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How To Talk to Your Progressive Niece about Obamacare This Thanksgiving
As your family gathers around the table this Thanksgiving, the conversation may get a little heated if a left-wing relative brings up the 2016 race, the attacks by ISIS, or President Obama’s failing health reforms. In particular, the Affordable Care Act remains unpopular and misunderstood among the American public — a combination that makes it likely fodder for holiday conflicts.
The liberal website ThinkProgress posted an article titled “How To Talk To Your Tea Party Uncle About Obamacare This Thanksgiving” while Vox published “How to Survive Your Family’s Thanksgiving Arguments.” So, if your niece is a progressive blogger and starts making wild assertions about the Affordable Care Act, here are some key points that will help keep your conversation on track:
Claim: Obamacare is not causing premiums to skyrocket.
You are excited to see your sister and brother-in-law for the first time in three years. As you welcome them into your home for an overdue celebration, their twenty-something daughter walks by your hug. “We need to talk about the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act,” she says, pulling an iPad from her Netroots Nation tote bag. Her parents offer a resigned look and mention that she just got her Master’s in Gender Sustainability.
“Fantastic work,” you say, “I always knew you’d do it! You must have got your smarts from…”
“Does your TV have wi-fi?” she interrupts. “The pie charts really pop on a big screen. According to a recent Center for American Progress analysis, the premium rates for individual market in states with federally-run marketplaces will increase by an average of less than four…”
Before she continues, offer her a glass of wine and ask about her favorite classes. This provides a polite excuse to step out out of the living room while allowing your other guests to keep watching football.
Claim: Jonathan Gruber did not expose the “real truth” about the law.
To everyone’s relief, your niece’s iPad battery is too drained to show her presentation. (She spent the drive over watching a live-streamed #OccupyCapitalism protest at a Puyallup Walmart.) While your spouse plies her with appetizers, you hide all the Apple charger cords from view. But before long, the earnest progressive buttonholes septuagenarian Aunt Judy in an angry screed about “Faux News’ biased coverage of GruberGate.”
“The debate over Obamacare thoroughly addressed the aspects of the policy that the MIT economist claims lawmakers were hiding,” she shouts into Judy’s bad ear. “The Congressional Budget Office did score the individual mandate as a mechanism to increase revenue, and President Obama was open about…”
At this point, interrupt with family photos. “Did you know we still have pictures of you as a kid? Let’s go to the other room — I bet we can find that photo of Aunt Judy nursing you back to health when you had chicken pox.” As you leave, Aunt Judy turns her hearing aid back on so she can enjoy the third quarter.
Claim: Obamacare has successfully lowered the uninsured rate.
Good news! You’ve successfully refocused your niece and the other guests on funny stories, family memories and plans for the next year. But as everyone sits down to the Thanksgiving feast, Grandpa complains about the troubles he’s had scheduling that hip surgery.
Your ThinkProgress niece seizes the opportunity. “Just imagine how bad it would be if you were poor, a person of color, or a woman!” she says. “Did you know that many oppressed communities with preexisting conditions were able to attain coverage for the first time when ACA marketplaces opened? According to data compiled by Commonwealth Fund…”
Now is the time to gently remind her that before she shares research about Medicaid expansion’s effect on the low-income transgendered, the family needs to say grace and load up their plates. If she still doesn’t get the hint, encourage every guest, one by one, to say what they are most thankful for this year.
Claim: Businesses are not cutting back on workers’ hours or coverage because of Obamacare.
Wisely, you made sure your progressive niece is one of the last to share her Thanksgiving story. Everyone talking about close calls avoided, unexpected little miracles and new job opportunities will surely help her focus on the deeper meanings of family and the holidays. Not so fast.
“The fact that Ben and Jennie got new jobs proves that Obamacare is not creating a ‘part-time economy’ like teatard wingnuts keep claiming!” Your brother-in-law tries to stop her as she hands out white papers from the Urban Institute and the Robert Johnson Wood Foundation.
Since none of your gentle rebukes have worked, it’s time to level with your ThinkProgress blogger niece. “Honey, everyone at this table loves you very much. But today isn’t about arguing. Thanksgiving is about counting our blessings and sharing just one day with family from around the country. All of us have different views on politics, religion, football and everything else. But today is about setting all that aside and remembering what we have in common: Family. Now, who wants seconds?”
A version of this article was first posted last Thanksgiving.
Is that what happened to Tiger Woods and the 3 iron so many Thanksgivings ago?
Since that white woman beat that poor colored boy with a golf club he has not won a major tournament. Ever since Obama took office. Has the justice department looked into this?
I’d ask her if Hillary really is going to get the votes of Democrats if she doesn’t do some serious killing to show she’s tough. Her hubby had Ricky Ray Rector killed to show his bona fides, but now it’s nearly a quarter-century later and the standards are higher. It would have to be some kind of mass violence. How is she going to get Americans to believe she is willing to act unilaterally, without Congress’s involvement, if she doesn’t show she means business out on the street?
I’d also ask if I will be allowed to read any books I want when I’m interned in Hillary’s camps. Will I have access to a computer so I can keep up with Ricochet?
This year, get all those nieces copies of “The Thomas Sowell Reader.”
Good point. And I hadn’t noticed the french fries. I suppose at a table like that, politics is the least of your concerns. Or maybe they refer to them as “freedom fries.”
That’s how the fight begins. At the mention of freedom fries.
“More like restriction fries. Where am I supposed to put my meat?”
“I don’t think you’ll get any meat the way he’s cutting.”
“Well, mom, maybe instead of buying this stupid silver domed platter you could have invested in a decent knife!”
Dad tries to get a nice large slice of the breast, but his butter knife gets hung up on a piece of skin – yanking, he elbows little Sally in the chest, knocking back into the wall, tearing the wallpaper and spraying a few lead paint chips back into the cranberry sauce. Good thing it was red paint.
… and as I recall, Jon – when you posted this last year, it similarly devolved into an in-depth analysis of the private lives of the people in that photo. There’s just too much going on.
Congrats on the Insta Launch!
instapundit
This post is so 2014. As relevant as Occupy Wall Street.
This year, I need advice on how to talk to my crazy socialist grandparents.
What kind of socialists are they?
Ask them what they plan to wear when they appear before the ObamaCare Death Panel.
Lest we forget that it’s not just progressive nieces who are annoying at holiday meals:
Funyuns are still around, but alas, Screaming Yellow Zonkers will be forever lost to a new generation of stoners.
I keep trying!!
Ask them what they plan to wear when they appear before the ObamaCare Death Panel.
I think those drab grey jackets that were ubiquitous during Mao’s reign would be appropriate.