Yep,video tumblrs of young guys at a gay sex club folks, it's that time again. Off we go to home and hearth, suiting up for battle with Crazy Fox News Uncle (or grandpa, dad, aunt, mom) and their armory of alternate facts. And it's all happening in the middle of the impeachment process! Lucky you, getting to hear hours of recycled Kremlin talking points about Ukraine and the Bidens over turkey and stuffing!
By this, the third holiday season of the Trump presidency, you may be wondering if there's literally anything you can say or do to force a little reality into the disinformation bubble many of our more elderly relatives inhabit. Perhaps you're prepping a PowerPoint presentation on Trump's admitted wrongdoing and family grifting, or taking screenshots of impeachment polling ("there’s way more support than there was for Nixon’s impeachment at the beginning, dad!")
Maybe you're preparing your sequestered debate room and "designating a calm family member as a combination moderator-peacekeeper," as advised by a therapist quoted by the Associated Press. Or maybe you dug up the New York Times interactive feature from last year, "How to Have A Conversation With Your Angry Uncle Over the Holidays," and you're practicing your precise, neutral, empathetic responses like a good therapist.
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Well, here's an easier idea. It's more cathartic for you, more triggering for them, and positively entertaining for the apolitical neutrals around the table. You should follow the lead of Green Shirt Guy, aka Alex Kack of Tucson, Arizona. No matter how dark or crazy the conspiracy discourse gets, you should laugh your ass off at it, because that's the appropriate (and appropriately shaming) response to fact-free nuttiness getting in your face.
In case you've already forgotten how Green Shirt Guy became a meme — it was back in August, after all, several generations ago in 2019 time — here's how. Kack attended a Tuscon City Council meeting where protesters in Trump hats tried to shout down discussion of a sanctuary city initiative.
It was such a loud and ineffective showing — the initiative had already gone on the November ballot because it had enough signatures, that's democracy, folks — that Kack couldn't contain himself. He laughed at the MAGA mob, and not like a polite chuckle. More like the side-splitting, eye-watering laugh of someone witnessing unbelievable wackiness.
It wasn't gloating; it was the non-vocal equivalent of "OK, Boomer."
Green Shirt Guy laughter went viral as much as anything this year, and is still a frequently used GIF response on Twitter. That's because it encapsulates how so many aboard this non-stop political rollercoaster are feeling. They're saying what? He tried to claim what? They think they'll get away with that?
"People really took time out of their day to go interrupt a city council meeting to just yell crazy, ignorant, racist, hate-filled stuff in the most absurd manner they could possibly do it," Kack told local news the next day. "Ultimately the majority of this country – regardless of their political affiliation – understands that the loudest voices happening right now are kind of ridiculous."
They absolutely are, both in the country at large and at the Thanksgiving table. And that should, first of all, give you license to relax. You're not trying to reach persuadable people, and you don't need to. Even if Trump's poll numbers go into absolute freefall in 2020, a third of the nation will still reliably vote for him. Crazy Fox News uncle is almost certainly among their number.
Laughter is political medicine
If you want to make some small dent in the election, your pitch is to the neutrals around the table, and laughter is the best medicine for such moderates. On the most basic level, it signifies that your side is having a good time, your side is winning, your side is more fun to be on right now.
You're also denying that hard-right family member one of their favorite tropes — that of "triggering the libs." In their minds, Trump opponents are "snowflakes" who can't take a joke or any kind of politically incorrect talk. Uproarious laughter not only proves that you can take a joke — it proves that the joke is on them. To quote the late, great Robin Williams: "I'm not laughing at you, I'm laughing near you."
Sheer mockery is not often appreciated as a tool of political or cultural change, but it absolutely should be. It is, for example, how states cut down on an epidemic of jaywalkers in the early days of the automobile — via ads that mocked them for being ignorant rubes. The theory was proved again in Bogota, Colombia, in 2012, when the mayor hired more than 400 mimes to walk around the city and mock traffic offenders to their faces. Road fatalities dropped 50 percent.
I'm not insisting that you slap on the greasepaint and white gloves of a mime, encountering an invisible wall every time Crazy Uncle starts talking about building one (although if you do, make sure someone is filming it so you can go viral, too). Green Shirt Guy-style laughter is a good low-effort, family-friendly, non-alienating compromise.
But if you do want to dress up, maybe wear a green polo shirt to the dinner table. Someone will get the reference.