It can sure be a slog being friends with a liberal friend who wants the best for our nation!/Image: Licensed Adobe stock, Antonioguillem.
How are we doing, my questioning, conservative readers?
Boy, oh, boy, dear Spread Your Right Wings (SYRW) readers, have I been thinking of you a lot during this tumultuous week in the White House. It felt so many of our dear, right-wing principles were threatened, stymied, or unfairly (and we’re obsessed with an infantile, petulant notion of fairness, remember). I had a feeling I’d be getting quite of conservative queries. One of the things we hate the most–aside from the LGBT, Jews, Muslims, the differently-abled, non-Americans, immigrants, people smarter than us (which is most), liberals, Democrats, those who don’t love gun culture, African-Americans, and others–is feeling like our dear conservative agenda isn’t being forced in everyone’s face, particularly as that is manifested in troubles for our dear, dear President Donald J. Trump.
I got this letter from a reader, which I wanted to share with you, along with my response, which is, of course, the most important part of the advisor-advisee relationship, because, well it has to do with a little lady named, “ME!” And by extension, “US.”
Dear Dr. Kaylee,
Hello! My name is “Ashley,” and I live in a big city in the Midwest. Thankfully, there are a lot of conservatives out here, but there’s a good share of liberal, Democrat-types. I have a friend whom I’m having an issue with, and I hope you can help me figure out how to manage an issue between the two of us. This friend is of the liberal-Democrat ilk I mentioned above. Blech!–I know! She doesn’t own a firearm, she’s pro-choice, she cares about the environment (she’s even a vegetarian!), and on and on. I am on the opposite, and, of course, right, as in reactionary-Reblican AND correct about everything. Despite our political differences, we get along well, we’ve known each other for over 20 years, and we are important to each other. Unfortunately, she’s always, gently trying to get me to “convert” me to her side, asking me to go to an information session on affordable health care; inviting me to a town hall on gun violence in schools; encouraging me to join her in at a fundraiser for the Human Rights Coalition, the LGBT advocacy group; and so forth. My response is usually a polite, “Uuuuuh…I’m actually good, no thanks;” making up an excuse involving a previous engagement, or gently pointing out that I hold retrograde, ill-informed, solipsistic views in opposition to her progressive, intelligent, aware-of-others views. And I’m proud. How do I shut down this annoying behavior of hers, so we can just enjoy our friendship?
Perturbed in St, Paul-Minneapolis
Dear Perturbed,
As I read your lyrically-written, but angry-making, letter, I did a combination eye-roll, audible groan of irritation, and forehead-slap. In reaction to your friend, not you, of course. Honestly, if there had been an Olympic category for expressing irritation in Pyeonchang this year, I would have come home to The Greatest Country in the World with the gold. What is with this liberals thinking they can shove their liberalness in our faces all the time. The entire culture we share with them is about validating our worldview and devaluing theirs. We’re so immersed in being coddled by our milieu, we don’t even notice it, like fish in water. And that’s the way God and I want it! Normally, I’d advise you to freak out at your friend and take a hysterical Wayne LaPierre, Head of the NRA; seething about her irrelevance. Dana Loesch; or barking her idiotic opinions, Jeanine Pirro approach to telling this friend to back off. However, I’m going to draw inspiration from some other Alt-heroes, ones who’ve been in the headlines of chaos and tumult at the White House this week, as outlined in this Vox article by Andrew Prokop–and in general!
When this friend asks you to go to some Pinko Commie Socialist information session on Obamacare, say nothing. Just look at her with a blank, vacant expression like Jared Kushner in almost every picture or video you see of the Presidential son-in-law who’s being nudged out of his Kushy position at the White House. Don’t say anything. Just stare, and use what I hope is is your pleasing bone structure and cute set of dimples, like Jared’s, to send a silent message that your bleeding-heart friend needs to take her Resistance-insistence somewhere else.
Or, put on a ton of makeup. Get your hair freshly-highlighted and blow-out, put on some old-fashioned but designer duds, and carry an attache reminiscent of 1980s Wall Street, like Hope Hicks. Dear Hope looks likes like she’s strolling through the breeze of a Bollywood wind machine at all times, which aside from being non-American, is fabulous, no. If you can get an actual wind machine for this cold-shoulder tactic, that would be best. In this case, too, be silent. Have a softer, but still vacuous and oddly unsmiling look on your face, and simply stare at your friend. Eventually, the whole situation will become so wonderfully, Alt-awkward!
And: Trump blames the chaotic last few weeks in the White House on a New Mexican butterfly.
Alternately, you could pull a White House Chief of Staff John Kelly snub. This Trump Admin all-star is notoriously press-shy, though he’s been forced to speak to reporters or made occasional off-the-cuff comments to them a couple times. Generally, though, he too is of the arm of Trump Team that looks like life at Don Jon’s 1600 Pennslyvania is sucking out their will to live, even move or speak. His facial expression is more man-angry, stern, and scowling. Try that next time your left-wing friend badgers you by trying to bring you into 2018, Look as miserable and frown-y as possible. But say not a word.
I hope this helped, dear, Perturbed. I know not lashing out–Loesching out a la the aforementioned conservative screeching banshee, Dana Loesch, as I like to call it, and immediately spouting your dumb-ass right-wing views, because you’re just to having it your way and also having your say, will be a new experience for you. You are a conservative, after all, and that’s been our insufferable, obnoxious approach for decades, hasn’t it? This new stony, oddly repressed expression approach will catch your liberal friend off-guard and really bring home your message of counter-Resistance, though. Good luck!
Not Gonna Happen
So, readers, I hope my advice will assist you in leading a pushy, obnoxious, resistant-to-change–but also weirdy silent–life, as it will Perturbed. We may be a dying breed of self-obsessed, anti-forward-motion-in-society, rights-for-no-one-but-us-and fetuses, true-red (not true blue) arch-conservatives, but that doesn’t mean we have to open our minds, see new possibilities for ourselves or society, or accept that we’re being left in the dust. That would involve being informed, joining the movement for change, and accepting we’re not the “It” people in our national culture anymore. Not acceptable! We have to stand up for the rights we already have and deny others! So put those overly-friendly liberals in their place using this unexpected strategy of taciturn, stand-offish, socially clueless behavior to get that message across.
I, Dr. Kaylee, better get back to sorting through the less-than-ten letters from curious readers asking how to navigate life as an Alt-righter, so I can bring you more stupid, ill-advised…well, advice, next week. Until then, go forth and be as Alt-you as inhumanly possible!
Also: Is Democracy In Peril, as the title of a classic book goes, under Trump?
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© 2018 Akbar Khan
