Relative, relatives...

     Christmas and Hanukkah is supposed to be a time for family reunions, the exchange of presents and reflecting on the blessings of family and to take love, warmth and comfort from your loved ones. God bless us every one, and all that good shit.
     Unfortunately, the reality for many is very different during the holidays, especially in the glorious Age of IQ 45, aka "President" Donald Trump. What you see above is a screengrab I got today from my own father's Facebook wall which, obviously for good reasons, I hadn't visited in years.
     "True facts!" he starts like some drunken or deranged 18th century town crier, "Read and heed!"
     Yes, he actually called the Democrats impeaching tRump, "evil socialist communists (sic)". I gently tiptoed out so he could be alone with the boozy ghost of Joe McCarthy and his incipient Alzheimer's.
     Back in the 60's my Dad used to be an intelligent, liberal Kennedy Democrat. He was always crowing about how the the Johnson administration carried on the shining legacy of the Kennedy administration. He drummed it into my head every chance he got about how the Democrats were the good guys. He mourned when Bobby Kennedy was shot in '68. 
     Then when we were living in San Vito, Italy, my mother had an affair with a black man in 1972 (that'll happen when your husband treats his wife and only child like a punching bag) and before anyone knew it, he went full-blown right wing and not just right wing- He turned into a dues-paying, card-carrying racist who even used the N word around us (In 1977, he came home and saw me watching ROOTS on ABC and changed the channel, muttering, "I'm not watching this n----- shit."). In other words, because my mother crossed racial lines in her affair, my father, a once intelligent, progressive man, turned into a fucking Dixecrat. So maybe moving to Georgia in 1981 was the best thing for him. The fat man floated up to the Mother Ship where he belongs.

      Seriously, if my father was watching IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE nowadays, he'd be rooting for Mr, Potter. And if I ever challenged him on that, he'd say something like, "Bobby, Bobby, Bobby. when are you going to grow out of that liberal dream world of yours? Mr. Potter's the REAL hero here. He's a wealthy capitalist, he made something of himself, he bailed out the bank when it failed, he's a job creator. He even offered George Bailey a job paying several times what he made at the Building & Loan and instead of earning that extra money for his family, the bleeding heart liberal asshole shoved his kind offer right back in his face so he could stand on his so-called 'principles'." 
     "Dad, one of those wealthy capitalist job creators put you out of a job in the mid 90's when he sold Digital out to Intel and floated away on a golden parachute." 
     "Get out of my house." 
     Or if he saw any version of A Christmas Carol, he'd say,
     "Oh, shit, the liberals got to Scrooge in the end. Here we fucking go! Income redistribution, class warfare, socialism. God damn you, Scrooge, you feeble-minded sellout!"
     Now, I realize that I shouldn't be wasting my time bloviating about what my deranged old man is putting out on Facebook especially in light of the fact that it's Christmas Eve, but some things just cannot stand unchallenged. And if there's anything the old man and I have in common aside from genetics, it's stubbornness. And in light of the crimes he'd perpetrated on our family, crimes he still denies to this very day, he deserves to be roundly and publicly ridiculed for his mental irregularities and standing by Donald Trump, a "man" who'd savage him on Twitter if he even so much as looked at him cross-eyed.
     Dad, you were an asshole when you were still a Kennedy Democrat. But, somehow, against all odds, when Mom had that affair in Italy, you turned into an even bigger asshole by going all Strom Thurmond in singing paeans to a rapist who would've fucked your wife or groped her when she was young the minute you turned your back.