Last night was kinda busy for me as I had a Knights of Columbus and a Madonna Della Cava meeting scheduled at the same time. (The feast is on the August 15th). We finished at the Knights just in time for me to catch the tail end of the meeting concerning the festival.
After the meeting one of the members that I was close to expressed utter shock that #1 I liked Sarah Palin and #2 I was a republican. It is something I’ve run into on occasion although less these days as more and more people are on the net and are exposed to different points of view.
This is what happens when you try to paint people who don’t have the “approved” set of beliefs a particular way. It leads to such an insulated situation that when you see the reality, it comes as a shock and a half.
It also illustrates to me how history bends over time. She remembers the democratic party of her youth, she remembers the days when democratic were not ashamed of believing Catholics, when Unions actually made a difference in the lives of workers. Those days in my opinion, are gone.
It took me 12 years for my presidential vote to go from Democratic (Mondale) to republican (Dole) and a further 6 years before I changed my registration. It took more than half a century for my mother to be weaned from a party that thinks she is a racist/bigot/homophobe hick and has taken her for granted for years. It may take my friend another 20 years to see what I’m seeing or maybe she will never agree with me on politics at all.
Either way that’s ok, but I doubt she will ever be able to keep that same world view of republicans again.