Sadly, my brother is a Limbaugh/Hannity/Fox News/Trump loving whacko. Recently, we have been arguing about his views on the Covid-19 crisis, and predictably, he doesn’t believe it is a true crisis.
My brother and I have spent maybe a total of 30 days time together since I was 12 (I’m now 53), so I don’t actually know him very well. When my mom and sister died two years ago, he became the last of my living family, and I decided I needed to get to know him.
I do love my brother, but, to be clear, I don’t like him very much. However, because he is my brother, and my only living relative, I cannot simply walk away. So I need your help, understanding he will likely never be moved — but I must try.
Other facts I feel necessary to tell you are that he goes to church five nights a week, and totally hates liberals, as you will see. And he was recently diagnosed with prostate cancer, putting him at a higher risk for Covid-19, and other ailments.
So — what follows is our last two text exchanges, with me giving what I thought to be a cogent, fact-based argument, which he followed with what I feel are cherry-picked facts, fraught with logical fallacies, and, well, for lack of a better definition, hate.
My text below borrows some points from an excellent diary I read here, but now cannot find, despite searching many different ways for it, so I cannot link to the author (sorry):
I have tremendous respect for you, brother. Who among the living, knows more of what you’ve had to overcome in your life, than me? This is not the source of my respect for you, though it is, perhaps, foundational. I believe you are a good person, with a big heart, high intelligence and humor, and a core of strength beyond what even people who have known you longer than I, can perceive, or even believe. In short, while I lack details about you, given the relatively short amount of real-world time we have spent together since I was shipped off to St. Paul’s at 12 years old, still I see the broad, defining strokes of who – and what – you are.
I would like to address three items from your message today. Let’s start with “nonsense.”
If I told you I was going to use a wicker basket as a jack stand for my Jeep, and intended to crawl under it to change the oil because I’d seen it in a cartoon, and it worked there, I am quite certain you would be appalled enough to ask me if I was an idiot.
Thus, when you tell me you believe Covid-19 is “the flu,” I am appalled enough to call that opinion nonsense. Just as you know the wicker basket would end in disaster for me, so too will thinking of this virus as less than the true killer it is. And while the CDC attributes 12,000-60,000 deaths a year to “complications resulting from the flu,” the flu virus itself does not kill. I am deeply concerned for your safety, if you are not taking this any more seriously than you do the simple flu. While I could write a couple thousand words on this, suffice it to say I am not guessing about this – I survived Covid-19 – and for this reason, and a multitude of others, I know precisely what Covid-19 is not – the flu.
The second item I wish to discuss is faith. You don’t know what I believe, brother, because you have not asked me, whereas I know your beliefs – you proclaim them openly. So, let me share with you what I believe. I am not a Christian like you – but I do live my life by the teachings of Jesus. I do not fear God, for I don’t think being fearful is a path to salvation. Rather, I am honest with myself, try to make decisions through the lens of Christ that I have always perceived. I live by Luke 12:48, and thus keep my soul simple, and uncluttered. Many “true believers” seem to require constant reassurance by others that their belief is correct, and submerge themselves in church and worship. I do not. I am a man of facts, not supposition, and thus, I am not owned by faith, but by reason.
The third item is about your politics, and how I cannot see them as compatible with your faith. Let me lay out why:
If Jesus returned today, I do not believe he would be a Republican, for these days, Republicans seem to oppose everything Jesus stood for when he walked the earth.
Republican leaders these days:
- Take access to health care away from millions of people
- Oppose any program that helps the poor
- Put corporation’s profit above human lives, and above the health of our planet, which we are supposed to be stewards for
- Oppose any attempt to raise the minimum wage
- Support the death penalty
- Put immigrant children in cages
- Want to make the rich, and corporations, even richer
- Jesus told the rich man: Sell what you have, and give the money to the poor – Republicans want to give only the wealthy tax cuts, without regard for how this hurts the poor, the weak, the disabled, the disadvantaged
- And Republicans support Donald Trump, one of the most un-Christ-like men ever seen or heard on this planet
Donald Trump is an adulterer, a sexual predator, a sexual harasser, and a life-long criminal. He is a racist, and a bigot. He spews forth hatred, cruelty, and lies, every time he opens his mouth. He has no conscience, and I have yet to see him evince even an iota of empathy. He is arrogant, greedy, and materialistic. Any Christian who supports Donald Trump should be ashamed, for I see no way to square who this man is, with living a Christ-like life.
I know your politics, brother – you make no secret about it. And I cannot reconcile your loudly proclaimed faith, with your loudly proclaimed politics. Because of our mother, I have never been able to abide a hypocrite. And I guess this is what lies at the core of the issue between us right now.
So, make of all of this what you will, brother. It is my truth. Perhaps this is an unscalable wall between us. And perhaps this is why I feel like an outsider in your life, for I cannot be two contradictory things at once, the way you appear to be so comfortable with doing, yourself…
And now, his response. You will notice that rather than attempting to refute any of my points, he ignores them, and instead throws stones — one of the stones being more than 150 years old:
I appreciate the comments on my character as you see it and to your point we really haven't had a lot of time together as adults. I think that is why you have grossly misjudged me through the remainder of your texts. If that is what you think of me and how you view the things I believe in I can see why you have an issue with me. As much as I would like to have the discussion because I care about you I do think you have bought into some serious misinformation out there and I know you well enough to know you won't be open to hearing how I think you are mistaken when you are so passionately married to the false narrative that is constantly pushed out there.
Just remember, the Democratic Party is the party that opposed abolishing slavery and went to war over it. That mentality continues today. Go to any state with cities run completely by liberals for a long period of time and tell me the welfare state is any different than slavery. I can't vote for that or anyone who agrees with sticking a giant needle into a baby's head and ending a life and then preaching about the death penalty. That is true hypocrisy. And any quick web search will reveal a plethora of videos with Joe Biden grabbing little girls inappropriately and sniffing their hair all while he doesn't even know what state he's in. No thanks 😂
Our economy has been shut down and decimated over a virus that has nearly a 99% recovery rate. The swine flu H1N1 was far worse and Obama did nothing and praised by the media. Trump started dealing with this and shut flights down in January while the liberals and media accused him of being racist and xenophobic and overreacting and now are saying he didn't do enough. Man, it's so easy to see if you just look.
I love you no matter what brother. I guess these are just differences we may never see eye to eye on. I'm sorry you have such a low opinion of me.
As you can see, he does nothing to address any of my points. In the responses I’ve written and discarded, I thought about countering his Biden argument with Kavanaugh’s past, but I hesitate to do so, for I do not want to argue on his level.
Thanks for reading this — any help you can offer is greatly appreciated.
UPDATE: Thank you all for your comments and advice — it feels good, having this kind of support in making a rational, fact-based argument.
Anyway, I took much from your comments and put them into a text for my brother — the result is below. Again, thank you all so much!!
So, here we go, brother. The commentary below is mine, and the facts referenced in the links have been multiply sourced, but in most cases, I simply gave you the shortest links to save space.
1. Yes- the old Democratic Party was on the side of slavery. But today it’s the Republican Party who coddles the neo-confederates (https://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/article167465782.html), embrace their historical revisionism, and defend their use of the traitor flag (and the wrong one at that). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flags_of_the_Confederate_States_of_America
And if you believe the Democratic party from 1860 is relevant to the Democratic party today, do you then also favor reparations for African Americans today? If not, why not?
2. “Cities run by liberals.” Basically, the largest American cities are run by Democrats - from Seattle, to Portland, San Francisco, San Jose, LA, Austin, Dallas, Denver, Salt Lake City, Nashville, OKC, KC, Minneapolis, New Orleans, St Louis, Chicago, NYC, Boston, DC, Philly, Baltimore, Atlanta, etc. In fact, based on 2013 population estimates, 75.4% of the population of the top 100 cities, by population, live in cities with Democratic mayors, and 19.3% live in cities with Republican mayors. Why do you suppose it is, brother, that Republicans are only trusted to govern rural and small towns? https://ballotpedia.org/List_of_current_mayors_of_the_top_100_cities_in_the_United_States
3. Late term abortions. Bad. Of course. The best way to prevent a late term abortion, is an early term abortion. Republicans oppose that. The best way to prevent an early term abortion, is the day-after pill. Republicans oppose that. The best way to prevent the day-after pill, is contraception. Republicans oppose that, too.
4. Yes, Joe Biden was indeed accused by 1 woman of sexual assault. Yes, he gets “touchy” with people, saying he is a “tactile” person — which is true of many people, myself included. Of course, Trump has so far been accused by 25 women of sexual assault. https://www.businessinsider.com/women-accused-trump-sexual-misconduct-list-2017-12
Care to talk about Kavanaugh, who was accused by multiple women of date rape? Or how about Trump bragging on tape about “grabbing women by the pussy” – is that okay?
5. On Obama and H1N1- this has been debunked by every reputable fact checking site out there already (https://www.factcheck.org/2020/03/trumps-h1n1-swine-flu-pandemic-spin/), but here goes:
On April 15, 2009, the first infection was identified in California, according to the CDC.
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/2009-pandemic-timeline.html
Less than two weeks later, on April 26, 2009, the Obama administration declared a public health emergency. https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/realitycheck/the-press-office/declaration-a-national-emergency-with-respect-2009-h1n1-influenza-pandemic-0
April 26 — the CDC began releasing antiviral drugs to treat the H1N1 flu, and two days later, the FDA approved a new CDC test for the disease. (see above links)
On April 30, 2009, two days after the public health emergency declaration, Obama formally asked Congress for $1.5 billion to fight the outbreak, and later asked for nearly $9 billion. (see above links)
A lot of people got sick, but very few of them died: 12,469. That was in a full year of 12 months. The first known COVID-19 death in the U.S. was on February 29:
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/1st-coronavirus-death-u-s-officials-say-n1145931
Keep in mind that 12,000 deaths is about half of the average flu season deaths, which is around 23,000. And furthermore, at the moment, COVID19 already killed 35,000+ Americans - way more than H1N1.
It took a full year to reach a total that the COVID-19 epidemic has achieved JUST 43 DAYS after the first identified case of community spread COVID-19 in the United States. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/?utm_campaign=homeAdvegas1?#countries
6. As far as I know no elected Democrat has criticized Trump for stopping travelers from China. This is a fiction Trump and his persecution-complexed followers invented. But if you have any links which disproves this, please send them to me. Also - Italy stopped travelers from China 2 days before Trump did. The fatal mistake both Italy and Trump made, was thinking that’s all they needed to do.
If you intend to argue politics with me, please bring more to the table than supposition and opinion. And if you don’t wish to engage me in this, well, it will be quite telling.
Educate me, brother – I’m willing to listen.