the past couple of days. I understand only too well the ramifications differing political points of view can create, sadly experienced no matter the country one lives in. Destructive politcal rancour causing family dissention must somehow be put aside for the sake of peace as in the final analysis the blood bond can never be severed.
Independent and courageous women like you, Ms. Maureen, are walking a difficult path of self realization. Your brothers are loving and decent men, they are comfortable and certain with their choices and values, but they do not seem to understand strong women (e.g., Dr. Ford), perhaps because they have never been taught or asked to understand us, and to treat us as equals. Of course, a lot of women are also comfortable with their choices to be dependents of men. You are doing an impressive job bringing your brother Kevin around. Your trip with Kevin gives me hope that your work, both as a sister and a fearlessly independent writer will help more men to come around and to really seeing women as their equals.
5
@Jean Kolodner
Dr. Ford is a strong woman? Really?
She shows up with a teary face and a sad story guaranteed to push progressive dolts into a mind-meld frenzy, but she has no facts, no witnesses to back her up, not even a location! - nothing for any policeman to investigate.
And EVERY witness she mentioned could never back her up.
Now, it isn't fair for her to reportedly not be able to return to teaching, but at least she has a huge check from the Go Fund Me campaign.
Had she not proven herself to be an angry protestor previously many MIGHT have tried to buy her tale, but her devastatin social media message about a fake Gorsuch rape claim was the end of it for the independently minded.
@Jean Kolodner Did I misread the column? It doesn't sound like she's bringing her brother around at all.
1
Fantastic , heart felt article.
1
I would like to think that I could have a civil conversation with my friends & family who obviously subscribe to the other political spectrum, but I have to ask how far to the right is acceptable. I can accept & maintain a friendship with someone who supports Trump, but I don’t think I could maintain a friendship with someone who reveals themselves as a white nationalist.
5
I live on the left coast and migrated here because I wanted to escape the confines of my illiberal and conservative upbringing. I was searching for my tribe and found it in California.
My family (all living in the tri-state area) still subscribes to the strictures of Trumpism and far right thought, and navigating the challenges inherent in political discourse has been incredibly difficult if not impossible. Like Maureen Dowd, I sometimes wonder if the damage is irreparable.
In May of 2018 this newspaper's 'Smarter Living' section featured an article about 'how to maintain sibling relationships' in today's world. I was and remain leery about some of the advice. A therapist advised "don’t bring up anything that could create strife, like politics, religion or even rehashing traumatic childhood memories. Accept that some topics will be off-limits." It's been impossible for me to put this into practice.
I'm always willing to discuss anything with my family. I'm not willing to be ignorant and brain dead about the world around us. Like Maureen I'll spend lots of time self-reflecting, while I continue to search for the answer that works for me, and hopefully my family too.
5
Thank you, Ms. Down for writing this column.
So many good topics you touched upon reminds me why I am apprehensive to spend too much time with siblings, as some of the old skeletons start to re-emerge like a graveyard in the swamp.
But the stories of memories from sharing food, music and movies were a nice balm to painful aspects during the holidays. They are not necessarily nuggets of diversions but sometimes contain the more fonder memories and go with comfort food.
Some recent movies and shows that seemed to triangulate upon the John Wayne, the old West and Dracula references can make for less thorny subjects around this time. The most recently released Coen Brothers film ‘The Ballad of Buster Scruggs’ is a hoot with tall tales of the west and great cinematic treatment, casting and brain-burrowing types of fractured moral-To-The-story insights. Other series include: Mindhunters, Shetland and the Penny Dreadfuls for a dose of Dracula and Frankenstein. Politics is taken up in Fair Game for looking back to where we have been and where we might be going.
Binge watching them has replace watching football in my home, along with keeping up with current news and opinion and listening to NPR stations in SoCal.
Thanks again and Happy Holidays...!
1
If you had traveled north of Monument Valley, where I also had my picture taken with John Wayne at Gouldings, you would have gone through national monuments Bears Ears and the Grand Staircase, where - 80 and 20 percent respectively - Trump wants to turn over to uranium mining, much to the anger of Native Americans who revere them as sacred grounds. Had you traveled southwest, you would have seen that areas just outside the south rim of the Grand Canyon to be opened to uranium mining. And had you traveled not far from Canyon de Chelly, you would have seen the dismal conditions on top of the three mesas where the Hopi have been relegated. The confirmation of Kavanaugh is a pittance compared to the Trump administration's campaign to turn over these wondrous beauties in my state Arizona, Utah, and others states to industry, no longer protected for future generations to enjoy as much as you did. Write about that, Ms. Dowd.
58
Sadly, Maureen's family is the exception. Most of us live in a cloistered world, where everyone we know is on the same side of the great divide that has split our nation. This makes it harder for us to empathize with the other side, harder to understand their anger, and harder to bridge the divide.
I have always been an optimist about our country. I find that increasingly difficult to sustain.
11
Well that was a challenging read and gives me a lot of pause for thought about me and my own family. It seems to me that Kevin's inward path was determined many years ago and there is no way he will ever change his allegiances or his loyalties to people he knows and values he holds. He is the sum total of his life experience. I am sure that was also the case with Michael. Part of that experience though is an unswerving love of his family as it clearly is with Maureen - so well demonstrated here by this powerful piece she has written.
5
I've been reading Dr. Brown's work of late. Thank you for sharing your story and, in doing so, being vulnerable. I respect courageous people, and I am inspired by your example.
2
Thank you, especially on Thanksgiving Day. I am in the same family/politics situation and your words help me.
2
Thank you, Maureen, for sharing your deeply intimate and personal story with the rest of us who, like you, must struggle with maintaining our relationships with loved ones who, for reasons of their own, are committed to conflicting beliefs which too often are rooted in conflicting values. Sadly, not all of us possess your inner resources of courage to confront our differences honestly, openly, and with respect and love.
We salute you for showing us, by example, the value of standing up for what is right and just with strength and conviction, regardless of the consequences. The risk of losing valued family ties is as real and meaningful as is the risk of loss from violent conflicts. By volunteering to put your fear and agony on public display, you perform as much a service and become as much a hero to your readers as our most distinguished civic and military recipients of that honor.
3
Lets give thanks to Maureen for her warm and wonderful column celebrating family on Thanksgiving. And particularly her reminder that we can have fundamental political differences while retaining our mutual respect and affection. An important lesson for all of us.
12
Thank you Maureen for such a brilliant and timely lesson through your personal journey. I hope that our leaders , both political and religious, will use your insights to pass such lessons to their larger audience. The quality of your prose was was so good that I would put it with the classics....I cannot recall using the dictionary as much when reading other articles....I learnt a lot , Thanks
4
My family is also divided over Trump. Even though we grew up in the same big Irish Catholic household and learned the same values, that did not ensure that in adulthood we would behave or think the same way we did as kids.
Other experiences also mould out lives. Like moving away from the neighborhood, making new friends, exploring the wider world, questioning your faith, getting involved with political movements.
All of this said, we have not let the uncivil behavior or lack of values by Trump interfere with our love of one another. This does not mean we do not argue over Trump and his Administration. We do. But bitterness never enters into it. We do not stop talking to each other. Because in the end we hang onto why we love each other. And it has nothing to do with politics. It has everything to do with caring and respect for each other.
So, lucky for us, we get to enjoy Thanksgiving.
10
Reminds me of my own family. In all this pain, the redeeming fact is that eternal love and honor conquers transient politics. Let’s hope it’s transient anyway, and let’s hope both sides learn the importance of choosing better standard bearers.
3
Maureen yet another humane and masterful piece of writing that shows the wise heart and knowing mind of a Pulitzer Prize winner. And the warmth and strength of your family that sustains you is certainly repeated in mine. As for us, this Thanksgiving has been different. We cannot expunge from our thoughts the number of young children in tents, still separated from their parents by our government's action, nor their parents who have not yet found them, nor the victims of the California fires. We read the documents from Ellis Island that have the names of our own grandfathers, the date they arrived at the turn of the century and even the name of their ships -- and we worry that our great nation's tradition and obligation to be a shining sanctuary mustn't be abandoned. We're not really overtly political. We of course know some politicians lie, even spread hatred. But, thinking today about the innocent victims has mightily marred our day of thanks. We're almost embarrassed for what we personally have, and give thanks for, when we see the unnecessary suffering of others at the hands of the top leaders of our government.
11
I am left to wonder, Ms. Dowd, how someone like your late brother, who loved Fats Waller and Jelly Roll Morton (and presumably the other greats in the jazz pantheon like Louis, Duke, Bix and Big T) could have been a hard right conservative; to wonder why Catholic Prep defenders like your brother Kevin so easily excuse ethical lapses in our leaders; and to wonder how you, Maureen, grew up, experiencing the same parenting as your brothers, to have an open mind.
41
I hope that Kevin doesn’t ever have a daughter-in-law, niece or granddaughter who decides to seek a legal abortion. Moreover, I hope he has no love ones who are gay or trans. Because by the time Trump’s court is done, it will be terribly unpleasant, actually frightening.
As for Kevin’s high opinion of Kavanaugh, I can’t help but wonder how often he’s been around the judge after consuming beer, which the judge is so clearly fond of. And I also believe that Kevin might just not want to admit to himself that the judge may not be the class act he, Kevin, would like to think.
56
“I thought she was sympathetic but not credible because she had no facts...”. I’ve wondered for a while now what “facts” she was supposed to have. The fact that she didn’t know exactly where the house was? So what, non drivers seldom do. The fact that she didn’t know the exact date? Nor do I, of many important things that happened in my life and it doesn’t mean they didn’t happen, though I often wish it did. “I think something happened to her but it wasn’t him”, just seems like a cop out to me. Like saying “I don’t want this to be true, and nothing really happened anyway, so let’s ignore it”. She knew all his friends yet he claims he never knew her at all. Doesn’t that seem odd? But Kavanaugh lied and deflected and that was all good. Very credible.
I too have lost the friendship of some family members over politics in these divisive times. To say I don’t care would be wrong, but I will not and should not be silenced. I would not seek to silence them. If you don’t want my opinion don’t ask for it. Changing the subject is reasonable when common ground cannot be found. If I give it too often on social media and you don’t like it, unfollow me. Easy enough. That’s what I do.
25
Wonderfully personal piece—my wife is a Trump supporter, despite being highly educated and generally a feminist, so I feel your pain—and great reader comments. But most are missing the larger issue. Any Republican president would have nominated Federalist Society-recommended partisan judges. That person would have passed a huge tax cut for the the wealthy and corporation. Same for his or her approach to Iran and Saudi Arabia, a country that has caused more to incite Islamic terrorism than any other country. And same for gutting reasonable regulations. Politics has become all or nothing. The Democrats go too far occasionally too, although from my middle of the road vantage point far less often than the current Republicans that can only steal elections with voter suppression laws, gerrymandering, and a partisan Supreme Court that refuses to fix unconstitutional gerrymandering. Until Republicans start losing elections on a regular basis, Maureen’s brother’s excuses are just that: excuses for supporting an awful person and policies. Whether they support all of his decisions is irrelevant. By the way. Ask them what specifics Supreme Court decisions the want to see. Is abortion, which will never go away by the way, and oppressing gay rights worth the damage to this country. Last I checked I still pay 39.6% in taxes, setting aside the insanity of that bases as the line reason to vote Republican. We have been the greatest country for a long while. Stop the nonsense that we are not.
15
Ms. Dowd, your essay was so moving, propelled by truth and sadness. I have lived long enough to know that political discourse in America is increasingly becoming endangered, if not, extinct. John Wayne, Jelley Roll Morton, one time culture heroes for many reasons by many people. They had talent, we lived vicariously through their melodies and pressing truth to power. Now there is Trump, a person seemingly devoid of empathy, amoral to his core, and unforgiving to those who see the world differently. He is America’s culture hero not because of his presidential accomplishments, but instead, by his constant demeaning of America’s great institutions.
If I were ever lost in one of those majestic canyons you describe, I would feel confident that those eho best understand the land, would come to my rescue. Who will lead America back to the trail that leads?
5
These kind of stories of family division will be widespread and very common in the coming civil war. The ignorance the rest of the Dowds willfully embrace in service of their political "tribe" is ascendant, and will be the downfall of us all.
Be thankful this day especially, as modern America is not long for this world.
8
Thanks. It’s good to hear from the Heroes who’ll be running the purges far, far behind the front lines.
1
If it were only the DJT "style" at issue ... but it is what DJT DOES that is the problem. Your brother can't sweep that under the rug and minimize DJT's executive actions so easily.
Just the photographs used in this column underline my point. He wants to open up currently protected Western lands (some with tribal claims) to mining and other exploitation. He has no respect for the earth, nor the spiritual claims of others.
Shame on your brother for even thinking there is just an issue of "style" and you, to the extent you bought into that senseless foolishness.
18
As a practicing Catholic, this has to rank as one of your most intense confessionals. A courageous column.
7
Dear Maureen-You like so many fine journalists are speaking truth to power. The GOP/fact haters/rule of law haters/white supremest/science deniers are going to have emotional issues with this, because their values are from another century. Please don't make excuses for them. Happy holidays for the entire planet and not just the white .01 percent.
12
I am from a large Irish ( and to make things more incendiary) Italian family
We love each other fiercely and debate issues fiercely
Love always trumps issues ( inadvertent pun )
Tom Dougherty dvm
1
Thank you for this great column Maureen. One of your best. It shows you as open-minded and vulnerable, willing to discuss the dreaded topic with your brother Kevin. You were searching for some kind of resolution you could live with.
But what about Kevin (and all Trump supporters)? He does not seem to care that the country is being riven in two. He isn't bothered by the misery his president has inflicted on everyone not a Trump fan. Does he even care what you think? It seems like Kevin is smug and content with his choice and its resulting political destructiveness.
I wonder about the notion referred to in this article that 'family is everything and only family will come to your aid in a crunch'.
Yes we are born into families, but I think we also develop our own families among friends. Kevin does not sound like your friend. Why don't you just let him loose to his friends and he can be the person he wants to be. Have Thanksgiving with your friends!
521
@Greg
Think about it Maureen -- Greg is right. Thanks Greg.
30
@ginny cunningham
My friends? 100 x better than my family!
32
@Greg Absolutely terrible advice. Your friends can be like your family but they are not and will never be your family. That's part of being human, it's built into out instincts and will never change.
Reading this comment and in light of it being an editors pick, it's no wonder so many people are lost in and have nowhere to turn, here in our rich land of plenty.
10
Ms. Dowd, one of your best opinion pieces. You get at the heart of what we all need to do - listen to each other rather than talking at each other. Even though many of us disagree, especially with family members, about the election, it's outcomes and the direction of our country's future, we must do better about listening to differing voices; being empathetic, sympathetic, while maintaining our convictions for all of us to see a better America, a better world. Thank you for shining a light on a fraught subject these days.
1
Instead of worrying about a divide in our society along the lines of myths inspired by John Ford and John Wayne, we might reflect upon the reality that many Americans are suffering this Thanksgiving: the destruction of Paradise, California and other sites where people’s homes, memories, and livelihoods have been destroyed. The pioneers that crossed the Great Plains in search of a better life encountered disease, starvation, hostile natives, bandits, and death. No myth about their treks along the Oregon Trail and other trails leading westward, including Route 66 that carried thousands of destitute farming families from the Dust Bowl to California in the 1930s. Their experiences were real. We can admire their fortitude and self-reliance. Their examples are worth remembering and emulating at this time of political and social division.
8
Uch!
Even on Thanksgiving, that vulgar president's name comes up.
We all need a break from him!
18
For Dr. Christine Blasey Ford and Her entire Family : You have my gratitude. My this Holiday give you some comfort and peace.
Seriously.
41
Family relationships and politics can be as Ms. Dowd recounts filled with conflicts. In my family my brother in law, a political officer in the State Department calls me a Leninist, because I believe the Government serves the interest of the very wealthy, corporate and Wall Street leadership. Given recent events of the last decade or so he seems to be coming round to my view. He now sees what we all can see that Donald Trump is the end game of the GOP starting with Ronald Reagan. Free market capitalism trumps democracy and the rule of law. Now we have a president that through his ignorance and immoral point of view is bringing about the destruction all restraints put on American capitalism. Unfetter the economy by abrogating regulations put upon it to serve the public good. Hollow out the government by putting leadership in place that does not believe in the mission of their departments and in many cases by not putting leadership in place to undermine the missions of these department. As Reagan said the problem is the government. My bother in law and I are still arguing but I may be winning the argument, thanks to Donald Trump.
10
@Oliver
I would agree and add that once he was in power Lenin proceeded to construct a bubble of special privileges for himself and his cronies. An iconoclast, he ordered the execution of the Tsar and his family (not unlike the Saudi crown prince's order to have Jamal Khashoggi murdered). He also pursued a policy of state violence that saw millions starve to death.
I served 30 years in the Foreign Service in seven overseas assignments including Iran and Afghanistan. My take on Reagan's foreign policy was solidified at Reykjavik (where I was also present) when Reagan turned down the offer from Gorbachev that the USSR would remove its SS-20s targeted at our European NATO allies if he, Reagan, would stop the Strategic Defense Initiative. Reagan refused. The world's media called it a "black Sunday in Reykjavik". Years later, Gorbachev admitted that he saw the end of the Soviet Union in Reagan's obstinacy at Reykjavik. Unfortunately, our current president lacks the moral courage and convictions that Reagan and other presidents have exhibited in times of great national peril.
6
@bkbyers
Any thoughts on Reagan, Charlie Wilson, and Afghanistan?
Excellent piece. Been to Monument Valley three times; each a unique and wonderful moment (once a week camping under the stars). Best wishes for you, Kevin and all other relatives. Happy Thanksgiving to all those with so many weirdly interesting comments below.
2
Yes, indeed, thank-you, honest and well written and brave to be shared. I thank you family, all of them for their sharing with us.
I have traveled the world for human rights for fifty years. I found that family is vital but it can not be first if it is wrong. It needs love, listen to hear, it needs support when there is crisis, BUT, it can be wrong at times and this in respect needs to be shared, be discussed...and it will be discussed if there is true love for love recognizes the intrinsic value of each person. We need families for society as much as for our individual selves, which means we need love above all else to keep the family as close as possible, BUT, never can we lie to them or ourselves about our understandings and/or beliefs. The biggest gift we can give to family is being ourselves. The biggest families will always understand even if they disagree and continue to be family not just because of blood , but because of the essence of our humanity. If, for instance, family does not understand trauma (or PTSD) then it needs to be explained with all the energy we have, with all the love we have. The family is family when it rejects no one. It is our own strength that does not fear. I am a Nazarine Jew who has some family that agree and some that don't (and won't talk about it) but the basis of all organized religions is we do not for get and we always forgive. We work hard, not to become elites, but to become more human. I humbly also believe beyond reason.
4
My family paid BIGLY for having great autobahns built; taking the good at the price of the bad is something we should by now have learned leads to disaster.
6
My family paid BIGLY for having great autobahns built; taking the good at the price of the bad is something we should by now have learned usually leads to disaster.
I agree that this is an honest and heartfelt piece. But I have to also agree that overlooking a leader's egregious (put mildly) behavior and actions for expediency is a dangerous and slippery slope. I am reminded of the tragedy of Jamal Khashoggi.
20
It is interesting, relating to this column, that the article about "Everything wrong you have been told about Thanksgiving " allows no comment. Like that , the mystique- which this text here confirms- is saved.The Down and Ups are mere points of view _ climb up to the Canyon ..which is the lowest part. but forget to mention why the canyon de Chelley is a famous historical event of North America, this day of Thanksgiving - (people dove down to their forced fate ) when everybody confuses also who thanks who - the natives or the Europeans. According to history the natives did, but if we follow the mystique it is the colons. Historicity denied. Reversal of fortunes.That is the profound character of the American identity. here present in that text also, void of causality.
3
If we would love all of humanity as we would be loved ourselves, then we must climb a very steep hill. Even one leavened by a universal affection for humanity will find the top of that hill a very lonely place without others to share the wondrous view. Sisyphus's boulder was his punishment for assuming he was more clever than Zeus, who insisted that we must struggle to bring others with us to the top. The more we reveal the prize to still clouded eyes, the heavier the burden. This is Zeus's plan.
But not all of the plan. For the heart filled with love, reveals a mystery lying beneath the surface that engages and deepens us all.
2
Oh, for heaven’s sake. What a bunch of cry-baby drivel clickbait. Don’t you know how to say, “No!” Maureen? “No!” to immoral, amoral behavior – the Trump behavior? Say, “No!” empathically and move on. There are lots of memorable Thanksgivings to be had with people trying to build a better nation instead of with those merely trying to protect their privilege.
John Wayne – Kevin’s hero? And you let him write an annual column? The privileged, white, Catholic-bubble point of view?
Wayne dodged the draft during WW II. William Manchester, a Marine who fought and was wounded in the Pacific, wrote of an incident where Wayne appeared in cowboy regalia before a group of seriously wounded Marines thinking he would entertain them. At first there was silence. Then the booing and jeering started and continued until Wayne was driven out. After the blood-soaked volcanic sands of Iwo Jima, Marines were in no mood to have a fake cowboy with fake macho-man attitude come to say anything to them. Well, Trump is Kevin’s hero and Kavanaugh’s adoring fan so I’m not surprised he’s a Wayne suck-up, too.
The blue wave that just swept thru did so because they stood up for their values not sitting around crying about what had been lost as though crying and indecisiveness are some noble traits preferred to action.
78
@Liam Jumper Very well said, enough with the self pity.
4
It's a real shame that Ms Dowd fears being disowned by her family for her political views. Unlike most people she has met people like Trump and the Bushes and has some first hand knowledge of how they behave. She is worth listening to even if you don't agree with her.
Americans have often tended to be intolerant of people who think differently. This is getting worse as voices in the media tell their followers that people who don't agree with then are traitorous and stupid and evil. American society is becoming much less tolerant of a diversity of political views, even as things like gay marriage are embraced.
5
@Schrodinger - Yes, I am intolerant of people who believe 2 + 3 = 23 and other verifiable lies.
2
Ms. Dowd mentions Christine Blasey Ford only in passing, but it’s noteworthy that both of them share conflicted loyalties. Both are at odds, politically speaking, with families they nonetheless continue to love and respect. At the time of the Kavanaugh hearings there was a news story that deserved more attention than it got. It revealed that Ms. Ford’s parents, staunch Republicans, belong to the same suburban D.C. country club as Kavanaugh’s and have had some social and business interactions with them. Her father, when contacted by a reporter, spoke admiringly of his daughter’s professional accomplishments but withheld any support for her testimony. She was entirely on her own. This led me to wonder whether the blanks in her testimony were actual failures of memory, or if her non-recollection of the specifics of that evening (such as who drove her home) was rather a deliberate effort to spare relatives (and possibly some friends) any fallout from having to testify in her behalf.
All that speculation aside, Ms. Dowd has written a splendid essay, in tune with the ideal spirit of Thanksgiving. I’m thankful, for starters, that there are no such rifts in my family. If I had siblings and nephews like hers, I’m sure my exasperation would smother any lingering affection.
15
If we can survive Trump, not a given, it could eventually turn into a positive experience.
Not only have all of us been forced to question virtually everything we've taken for granted about what this country stands for, his presidency is essentially a live virus experiment that is simultaneously testing it's strength while revealing every flaw in it's design and construction.
It's like flying an aircraft up to 40,00 feet and buffeting the wings with so much turbulent air that they appear like they're going to snap off at any moment.
Words on a page warning us that "it can happen here" can only go so far in convincing us of the dangers of a man like this. Seeing it "live" for the first time, however, is something else again.
Trump is the agent that is forcing us to choose our path once and for all, again. The last time we confronted something similarly pernicious, we ended up fighting a civil war.
May we choose wisely.
11
Our country works when we treat each other as family. That is the heart of a successful liberal democratic system. But we do live within concentric circles of affiliations and loyalties. Within each circle we treat others inside it as us and all outside as them. We identify with those who share the same set of commonalities. We tolerate group members who do not share all of our values and even those whose behavior is repulsive to us. That is how evolution has wired all of us. But by expanding our affiliations we can create super groups with others whose interests or values we share.
Those who strive to send their children to elite schools don’t seem to grasp that so called elite institutions separate our people with false kinds of concepts. Excellent instruction and learning is not and should be considered to be the property of special people. Elite schools presume that only some people are entitled to excellent educations and it conveys to the students that they are an elite, better than everyone else. It produces authoritarian attitudes and denigrates egalitarian ones. The result is a community of people who just cannot consider others as their equals and so cannot really feel comfortable with democratic institutions.
7
Brett Kavanaugh does not believe that the federal government can or should prevent pollution of air or water or combat climate change, the most significant threat to our civilization.
Brett Kavanaugh believes that "freedom of religion" means that all laws have to favor evangelical Christians and other religious conservatives who oppose any form of social progress or liberty.
Brett Kavanaugh believes that the President should be free to break any law wihout accountability.
That's enough to have opposed his nomination and it's enough to lament that he was given an honor of a seat on the Supreme Court to which he never should have been confirmed.
53
A very thoughtful and honest article.
Family is important, but so is right and wrong. There are many stories of the American Civil War, crime, politics, and within the civil rights movement where people had to take a stand. Even against their own family
Your family I’m sure are wonderful people. But they are also part of the white upper class establishment.
More than that the Washington DC establishment
And this article further illustrates how rigged the system is.
Trump’s words are not merely careless. They are dangerous, and embolden white nationalists, anti-semites, dictators - in short: hatred.
For those of us not living in the same America as your family, Trump is repulsive. And I’m sorry your family can’t see the difference between ends and means.
Gorsuch represents different values than I, but is clearly qualified for the court. Elections matter and Trump won, so he was a fine pick in my opinion.
Kavanaugh, even before the allegations, is a political operative and already showed an evasiveness to questions that didn’t reflect well on his character
As a judge how would he have reacted to a defendant who acted they way he did? Who challenged the bedrock of an independent judiciary by arguing this was a Democratic stunt?
In the end Trump is alienating fair minded people in the US and around the world. And he is creating a violent atmosphere that is heading off in a dangerous direction.
Everyone has to pick sides and take a stand.
33
A great read, Ms Dowd. Family ties survived decades of Reps v Dems political differences but not even two years of Trump ... sad!
14
You tried in this column, you really tried. I just can't meet the Trump and Kavanaugh thing halfway, tho, as it is a false equivalency, the very embodiment of being allowed ones own opinion but not ones own facts.
Our society cannot withstand normalizing so many of the things you've tried to dance so delicately with. Cannot, and should not.
39
Why do otherwise not stupid people support such a clearly stupid man? Because the ends justify the means. What those ends are was once clearly explained to me. They are against the killing of children and I, evidently, am for it. It is very difficult to get through to people who insist that any discussion presumes their own moral superiority. And it's their moral superiority, not those "murdered" children that really matter to them.
Happy Thanksgiving!
19
@nilootero
Evangelicals use birth control.
It's not that difficult.
Dear Maureen, you have written an extraordinary column that is a monument to your intellect, character and discipline as a writer. It is also love letter to your family, which is terrific.
Although I am not famous, I am an island in my family, as the only Republican in a family of loud and almost virulent liberals. They always assume that everyone in earshot agrees with them, and what they say is not opinion at all, but the truth that Republicans are too stupid and too evil to acknowledge. I don't even think they know I am Republican, they never ask, and since my job doesn't require it, I never say anything about it.
Your brother accurately mirrors the feelings of my Republican friends, except my friends are socially liberal and also don't care about the Supreme Court. They wince at Trump, but they like the tax cuts and were sick of the Democratic excesses and PC culture, and yes, they all disliked Hillary.
Me, I made my first Democratic vote for President ever, and voted for Hillary. I couldn't tolerate Trump's behavior. As an educated person, I couldn't vote for a guy so incurious, with a 300 word vocabulary. I'm pleasantly surprised at what he has accomplished. My vote in 2020 will depend on who the Dems nominate. If they nominate a credible centrist, I'll vote for that person. If not, I'll probably hold my nose and vote for Trump.
Happy Thanksgiving.
7
Why pretend like this? “What he has accomplished.” Good grief.
10
@Michael B. As you can see, we don't have to be politically correct any more. I'm not making any apologizes for any disrespect I show the President, his family, his relatives, and political party.
11
And still I cannot understand how Trump supporters justify all the ugliness he spouts. You see them squirm but it's like they're living a life of "See no evil. Hear no evil." As for the Republicans, it's let's not speak of it at all.
20
I think it is worth remembering on this Thanksgiving day that the pilgrims themselves were refugees, invaders who nonetheless were joined in their original thanksgiving celebration by native peoples. The notion of deploying troops now to block the entry of desperately poor refugees is so antithetical to our history as to challenge our very purpose as a nation. We should be ashamed.
10
@Douglas Evans celebrates the fact that the Indians welcomed the Pilgrims and gave thanks with them. But, er, what happened to the Indians afterward?
1
A big, virtual hug to you, Maureen. I often cringe at your sarcasm and obtuse literary and film references. But today ...well this is the third time I've read the column and am emotional each time. So much to be thankful for, yet so far to go. Enjoy your holiday. Your message has helped us to enjoy ours.
3
Dear Maureen,
I have always admired your prose, the very many clever ways in which you weaved words into a picture that was always worth a look-see despite your long membership in the elite club yourself. Thanks for drawing back the curtain on the lives of elites, i.e. your conservative brothers. It would have been more interesting to know what they thought of the corrupt and greedy bankers of Wall Street, Globalization, NAFTA and the 100 other nefarious schemes our 'representatives' in Congress and Senate came up with in the last 30 years to basically impoverish and decimate the middle class here and export prosperity to China.
4
The ACLU is now the closest thing that many have to family. They are coming to the rescue when family is turning a blind eye to the atrocities of this president and administration.
21
@JIM
The day after the 2016 election I joined the ACLU and subscribed to the New York Times. I was in pain and these were the only things I could think of to do to address it. Oh, and I made plans with my daughter to go to the Women's March in D.C....
6
Maureen words are inspired. The sharing of personal experiences in a public forum is not easy. I'm amazed that members of her family or anyone's family of smart, educated human beings would support an openly racist of a misogynist holding any office. Come on ! We all know Trump is a sick man, You support him, you are supporting his hatred. No tears running down my cheeks - my family isn't perfect but we love our fellow man/woman of all colors, creeds, religions sexual identities. We even love our conservative friends despite all their fears.
11
If you’re for him, you’re not for me. It’s not about politics, it is about evil, hurtful behavior Trump and his administration perpetuate. Denying visas to the same-sex partners of international workers. Redefining gender. Denying rights of transgendered people. Denying a safe harbor to asylum seekers. Separating children from their parents. Presidents win elections, they get to appoint judges. They don’t get to hurt people.
25
Maureen, thank you for your personal glimpse into the Dowd family and the estrangement that can happen in families because of American partisan politics. Your wonderful older brother, Michael, taught you many things about this American life. Alas, partisan politics entered the Dowd's family life. Michael was for George W. Bush and you were against GWB. A deeply sad and human tragedy, that Michael, the oldest of the five Dowd siblings died when you two were estranged because of your politics and your job.
Kevin Dowd, your brother, was Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh's basketball coach at Georgetown Prep. Partisan politics entered the family again. Kevin voted for Trump and then defended Kavanaugh in the face of sexual violence accusations during the SCOTUS hearings.
You told us of your birthday trip with Kevin last month to Monument Valley Utah, an iconic American landscape where John Wayne, your brother's hero, held sway in his iconic American movies. Kevin is a Trump loyalist.
The abyss in families -- over President Trump -- is separating our families today. Your phrase, "Trump's genius for hate and division" has divided our people and our families. This Thanksgiving Day we remember another 22 November, in 1963, when President John F. Kennedy was killed in Dallas. A day, like our Thanksgiving holiday this year, riven by family turmoil and heartbreak. Thank you, Maureen Dowd, for your sad and personal account of family division this Thanksgiving.
6
Great column Ms. Dowd. But I wish your brother was as concerned about your perspective, and about maintaining your relationship, as you are.
20
Probably the most difficult situation I’ve ever had to deal with is trying to understand the Trump supporter. It’s easy and reflexive to dismiss them as racist and ignorant. I can’t help it, I can’t think of a logical reason otherwise.
18
Without a doubt, one of the very best Maureen EVAH penned.
2
Thirty pieces of silver is a small price to pay for selling your soul for conservative judges.
16
Wow, Mo. You never disappoint. I can't be the only one who needed to hear what you had to say today. Thanks. And God bless.
2
Trump is the modern Fort Sumter Of Politics and Families. The damage will be severe and long lasting, and in some cases irrevocable. The GOP owns Him, lock, stock and bottomless barrel. Who could have guessed ??? As for his Collaborators, you have earned your eventual demise and everlasting scorn.
Shameless, literally.
10
In my mind, Georgetown Prep is far from an "elite" school. It is a school that is segregated by wealth, and it only accepts students from families who virtually guarantee their children will be successful. That simple fact makes it a school that pales in comparison to the truly elite schools, such as Stuyvesant High School, the Bronx High School of Science, Hunter College High School and Brooklyn Tech. All of these are "exam schools" in NYC. Truly elite students attend them. In contrast with Georgetown Prep its students are often poor and from minority groups. For decades a majority of students in the exam schools were Jewish. Now a majority of those students are Asian-Americans. The success of these students is all the more remarkable because Asian-Americans are the poorest demographic group in NYC.
14
@Cheri Solien Every child in America should have the opportunity to attend an exceptional local public school.
10
Beautiful.
1
What I find stunning is the capacity of such god fearing family oriented people to set aside all their values and ignore the amorality of this president to achieve their ends
12
The main question I have for those Republicans who continue to watch Trump, celebrate his occasional steps that reinforce their point of view, and ignore his boorish, crude, bombastic, and clearly clueless side is this - Yes, you have your point of view, but can't you find a better champion for your vision than this man? Isn't there someone out there in Republicanland who sees America as a country to be united and improved and not as a my-way-or-the-highway board game? Where is your dignity? Where is your sense of vision? Where is your outrage that this bully who insults America, the military, the judicial system, women, hispanics, Black Americans, and so forth is your leader?
18
I suggest this mantra when politics comes up, just say, “I don’t know, I don’t care and it doesn’t matter.” And as appropriate you can add, “Let’s eat.”
1
Actually, the abortion problem is really easy.
Just give women birth control and teach both boys and girls how to use it.
We would eliminate 90% of abortions.
I live among evangelicals, Confederate flags, NRA members, and Trump supporters.
They all use birth control, including evangelicals.
8
The paean to Ms Dowd's brothers and the DC elites who rationalize Donald Trump accurately conveys the last gasp of 1950's white-only America, desperately trying to hold on to some idealized past by any means possible.
13
I can’t be the only reader of the NT Times who doesn’t care about the political angst in the Dowd family. I am too busy watching in horror as the grifter in the White House lines the family coffers at the expense of the American people, wrecks the standing of the US worldwide and makes it extremely hard to tell my grandkids you don’t lie constantly and call others insulting names. If this abhorrent behavior is worth a Supreme Court judge and a tax cut for the wealthy so be it , but I don’t think history will look kindly on the Members of the Trump Cult.
37
@Andrew, Sorry, but we think we know the motivation behind devotion to Trump: he hates the same people and “types” that his followers, sometimes covertly and sometimes overtly, hate and resent. Dowd’s a fine journalist but ought to read Joachim Fest and Dietrich Bonhoeffer on the ugly consequences and causes of this type of hatred in middle and Southern Europe in the early part of the last century. Sad to say her brothers illustrate the truism that it isn’t just rural “deplorables” driving rusty pickup trucks but suceesful religious bourgeois in comfortable suburbs who excuse the Buffoons’s immoral cavorting on stage with the assassin Putin. Making excuses for his behavior as a stylistic fault is a sign of dangerous moral relativism in the Brothers Dowd which could have grim consequences, if the lessons of Bonhoeffer and Fest apply.
14
As good as anything Maureen Dowd has ever written in her wonderful career. The world is more complicated than the Times usually makes it. This was a great column.
1
I'm sorry that you have/had right wing siblings. I am thankful today that I do not.
9
One of your very best columns. Thank you.
1
You write so well, I feel like I am sitting beside you. Thanks.
4