My GOP Friend Base Is Growing
When in Rome
I have several GOP pals in the neighborhood, and the list expands every time I join a club. Lately, I’ve been getting more FB friend requests, and that’s when I began to wonder if trouble isn’t brewing.
I’ve always been out of sync with the in-crowd, not to mention the out-crowd, but now I’m outnumbered.
This is why minorities go silent, conform, and keep their opinions to themselves.
It happened because I live in a community and state dominated by right-wingers. The ‘hood has the Liberal Ladies Club and the Democratic Club and the Unitarian Church, but most people are still in love with Ronald Reagan, and they probably voted for the sickening but thankfully shriveling man-beast called Trump — at least the first time.
I know I’ll find out some of them are voting for the orange zombie again. I don’t wanna know.
Sadly, there is also a heaping dose of Dallas Cowboys fans, too, owing to proximity to Texas and the media’s unforgivable crime of once naming them “America’s Team.”
I’d rather live in a more liberal place, but I don’t fit in there, either. The urban-progressive club dishes up yoga, acupuncture, public art, and street festivals overrun with designer dogs.
I truly don’t grok why farmer’s markets are fun. It’s grocery shopping, people.
Austin, Asheville, and portions of Vermont all come to mind when I think of hippy-dippy enclaves. I can’t afford a Prius and my Toyota Corolla is covered with bling from AutoZone. I sometimes do my own repairs in the parking lot. At least here in Arkansas, they approve of that sort of thing.
Cheap, Fast, and Well-Behaved
In rural America, where I adore the quiet (except for hunting season), most of my brethren and sistahs are Republicans. They are a bit older than me but according to societal stereotyping, we are all The Olds. This assortment of geezers — often hailing from the midwest where they desperately wanted out of Winter — also go to church.
The funny thing is, you can’t tell when you first meet someone who they voted for or how rabid their love for Jesus is.
When it comes to Olds, the other weird fact is it’s nearly impossible to figure out what someone did for a living.
One thing I do know: it’s impractical to make new friends based on politics, religion, or someone’s favorite color. (Mine is green; yours is pink, WTF?)
I’m honing in on a breakthrough strategy to meet more libs, while I practice totally ignoring or caring about whether or not someone is a Baptist, Mormon, or into scrapbooking.
I’ve discovered the secret is using the Venn diagram method. I join multiple clubs that include mostly liberals, and capture the elusive set of My People. I’ve narrowed it down to Community Theatre, the Hiking Club, and the Unitarian Church, but I’m mulling over the addition of Lawn Bowling.
I can’t swing a dead cat without hitting a FOX News watcher in the Community Theatre group. The hiking club is less likely to harbor John Birchers, but you gotta consider hermits and Libertarians, and preppers.
The mundane truth is most of us don’t want conflict, and it’s an unspoken “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy regarding political parties and religion.
A politician once said:
“I never question people’s motives.”
I agree. Most people’s politics are a messy mix of family influences, single-issue passions, loyalties based on church or some other ingrained belief, and — frankly, ignorance.
Most people are deeply clueless about how government actually works. They can’t name the states contiguous to their own, much less explain how the three branches operate or what gerrymandering is.
Or Am I Making Convenient Excuses?
My personal challenge is to like people and question rigid beliefs, a spin on “hate the sin, love the sinner.”
Time has humbled my old certainties. I’ve learned I’m not as brilliant, tolerant, and visionary as I assumed I must be on account of being so smart, etc. I strive to be curious when someone expresses a viewpoint I can’t swallow or causes my eyes to involuntarily cross.
As a 20-something, urban vegan I was against hunting. I’ve learned from experience that veganism is the last thing I need and now I see crowds of deer in the forest. I understand hunting is good for the ecosystem. If I had more time, I wouldn’t shy away from learning bowhunting, which is allowed in the neighborhood.
Understanding people who think very differently from me only seems possible when I keep an open, curious demeanor.
A friend has this response to racist comments:
“You don’t really believe that, do you?”
Expressed with love and sincerity, it’s a surprisingly disarming rejoinder to the shock of hearing someone you like spew intolerance and hate. But for milder forms of ignorance, I try:
“Tell me more about that perspective.”
My reach across the aisle is personal but involuntary. Theoretically, I want to do my part to resist and counter the deeply destructive us vs. them narrative, fueled by FOX but … the reality is, I would still live in my cozy liberal bubble if it weren’t for making new friends.
We are buying into a deceitful, cynical worldview promulgated by extreme politicians out for power and money. I get bummed out when I visit a friend who has FOX News blaring, partly because I know they believe most of it. They inevitably complain about the state of the world. I want to suggest they turn off the TV.
I go home and read The New York Times, and the two of us live in falsely separate worlds. The truth is, if I didn’t live here I wouldn’t know any FOX News watchers, and certainly not be in their houses.
I recall the slogan of my Southerner brother-in-law, which I never learned because I grew up in a neighborhood called Little Leningrad*, surrounded by people exactly like me.
“Bringing up religion and politics in company is bad manners.”
Something New Under the Sun
Modern American politics and mega-religions tell lies that pit ordinary people against each other.
Most people don’t want to think about solving big issues, they want to opine about them. We show up for occasional elections because voting is one of the few ways we engage in government and we’ve been trained from a young age that it’s important to vote.
Most people don’t want to think, period. It’s tiring and requires research to do it correctly. We have a convenient system when we vote: it’s a choice between two things — my party and that other party.
Yet I hold out hope there is a third way: the way of tolerance and curiosity.
I’ll hold on to that for now.
*Actual name: Hollin Hills
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Jean Campbell recently started her first Substack newsletter to laser focus on getting her book, City of Lies: A Street Hustler’s Omaha Journey published.
