But lest I stray too far from this blog's purpose, I am writing this not to grieve but to share some insight I gained into her world view in recent days. My grandmother, for as long as she was an American citizen, was always a Republican. But for most of my own life, the reasons for that have remained a mystery to me. I always credited a connection to the military, as she came to America after wedding a decorated Navy man. I am sure that was a part of it, but there was clearly more. I can't say growing up that I ever questioned it much. Mostly, for me, it was a source of frustration, and as I grew older I felt further confused by her devotion to the party, but powerless to change her mind.
My grandmother was an immigrant, and that alone, I believed, should disqualify her from GOP sympathies. Indeed while she never favored any instant path to citizenship, whether through amnesty or the no-strings 'wet foot dry foot' policy enjoyed by Cuban refugees, she was distressed by the xenophobic isolationism which drove modern conservative thought.
Beyond that, her great distress over the Iraq war left her angry and tearful. Growing up in Greece and raising my mother in Turkey, my grandmother felt great empathy for the people of the Middle East. The idea of American tanks rolling into Baghdad disgusted her in ways most in the U.S. could never understand. She lived in Greece when the Third Reich invaded. The Nazis killed her father, a civilian who had refused to flee to the caves with other members of his family. A military invasion wasn't something she knew only through cable news reports, and this part of the world wasn't somewhere she recognized only from magazines. I reminded her of that angst in 2004, but still she filled in the bubble on her swing state ballot that year to re-elect George W. Bush. I regret that my anger at her decision left me incapable of ever asking exactly how she could reward an administration that caused this destruction. I would like to understand that particular choice more.
But at a wake for her on Monday night, I got a peak into the Greek community of South Florida where she established her American identity. The event was a small affair. Sadly, many of her compatriots have already passed themselves, but some of the congregation members from St. Demetrius made sure to attend the blessing. My mother made sure to introduce me to a childhood friend of hers and an older colleague of my grandmother's. As happens when my mother identifies me as a journalist, the subject of politics inevitably came up. I learned that, like my grandmother, these women were all Republicans, and with an election so close, I quickly gathered whom everyone was supporting in the Senate race this year. South Florida may be a Democratic stronghold, but the couch in this funeral home was Crist country.
Now I know better than to start badmouthing Charlie Crist is room filled with Greek Republicans. Everybody there, my mother included, will almost certainly vote for the great tan hope this Fall. So I sat back and listened to the women discuss the state of politics today.
The discussion revealed to me the great discomfort many Republicans today feel about the extremists who dominate the media landscape. One woman had a daughter who worked for the Crist campaign until he left the party. The daughter, fearful for her own professional future, parted ways with the governor and is now working at a Republican Party of Florida office in South Florida. But there was no love for Marco Rubio, the disrupter who had ejected the governor from Republican politics.
Here in the most liberal part of the Sunshine State, the Republicans at the wake were not rightwingers. They had always viewed the GOP as a big tent. They saw room for conservation in conservatism. Social wedge issues weren't the prime motivator for going to the polls. Nobody discussed their views on abortion or gun rights, but it was clear wherever they stood on those topics that those issues were not the main reason they were registered with the GOP.
My own mother remains a registered Republican even though I don't think she has supported a GOP nominee in a presidential election during my lifetime. Her days of conservative activism were all part of an amusing past when I grew up. In college, she was secretary of a statewide Young Republicans group in the south, but insisted back then she was a Rockefeller Republican. I have teased her since that the Republicans she identifies with - the Jack Kemps and John Heinzes - are all long dead.
But it was clear this week that I was wrong, at least right now. Those conservatives who value fiscal principles over corporate welfare, who care deeply for the rule of law but don't care to use it as a tool for retribution, are not all dead and gone. They still exist, but they are out of power. And while I was never so concerned for their presence before, after laying my grandmother to rest I fear they are a dying breed.
It is worth noting that my grandmother, who was as Greek and Republican as they come, was not herself a big fan of Charlie Crist. She thought he was, to borrow her words, a bit too "sissy." I think I know what she meant, and have consciously chosen to stay away from that particular line of attack on this blog. I don't know how she ultimately may have voted in the election this year, but I am certain she would never have voted for a Democrat like Kendrick Meek. But based on the frustrations I saw in the social circle who felt close enough to attend her wake, I doubt she would be enthusiastic about Marco Rubio either. But that isn't important now. And I miss her so much I'd happily help her fill her absentee ballot out for anyone she so chose if I could have her back for a few months more.
But I do understand now why it was that she felt her loyalty. I got a glimpse into the Republican Party of the past, in a time when hatred, division and domination were not the only thing that attracted supporters to the polls on behalf of the GOP. And I can't help but think that if the same were true today, and that we were busy fighting a loyal opposition instead of a lunatic fringe, the state of the nation would be better for it.
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