General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: My Deplorable in-laws this morning: not the reaction I expected! [View all]DFW
(54,378 posts)I got lucky. When I first met my wife's parents, I knew they were teenagers during the Nazi era, and her father has lost a leg at Stalingrad. I have some Jewish ancestry and look the part.
But when I met my inlaws-to-be, they were as nice and as welcoming to me as they could be. Her father, never falling for the Nazi routine when he was a kid, was drafted off his farm at age 17, sent to the Russian front as cannon fodder, and returned minus a leg at age 18. You could see him physically bristle and hold back his rage every time some documentary on the Nazi era came on TV. His most fervent wish was that all his grandchildren would be girls so they would never have to face compulsory military service (a wish that fate was to grant him, as it turned out).
I think the more horrors you have had to face personally, the less likely you are to support politicians who seem to have no inhibitions about perpetrating more of them. My mother-in-law had to run and jump in ditches by the side of the road to escape strafing runs by Allied fighter planes, and my father-in-law had to face things at Stalingrad so awful, he couldn't bear to discuss the details out loud. Donald Trump has faced courtrooms and golf courses. Sean Hannity has had to face tapes of Jon Stewart and Rachel Maddow. The conclusions are easy to draw.
*The argument could be made that Hannity is not a politician, but a media personality. Judging by what the effects of his broadcasts are, I submit that he is as much involved in politics as Ryan, McTurtle or Göbbels ever were.