Half of my extended family are white supremacists and one of them is getting married soon. I have learned it's pointless to initiate fights about their beliefs, but they tend to start one with me every year or two. I am much smarter then they are (which is not bragging—you don't have to be that smart to out-think a white supremacist), so I'm good at ending these fights in a way that leaves them feeling upset and humiliated. The negative reinforcement causes them to attempt these confrontations progressively less frequently, leaving me free to enjoy the company of my non-racist relatives while having only the blandest and most minimal engagement with the bigots, and it seemed like a good workaround for how to navigate our holiday get-togethers. (My friends chastise me for not delivering eloquent speeches about racial harmony to open my relatives eyes, but it's pointless—they've made it to adulthood believing slavery was a great deal for the slaves, because blacks are lazy and what's more relaxing than slave labor? These people are too far gone for any eloquent speeches to reach them.)

The problem is this: Donald Trump has emboldened these relatives.

In their minds, Trump has already won, and a golden age of ethnic cleansing is about to begin. Their confidence is sky high and they're going to want to do a little preemptive gloating at this wedding. On some occasions in the past, they have tried to start with me at inappropriate times (wedding of non-crazy relative, funeral, at grandmother's deathbed). At those times, I just shut it down and refused to engage.

So... to which category does this wedding belong? It's the bride, groom, best man, and parents of the groom who I'm most concerned about wanting to fight with me, so these people who are central to the day. When they start in on how wonderful America will be once all the Hispanics and Muslims have been purged, do I shut it down and step away? Or do I shame, insult, and degrade them, like I normally would if they made the same statements at Christmas or Thanksgiving? As a gay man, it's been difficult to find the equilibrium in which I can maintain both my own sense of decency and my family connections, and it was a relief when I finally found this approach of, "I'm not going to start a fight, but when you bring one to me, I will not hold back." But I also have a drilled-in sense of Midwestern politeness that makes it feel unthinkable to viciously rip into someone on their wedding day.

These confrontations have been decreasing in frequency, but I am so consistently triumphant, I'm always surprised they make any attempts to fight with me at all. How should I conduct myself here?

Trumpian Relatives Underestimate My Powers

P.S. If you're wondering why I'm going at all, when this wedding was announced I started testing the waters, sending up a few trial balloons about potentially being unable to make it. The response was for my non-crazy relatives was to immediately send me money to help with travel expenses, along with big speeches about how important it is to be there for family. I concluded that it would create a lot of drama to skip, and it would be easier just to attend. The wedding is so close now that I really would be an asshole if I backed out.

This wedding doesn't belong in either the "engage" or "shut it down" categories, TRUMP. It belongs in the "skip it entirely/basket of deplorables/fuck these people" category. To paraphrase Lady B: To have racist relatives, Mr. TRUMP, may be regarded as a misfortune. To attend their wedding looks like callousness. (Callousness: "emotionally hardened; unfeeling: a callous indifference to the suffering of others," e.g. the people harmed by racism and bigotry.)

The bride, groom, best man, and parents of the groom are all white supremacists?

Don't go to that wedding, TRUMP, and don't make excuses to your non-crazy family members about why you're not attending. Tell your non-crazy family members the truth: These are deeply shitty people you have the misfortunate of being related to; their political beliefs aren't just objectionable, they're dangerous; sharing DNA with shitty bigots doesn't obligate you to turn up at their shitty weddings. Again, they're not flat earthers, they're not deluded Bigfoot believers, they're not harmless conspiracy theorists who think the moon landing was faked. They're fucking white fucking supremacists, TRUMP, and the mainstreaming of their hateful ideology by Donald Trump, David Duke, Ann Coulter, Breitbart, InfoWars, and the complicit and compromised GOP establishment is a threat to the safety and the lives of millions of your fellow citizens. Like Charles P. Piece said: It's not fucking funny anymore.

The union of two shitty bigots—and the probability that these two shitty bigots will raise equally shitty bigots—isn't cause for celebration. Their wedding isn't a stage for displaying your rhetorical skills, it isn't an occasion to boast about how you can run circles around assholes. Their wedding is an opportunity for you and the rest of your sane relatives to do something you should've done long ago: to once and for all separate yourselves from these hateful assholes. We should all refuse to associate with deplorables who hold racist beliefs, whether we're related to them or not, Midwest politeness and/or "family unity" be damned.

Send your regrets ("I regret that I'm related to shitty bigots and I'm pleased to say I won't be attending your shitty wedding"), TRUMP, and donate the money your non-crazy relatives sent to cover your travel expenses to a charity working to resettle Syrian refugees or register Latino/Hispanic voters.