The old man with the Trump sticker and me, at a light.

I'm just going to use this graphic for
the rest of the summer, okay?

In 2014, a frustrated young man wrote to Andrew W.K of the Village Voice to express how much he hated his father’s far-right political views and what they were doing to destroy the world and everyone who cared about him.  The response, broader in scope than perhaps the letter writer expected, included this statement:

“The world isn’t being destroyed by democrats or republicans, red or blue, liberal or conservative, religious or atheist — the world is being destroyed by one side believing the other side is destroying the world.”

I used to think a fair fight between Trump critics and Trump supporters would not ever be possible while one side, the civilized one, was using sticks to bat back the craggy rocks being hurled by the other side, the barbaric one. 

Sooner or later, everyone is just going to start hurling rocks.

A few weeks ago, I pulled up at a light next to a truck with a Trump sticker. The way I don’t need to see an actual crime in progress to know I’m in a bad neighborhood, I knew who was driving this truck before I lined up alongside him.

Mentally closed probably, narrow minded, old, rigid, ignorant, frustrated. Probably mourning the past when kids could play outside until the streetlights came on, and mothers had pie ready for you after school, and men kept women in their place, and in fact, everyone knew their place without trying to be in someone else’s. Like migrants. Like women. Like members of the LBGTQ community.

So, I looked over at this person I’d never met, using a facial expression that I believed would make my feelings about him clear. He looked at me and reflexively smiled until he saw my expression. Then his face fell, and he looked straight ahead.

And now, I looked at him more closely. I pegged him at mid-late eighties. He had a dog, also elderly, on the seat next to him. His face was drawn and deeply lined and the only word for his posture at the wheel was tired. Life-tired. Long, hard life-tired. He wore a navy-blue work shirt and he was thin. He was probably coming from his work place of other navy-blue shirts, and his dog was probably looking forward to his dinner. 

Right? Before Trump started trampling on our humanity, I would have left it there.

But think about what I did. I gave this very old man one of my most damning looks. Even my God, who was watching, put down his drink and said, “Are you kidding me?”

Others of us may be doing exactly that right now. Using our faces and words to hate Trump, or, anyone who doesn’t hate Trump.  

But here’s the thing. In that moment of hate, when I became angry with this person I’d never met for not just sporting a bumper sticker, but for probably being like Trump himself, I didn’t like myself either.

Remember my bottom line from last week’s post?  If you’re doing something that makes you think less of yourself, it’s not the right thing to do.   

So, while I sat there feeling angry with this person I’d never met for choosing judges who could strip women of their rights and small children of their parents, or the torturous warehousing of children at the border, or  the failure to properly account for the death of an American college student in North Korea, I didn’t like myself either.

And now, in the second that I was preparing to look away, he looked right at me again.

My instinctive affection for the elderly trumped the Trumper and I smiled back. And in response,  maybe because I resemble someone he likes, who knows, or because only small children continue to stare blankly at you when you smile at them, his face softened and he smiled back. He raised his hand in a “hello,” and gave me a short nod.

I nodded back, and the light changed. 

To me, it is the worst casualty of our times to now see each other as stick carriers and rock throwers.

The old man in the truck had his reasons for voting Trump, and might also have become horrified to see what Trump has done in only three years to “please his base” which may include other elderly truck drivers with dogs who just want their dinner.

It is a choice people make now to accept or reject entire other people – friends, family members, spouses – based on their politics. But generalizations are the language of the lazy or ignorant, on both sides. Not all who loathe Trump are civilized and humane and not all who support Trump attend rallies and froth at the mouth.

Some of us are neither, and wonder if the stick carriers and rock throwers will destroy all of us. Some of us remember when you could express and defend your beliefs and enjoy the challenge of connecting with others who are nothing like we are.

It was, it is true, that on some way-down level, we are human beings, all at the same light, all waiting to move forward with our work shirts and long days and tired dogs who just want their dinner.

Next week: Tiny acts of kindness to try when your soul needs a pick me up.