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.

Given the response from your non-shitty relatives, I'm assuming this will be a large wedding. And you mention attending the weddings of non-crazy relatives before, so you have a baseline for what family weddings look like. So I have to ask this question:

At these large weddings, how much time do you spend interacting with the wedding party?

Maybe your weddings are different than the dozens or so I've attended, but unless I'm in the wedding party myself, I pretty much spend NO time talking to them beyond a brief "congratulations." They got shit to do.

Now maybe they'll have some racist crap in the toasts/wedding montage/ceremony/etc. that you'll feel obligated to address. I don't know your family. But offhand, I'd say the chances of getting into a substantive discussion with the folks running the wedding are essentially nil.

So the bride's parents aren't on the "hate-filled" list? My heart goes out to them.

LW won't you be on the list of those they wish to exterminate. For your own safety I agree with Dan, don't go.
Battle lines are drawn now, it's either one side or the other. Humanitarian or Nazis.
Make a stand and piss those ugly people out of your life, relatives or not.

I don't know, Dan's advice seems a little too binary, especially considering that the LW has already decided to attend and is looking for different advice.

I had an uncle pass away recently. He was a great man, great father (he raised my cousin alone after my aunt passed away), a caring and attentive grandfather, and a rather gentle soul. But, and I'm sure you saw this coming, he was pretty fucking racist.

I always had trouble reconciling his different sides, but I would never skip family get togethers in order to avoid him...and I liked, and loved him. That being said, my uncle wasn't a confrontational guy like the LW's relatives, and he was never trying to change my opinions. Our get togethers were spent drinking beer, catching up, and watching sports ( and he knew to lay off the n-word in front of my family).

So personally, I couldn't take Dan's advice. I'm not sure what I would do if I was the LW. I'd probably go, hang back by the bar, re-gift a shitty present, and leave early. On the other hand, I do think there is a difference between straight up white supremacists and old people with racist beliefs held over from a bygone era (like my uncle).

Dan's absolutely right. As to the wedding gift, you might also consider donating in their names to the Southern Poverty Law Center, the NAACP, or Hillary Clinton's campaign fund, assuming you'd enjoy giving a gift that would really annoy the racist bride and groom. These are gifts that keep on giving, as such gift recipients often get put on the organization's mailing lists for future donation requests.

And don't forget the fine work of the ACLU, FFRF, and Planned Parenthood!

Totally agree with what Dan said.

Make a donation in the bride and groom's name to the ACLU or the NAACP or something.

Behavioral pedant comment--you schooling them when they engage you in a debate is positive punishment, not negative reinforcement. Reinforcement makes behavior MORE likely. Punishment makes behavior LESS likely.

Absolutely do not take the money sent to you by your relatives so you could attend the wedding and donate it somewhere.

If you decide not to go to the wedding, ask your relative if they'd like you to send the money back since you're not going to use it for the purpose for which they gave it to you. Maybe they'll say no, but maybe they'll say yes. You'll look like an especially considerate and conscientious and respectful person if you ask, and that's a high priority given the circumstances.

Also, definitely don't make a donation in the bride and groom's name to the NAACP. That will just make you look like a dick. You can make a donation to the NAACP any dang time you want; deliberately doing it in the name of someone who disagrees with their mission serves no end except to gratuitously insult them. It will not in any way make the world a better place, and your non-white-supremacist family members may start thinking of you as the bad guy if you go around picking totally gratuitous fights with your white supremacist relatives.

Go wearing an ironic pink klan outfit.

What about the family makes them "white supremacists"? Because just supporting Trump doesn't make the cut.
Seems this guy's relatives are well off not having him around.

Does LW's invitation include a plus-one? If so, how diverse and devilishly good-humored are his friends?

@12 Did you miss these nuggets: "SLAVERY was...GREAT"; "In their minds,... a GOLDEN AGE of ETHNIC CLEANSING is about to begin... and they're going to want to do a little preemptive GLOATING"; "..how WONDERFUL America will be once ALL the HISPANICS and MUSLIMS have been PURGED"?
Or do YOU need LW's relatives to ALSO want to PURGE ASIAN AMERICANS, AFRICAN AMERICANS and NATIVE AMERICANS before they can be called White Supremacists?

LW, life's short, your time is valuable, save it for people who you enjoy having around. Skip the bigotsville wedding, these people are worse than David Duke! Visit your non-bigoted kin some other time.

Send the money back to your non-crazy relatives if you don't go. If you go, just shut up and stay away from the crazies. Your attitude of "I'm much more intelligent than they are and I've tried to show them The Way but they're just too stupid to get it" is a bit unpleasant -- you may indeed be more intelligent, and they are no doubt horrible people, but you're apparently not smart enough to not bait them. Learn that skill.

@15 is right--why is the LW even bothering to bait them?

@14: I think @12 would not see those as reasonable statements, not racist at all.

Do the bride and groom have any positive features as humans, like Racist Grandpa does? If you just despise them, you shouldn't be going to their wedding, it's really not right. But you accepted, well shit.

These sounds like people you should cut out of your life. You don't actually have to do that pointedly about these assholes' wedding, though, and it won't help anyone. Go or don't go, and then cut these people off.

I like suggestion from @11 for flaming ironic costume.

You can't stop being related to them, so I think you see the bigger picture and go for the sake of the wider family. As mentioned the actual bridal party will be hella busy, so you probably won't have to engage with them. But if you do, then I reckon you don't try and argue, try something passive-aggressively gnomic like, "Ummm, maybe some people could see it that way." and just keep repeating the same phrase over and over. That's really annoying.

I'm the letter writer. I wrote this just a few hours ago and am kind of amazed to see it answered! Thanks for all these comments everybody!

There's no money to return (or redirect), checks were sent but since the financial troubles were exaggerated as a pretense to not attend, I didn't cash them. "Oh, another gig came together, so I have more money coming in than I thought, thanks so much though!"

@4: Thanks for this, it was really helpful in clarifying my thinking. I am resolved to attend, and I think I'm going to take your advice exactly (slipping out early being key, I'm going to gamble that the confrontational urges won't hit them till later in the evening -- if they get fight earlier than that, I might try @18's approach). My bigot relatives are also excessively generous and loving to friends, family, neighbors, and I find it endlessly difficult to reconcile how they can be great in all areas EXCEPT their insane racist ideology. In their (fully 100% white) town, they're always running the fundraisers for the neighbor who gets cancer, arranging housing for the family whose place burned down, becoming surrogate families for troubled kids who go on to credit my relatives with being responsible for them going to college instead of prison, etc. They present as so cheerful, mild-mannered, and adorable, people who have met them don't believe the white supremacy when I tell them about it... until I direct them to their FB pages. It is hard to square their good aspects with their conviction that whites should rule the world, and everyone else should be grateful to be under the boot where they belong. If nothing else, having them in my family has afforded me abundant opportunity to contemplate the nature of good and evil, and what it is that makes you a good or bad person.

@15: I agree, my attitude towards them is unpleasant, but nothing else works. Over the years I've tried every approach in the book, and Nasty Condescending Unpleasantness is the only one that has good results. It lets me condemn their provocations, and also resolve the matter and move on from it quickly. Anything more respectful just adds fuel to the fire, and then they're harassing me for hours instead of minutes. And I never bait them. That's rule #1 now. I used to bait them, but I realized over a decade ago that there was no upside.

I might be on my way to cutting them out of my life, but I'm just not quite there yet. As for this wedding, I think I'm going to hope avoidance, passive-aggression, and an early exit makes it manageable...

@19

Good luck, and dish when it's over.

"In their mind, a golden age of ethnic cleansing is about to begin."

"I am much smarter then [sic] they are"

"I am so consistently triumphant, I'm always surprised they make any attempts to fight with me at all."

"Trumpian Relatives Underestimate My Powers"

It really seems like this person has a tenuous grip on reality. The narrative sounds cartoonish, hyperbolic and imagined.

Also, your relatives are probably just fucking with you because your histrionics are so predictable.

@19 That sounds tougher than my "unmixed asshole" picture. I still feel like in the end there's not a way to make this relationship survive, but maybe I don't compartmentalize well.

(Is there any hope that won't leave your heart that you might nudge someone towards getting out sometime, maybe someone's kid, just the ghost of a chance? Would be for me, I think, even if I knew not to hope.)

Have to say if I wanted to go out with a bang I'd have a hard time resisting getting genetic testing done for my ancestry. Not claiming necessarily wise.

Interesting that Mr Casely picked up on something Mr Savage completely missed. And LW's clarification seems almost to dodge the question of whether race is or isn't really their only prejudice.

LW @19, I'm glad to hear that you are going to the wedding while trying to minimize your one-on-one interaction with the bigoted bridal party. Rarely have I disagreed more strongly with Dan's opinion. Unless your family relations become so toxic that you need to disavow them to maintain your own psychological and emotional good health, I think you're doing the right thing by hanging in there and trying to change closed minds, one conversation at a time, at your annual family gatherings (but NOT at this wedding). If you skip the wedding, you may poison the well for any future opportunities to model good behavior. Even if you never get through to most of your wrong-headed relatives, you still represent the philosophy that equality and love will always triumph over bigotry and hate - and your example may inspire a child or teen in your extended family to grow beyond what they have been taught at home, and follow your good example. Good luck, and keep up the good work!

To LW, is there any chance that you could engage your relatives with very much the kind of discussion you raised in your comment here? Such as

"You are such kind gracious wonderful people and yet you hate blacks and Muslims and probably a whole lot of other people. It puzzles me and I'd like to talk with you about it."

@ 12 - "What about the family makes them "white supremacists"? Because just supporting Trump doesn't make the cut"

It does show that they have no brain, though.

Absolutely do not attend. Make it clear why: I refuse to associate with white supremacists in any way. Make it clear to anyone who asks that you will not permit contact with any of these Neanderthals as long as they hold these views. Make a gift of your own money to the SPLC in their name. Fuck 'em. Blood is not thicker than human decency.

@29
I wonder if getting all virtuous and telling people that you won't "associate" with them (giggles) is going to do anything positive?

It's tough, and personalities may make it impossible, but I think the big strategy is to engage with these people in a way that tries to get them to think.

Telling them to fuck off may not be best way.

@ 30 - The LW did say "These people are too far gone for any eloquent speeches to reach them", though. So I don't really see the point of maintaining a relationship with them.

For that purpose, at least.

@21, I agree. I think the narrative shows some clear signs of exaggeration, i.e.: cartoonishly evil. I simply don't believe LW description of them.

@26: There are some relatives who get the softer approach -- I was generalizing for the letter, but I have a lot of racist family members and their behavior falls on a spectrum. The most extreme and incendiary relatives are the ones I'm worried about at this wedding, so the obnoxious responses I typically give them got the focus. The ones who are less foaming-at-the-mouth-raving about it might get the more direct attempt at dialogue you suggest. (The rules of engagement are these: 1. Never start a discussion on any of these topics 2. If someone else starts it, try to debate them if you think they are at all open to reason [the wedding crowd definitely isn't, so not relevant to the question of the letter] 3. If they're not someone who can be reasoned with, express my honest opinion on how revolting I find their beliefs while also resolving it as efficiently as possible, and the method of resolution shifts depending on the specific relative I'm engaging with... some get condescending nastiness, some get mocking, some get heavy sadness -- whatever is going to let me counter the bigoted statement and then immediately shut that specific relative down before they can escalate)

Actually, thinking about it now, I'm realizing it's the range of degrees of right-wing-ery that make it difficult to cut ties. I do have some liberal relatives, but the majority of them are dyed-in-the-wool Republicans. On one end, there are some who are committed to conservative economic ideals but not personally racist (though they're willing to at least tacitly support the racism of their party). On the other end, true white supremacists who genuinely believe whites are a superior race who should dominate the rest of the world. And the rest of the family really fills every space in between, from the mild to the virulent... to have so many degrees of racism represented within the family, it makes it such a gradual fade, and that makes it hard to locate exactly where the line is.

I'm sitting here right now and wondering, if I had to categorize them all into Acceptable or Unacceptable, which box (or basket) would I put this or that uncle in -- are they far enough to be included with the white supremacists, or, to borrow @4's formulation, are they just "old people with racist beliefs held over from a bygone era." Some of the relatives it is obvious, but with many of them it's not.

I've just never been able to work out the logistics of cutting any of them off, especially as someone who lives in another state. When I come in, it's because the whole family is getting together for big gatherings, and if I refuse to see the worst of them, the only realistic solution available is to not go and see none of them. Since I was having a problem with my worst relatives making these gatherings stressful by wanting to get into political/racial/etc fights, I've settled on this strategy of making them not want to start these fights because they're left feeling awful at the end. (Oh, also, @9: never heard "positive punishment" before, and I love it!)

And even when I'm being truly nasty to the worst of them, it's also something I've prepped for like a final exam. The week before holidays or family gatherings I'll check out what the alt right media is agitating about that week, and drill myself until I know the actual facts that refute those positions backwards and forwards. So even when I'm being a nasty dick to my worst relatives, I'm also trying to work in actual information or an alternative way of viewing the world, for anyone that might be listening in the background.

I'm aware I'm trying to check a lot of boxes at once with my approaches to them, and that leads to some objectives being compromised. Racist family whack-a-mole. I do the best I can with it!

@11: related

@ 34 - I'm not questioning your decisions, but quite frankly, the family situation you describe does sound like so much work for zero benefits (I don't remember you describing any), and therefore not really worth it.

I'm also getting a chuckle from those who don't believe the description of the relatives because they sound cartoonish, because cartoonish is actually a word I use to describe them ALL THE TIME. I've also described them as being like the racist antagonists in a badly written movie about the civil rights era, their statements are so over-the-top, even after decades of this I sometimes still have reactions of "this can not be how bigots actually talk." I can't blame people for finding them unbelievable, because they are unbelievable. But, unfortunately for us, they are real, and they are committed voters in a swing state.

@24: race is the big one, they also have a lot of religious intolerance. There is casual sexism, but they don't rant about women they way they do about ethnic minorities. They used to be very openly homophobic, but since I came out I never heard a single homophobic comment again. Whether they have become less homophobic over time or are just exhibiting their own Midwestern politeness, I have no idea (probably some of each). That's the way it works... they can say unspeakably vile things about all the groups that are not represented in whatever group they are in at the moment, but they would never say it to someone's face. I think. I haven't seen them have enough interactions with non-whites to say that with true confidence.

@36: it makes my parents happy to have the whole family together, and I do have many relatives who are good people that I truly like, mixed in with the bad apples. It is a lot of work, but (so far) I've found it worth it.

Cutting relatives out of your life for having disagreeable opinions is a last resort and results in a very divided society like we see today in Clinton V Trump. If you can, be present just to offer a hopeful counterpoint for the young ones.

This sounds so dreadful, I'm really sorry for LW. I just came from a big wedding - a cousin of my husband - and there was so much warmth and love floating around that it was a delight. I never mind spending money to travel to attend events with his family (not mine who are massively Christian of the most bigoted sort), quite the contrary - I insisted that we go. I wish everyone could have some of this type of loving family in their lives.

Tip the DJ to see if they'd play They Might Be Giants' "Your Racist Friend" during the reception dinner, after you've eaten your fill, as you throw your napkin down and walk out, with both birds a-flyin'...

A wedding is a big drama show anyway...why not burn those bridges in dramatic style?

@34 - Before reading your response I was having a hard time figuring out your sense of obligation to be there for "extended family", toxic or not. Like, do these people not have any friends coming to their wedding or something?

Would it be possible to keep in touch, plan small get together with, the people in your family that are important to you? It's not necessary to make people choose sides, but surely the ones worth keeping in your life would understand your aversion to the others. If money for travel is tight, perhaps an office season pop-in? A long weekend? That sort of thing.

@43 - Right, but the couple are garbage people the LW has little respect for. LW's only obligation here seems to be to other family members in attendance. Weddings truly are about the couple, which is why this one should be skipped.

Attending this wedding says that your relatives ' beliefs are misguided but harmless, and that their yokel ignorance is the real problem, other than the fact that they're cheerleaders for someone who truly would be happy to practice ethnic cleansing. What does that say about you, that you're willing to make that statement for the sake of family Unity? That's a family Unity that does not deserve to be preserved.

And no, I don't know why my voice recognition thinks that Unity should be capitalized as if it were a proper noun.

Will your non-deplorable relatives be available to hang out before or after the wedding? Depending on how much drama you're OK with, you could always go to the town the wedding is in, stay in the same hotel, and skip the white pride/bride festival.

@CrazyRelatives: I feel your pain. Living in a rural state I have relatives that span from "totally awesome and progressive" to "cartoonish, rabid alt-righters" on all sides- even in laws. I have varied relationships with them all too. Some are just horrible all around; others are "wonderful people" as long as you don't look at their Facebook pages or bring up politics.

People who think your letter is fake also make me laugh. I have relatives I always thought were wonderful people, then after I became an adult they would say the most horrible things in front of me. I have relatives who call Michelle Obama the "first tranny", who think there should be a hunting season for homosexuals (because they equate it with pedophilia), and who think mixing races causes genetic illnesses (AND I'M MIXED- I SHIT YOU NOT!).

The all around horrible ones call their own daughters "bitches and cunts" and I swear they are allergic to saying a nice word to someone's face, yet oddly enough these are the ones with the sweet and devoutly religious Facebook pages.

I deal with my relative troubles by ignoring the completely horrible. If I have control over the guest list, they're not invited. If an event is in their honor or they are the hosts, I don't go. At others' events I stay away from them. But if they attack someone who is present I support that person.

The people who are fine as long as we avoid the subject: I don't follow them on Facebook and I don't start anything with them. If they start it though, I make sure to calmly and politely stand firm in my beliefs. I've even gotten them to concede a bit in person before, but then they're back at the same old shit on Facebook later anyway.

I've made my best gains with my younger relatives. They have been able to hear an alternative view and that has helped with most of them being more open minded. Ironically the younger one who is still racist and sexist- his parents wonder what's wrong with him when he spouts hate that they DO disagree with. Cue up the "I learned it from you!"commercial.

I just got married, and there were a fair number of people who had to leave early, they were there for the ceremony and the beginning of the reception and then had to give their goodbyes and scoot out. I think you would be able to avoid a lot of grief if you planned on being there for an hour only, though coming up with a reason for having to leave might be difficult (the people who left my reception early had a long car ride to get started on)

Three cheers for Sarah @43! Though OP @37 makes me want to ask whether you have a handsome, patient African-American friend who would go as your date as a sociology experiment. I like the idea of keeping to the high ground and out-polite-ing them on this occasion; your usual strategy is clearly effective but not as appropriate for a wedding.

@21 Bitch, please.

Will there be free booze?
I have found that interaction with the bride, groom, best man etc, at weddings is extremely minimal. I doubt there will be time or opportunity for arguments, except for, perhaps with the groom's father. Fuck them and stay home.

This letter reminds me why I'm so glad I fled the Midwest and my extended family there. I too have quite a few cartoonishly racist relatives. One uncle in particular lamented that he was no longer in the Marines when the second Iraq war started, because he really wanted to go kill some "towel-headed sand n*s." Of course he was horribly offended a few years later when I referred to him as a racist. Go figure.

I have plenty of awesome non-racist family too, thankfully, and always make time to see them whenever I'm back in the flyover states. That way i feel no obligation to attend events populated with shitbags just to see the nice ones. It's the course I recommend for the letter writer once the current situation is resolved.

@45. Agree. LW, these relatives are ok thinking non white human beings are trash.
By going to their wedding you are saying that's fine by you.

In situations like this, I think of the children, as these very people like to admonish us to do.

If all the family the kids ever see are racist etc, they have less chance of escaping that themselves. Having sane relatives show up now and then, and listening as they take the "I won't start it but if you do, I'll finish it" attitude the writer takes, is good for the kids. Whatever their reaction is today, those conversations lodge in their minds and can be very beneficial for them later on.

So yes, if you can stand it and have an exit strategy, go to the wedding and just be yourself.

@53 It sure appears that there are people who think it's ruder to call someone a racist than to actually BE a racist. Just like Drumpf being horrified by Ms Clinton calling his supporters "deplorable". Not the fact that they ARE deplorable but that she had the nerve to call them out on their crappy behavior. (Also of course he had no idea what the word meant.)

@14 Lay off the meth, dude. I don't see any of the words you mentioned in the letter. But hey! Making shit up is fun! Which explains your Nazi leather fetish.

@16 Sure. Let's believe shit that is made up. Because this is the Internet

@19 Living in White-as-Bread Seattle, it is always amusing to see out-of-towners White Flight here, driving out Seattle's minority population. The good news it looks like you won't be a burden to your family anymore. Because - pro-tip - this wedding is about them, not your FEELZ.

@27 OK. His relatives disagree with him politically. We all have a stupid relative that's like that. I fail to see how that leads to White Supremacist!!!1!!

@28 I bet you wish Hitler could slip you his German sausage though, don't you.

@ 57 - Re-read the letter. The sentences iseult quoted are all there.

You're the one who needs to lay off the meth. Or maybe you're just a Trump supporter, and we can't really expect more from you.

I second everyone who says it's unethical to go. The "good" family members should understand (if they actually are good, they wouldn't go either) and the others' opinion is irrelevant.

Back again, LW, because I really urge you to think about the sticky issues of privilege that come up here.

Your family members are cheering for a presidential candidate who wants to ETHNICALLY CLEANSE this country. Let's don't split hairs here: that's what. The lives of black folks, queer and trans folks, immigrants: all of us would see drastic changes to our quality of life, if not threats to our actual lives.

Do you really not respect, cherish, or love anyone who fits into the above categories? If you do, then how can you truly respect or love them while also minimizing the fact that these relatives see them as less than human? "Oh, I know Cousin Trixie and her husband Robb want to deport you, Roberto, and prevent all of your relatives from legally entering, Ahmed, but whaddya gonna do? My mom really wants me to make nice with Trixie and Robb!" What's left unsaid -- and the reason why I brought up privilege -- is: "Well, it's not me that Trixie and Robb and their walking Cheeto of a candidate would be going after. So, meh."

No. It is minimizing the humanity of your Muslim friends, your Latino friends, your gay friends, your black friends, to accept your mom's desire to bring the family together. It's not *you* who is disrupting family unity here; it's the resident white supremacists. Frankly, your mom needs to be challenged on why that's a family unity she wants to get behind at all.

@61 the letter writer is gay. If you must go to the fascists' wedding LW, then at least wear
a Black Lives Matter tshirt to it.

LW, Consider being slightly less nasty around the younger generation. If you want to sway the kids, you can't give the parents the ammunition to bust out the "See, we told you liberals are all insufferable a-holes" the minute you leave the room.

I'm not sure about Midwestern politeness vs southern WASP politeness, but I have a lot of experience with the latter-it's in my blood-so charming your hair will melt and it'll be 2 weeks before you catch on to the horrific insult hidden in that charm. Sometimes, you just gotta say 'fuck it.' For me it was when my grandmother started mocking my best friend for being gay. It's not about burning bridges-it's about common decency. Personally-I'm an asshole and probably was at birth-I chose to bring a black man as my escort to my debut ball... They refused to give him a glass of champagne, so I stole a bottle and climbed the stage and I just went off. Every thought I ever held back-every ounce of righteous anger-I let it all out. It felt amazing. But here's the thing-I haven't been allowed to see my baby (well, they're almost teenagers now) cousins since then. Every Christmas present I send them is returned, and they hear horror stories about how awful I am to this day. That's the thing, when you're dealing with horrible people-being right doesn't protect you. My advice (for what it's worth): stay away. It's not worth it. Invite your good family to your birthday (or a random 'just because' gathering) and don't even put yourself into a position where you have to choose between respecting your family's wedding and standing up for decency-nobody will win either way.

Good luck!

What? He can't skip it! It's their day, he should let them win. When they start the fight, he graciously acknowledges that after Trump wins, he tells them to get their goodbyes to him ready, since as a gay man he will be carted off with the rest. Ending with a hearty congrats and happily ever after to the bride and groom on their day. And then he walks away to hang with the fun relatives, refusing any more discussion.

I suspect the letter writer Dan and many commenters need to get over themselves. While I don't agree with them there are plenty of decent people who think that immigration is a problem and terrorists are a threat. Too much Fox News perhaps. But a lot of people when presented with faulty evidence come to rather conservative conclusions rationally.

They believe that if we all just work hard and acted like them everything would be great. They believe that immigrants take jobs and shouldn't be allowed into this country which is not completely irrational. Illegal immigration is very complicated and there are many problems involved. And they believe that Muslims are potential threats and should not be brought into the country right now. I don't believe in any of that I'm not a fearful person and I think we have higher values that take precedent.

And while much of what Trump says is hateful and bigoted he also can play to otherwise rational people by asserting these faulty but seemingly logical positions. Some maybe these people are neo-nazis or klan members. But maybe they are just typical fear filled misinformed rural Americans or even Suburban. 50% of this country seems to be liking Trump and I think many of them are just decent people who don't know any better.

On top of that I'm not convinced that the letter writer is as smart as he thinks. Have you ever seen a bigot feel defeated in an argument. Or a liberal for that matter. Nobody ever really shuts down or convinces anybody of anything for the most part. Especially people who are not open minded. I suspected that the reason these people continually engage if they are trying to bait him and get him to argue. He has probably never convince them of anything it would be much better off shutting up. Grandstanding and trying to take the moral High ground with people who are not interested in what you're saying is a pointless ego exercise.

I think the letter writer just likes to think of himself has a social justice Warrior who's smarter than everyone else. My advice would be go to the wedding and shut the hell up. When someone says something inflammatory ignore it. If they say something directly to him they are just trying to bait him anyway. Just deflect it and go talk to someone else. Really it's not that big a deal. Grow up and be an adult and learn to be around people that don't always agree with you. And if you ever find the company unpleasant enough then stop hanging around him. But if you see some value in some of the relationships you have with this family then shut up like most adults learn to do and talk about other

I meant not as smart as he thinks

Of course you could always take a black Muslim transexual as his plus-one