What we didn’t talk about at Sunday dinner

In the pre-COVID-19 days, therewere those large, intergenerational Sunday dinners when nothingwas off the table for discussion in America.

Even now, ifwewere sitting downtogether, we’d talk of PresidentDonald Trump lying to his supporters about overturning the election, before he incited a mob to storm the Capitol.

We might even talk of the push for political purges and tribal revenge fantasies, and of a nation thatworries it is tearing itself apart.

Americawas tearing itself apart when Iwas a boy, back in the 1960s. Andwe’d talk about it at ourGreek immigrant family Sunday dinners.

Itwasmy first university. Around the tablewere older liberal and conservative cousins, liberal and conservative uncles and aunts. Everybody could talk, even the kids likeme. Snowflakes weren’t allowed. You had to defend your position. This is what we called “discussion” in the ancient times.

We talked politics, race, sports, family crises, Cousin Pete’s hatred of bluejeans, and stories of the village, about the horse falling into thewell orTruman the family mule.

We’d talk about old “Twilight Zone” episodes like “The ObsoleteMan,” whenwe imagined that itwould be the political right, not the left, thatwould cancel ideas and cripple dissent.

When somewould become angry, the wise auntswould tell us to hush and to put some slack back in our ropes. Then they’d bring out the galaktoboureko and coffee for dessert andwe’d all settle down.

Wewere family. We didn’t split up over politics. And therewas always next Sunday.

But therewas one thingwe hardly ever talked about.

It happened to the family only 20 years before. It hurt too much. It had been terrifying and unspeakably ugly, and thewounds were still too raw:

The GreekCivilWar.

The occupation by the Germans and Italianswas bad enough andAthens starved. But when they left and the Communists tried to take over, the unspeakable things began.

“It starts out as politics,” my late father once said about the Greek CivilWar. “But when the blood gets in your eyes, it’s not about politics anymore. It’s personal.”

It all becomes license for personal revenge. That manwho didn’twant you to marry his daughter; the family thatmay have bested you in business; that teacher whoblocked you fromentering university; that farmerwhomoved the border stones marking the fields to take yourwater.

Or nowI suppose, it might involve those trying to deny you employment and a place in civil society because you’re on the wrong side of their politics.

I’m not sayingwe’re at the brink of armed conflict now. I would never advocate violence. I condemnedTrump for inciting the riot, demanding those who stormed the Capitol be sent to prison.

Many conservatives and Republicans who agreed with Trump’s economic and anti-war foreign policy have said the same thing.

But what I’m seeing nowworries me, with Democrats in power, in control of the executive branch and both houses ofCongress because ofTrump.

“You neverwant a serious crisis to go towaste,” said former ChicagoMayor Rahm Emanuel. “And what Imean by that is an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.”

Like purging political opponents?

That kind of thing does encourage clicks on news sites, but there might come a time when things go beyond clicks.

Trump voters have already been kicked to the margins of society, beginning in 2016. They’ve been labeled as “deplorables,” and collectively asNazis and racists, branded as subhumans by the ministers of political culture in media.

This might shock some pundits and political actors seeding the ground forTruth and ReconciliationCommissions. Butwould the creation of an enemies list make for a more stable nation, or make thingsworse?

Not all those who voted against Hillary Clinton in 2016 deserve to be painted by the same, broad, left-handed brush. InWashington the other day, many of the thousands who gathered to hear Trumpwere peaceful.

So toowere many of those Democrats who protested in the cities in the summer when looters took over and arson fires burned businesses and killed the downtowns.

But the summer riotersweren’t condemned as evil by much of mainstream media. And Democrats hardly mentioned them at their convention.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was all about nonviolent protests. But he understood his nation too.

“But in the final analysis, a riot is the language of the unheard. Andwhat is it that America has failed to hear?” he asked in 1967.

That quotewas used by many in themedia to excuse the violence in the Democratic cities in the summer.

But now, those in power and control of national politics, culture, the social media platforms and much of corporate media are making something clear.

They really don’twant to hear fromthe 74 million Americans who voted forTrump andwho disagree with them. Instead, they condemn them. Or, at least that’s what many of those 74 million people think.

And those who voted for Trump aren’t eager to hear from the 81 million who voted for President-elect Joe Biden.

My aunts who brought out the sweets and coffee to settle us downat those family Sunday dinners have long passed.

They didn’t go to college. They read the newspapers for recipes, not punditry. But they knew firsthand what happens when politics becomes personal.

It’s unspeakable.

It’s whatwe didn’twant to talk about at those Sunday dinners when Iwas a boy.