Fighting for Our Families

By Sara Robinson

Created 12/26/2008 - 11:16am

Last month's piece on how to talk to your conservative relatives over the holidays [1] was apparently welcome and necessary. Not only was it one of the biggest hits at ourfuture.org this year; several hundred other sites also picked it up, and I've gotten a steady flow of thank-you notes from people who were finally grateful to have some options besides mumbling into their mashed potatoes or packing up and leaving early.

Even more interesting was the reaction from a dozen or so conservative sites, most of whom objected -- no surprise there -- finding my generalizations about how conservatives think either infuriating or laughable. Also not a surprise: bullies never like it when somebody comes along and teaches their victims how to fight back.

Some of my letter-writers said they've noticed an increasing boldness among progressives over the course of this year. Conflict-averse we may be, but we're finally fighting back. Conservative failure is now an inarguable fact of American discourse; and the election emboldened people who've been intimidated into silence every since 9/11 to recover their voices and shoot back with a crisp, "We told you so."