The waiting room

I dread going to the dentist, so I stopped at the library to get a book for the waiting room. When I arrived at my appointment Wednesday, I checked in with the receptionist and took a seat. On the way in I noticed an old man wearing a red “Make America Great Again” cap, which immediately generated negative thoughts.

When I sat down, the elderly gentleman asked what I was reading. I handed him my book and explained that I really wanted to get Barbara Ehrenreich’s new book Natural Causes, about how America spends millions of dollars to keep old people alive. He stated that he was opposed to that, and I agreed. Instead I had checked out Ehrenreich’s previous book, Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America (since her new one was unavailable) and he handed it back, it appeared to me, disdainfully.

He told me about the unpredicted primary victory in New York State by a young Latina, Democratic-Socialist, over a long-term Democratic Congressman who was rumored to be a potential successor to Nancy Pelosi as leader of the party in the House. He spoke – obviously with disdain – of her politics: free college, socialized medicine, open borders, etc. He spoke about how the USA should not follow European-style socialism. I did not argue; I had read online about this election, so I knew about that upset, but I had no opposition to the winner.

Next he talked about books. He said he had been reading for 75 years (was he 75 years old or had he been reading that long)? He told me he had acquired a book from the library “for a buck – they give them away” – great speeches from the past, collected by William Safire. My immediate thought was recent oratory, but he said from the last two thousand years!

His favorite speech was by Edmund Burke to the Parliament in 1776. He asked, surely I knew of Edmund Burke? I do, as I recognize Safire: Burke, whom I have never read, is the foundation of modern conservative thinking, while Safire was a speechwriter for Richard Nixon, a commentator on language, and a leading conservative intellectual.

The speech he recounted concerned the American Revolution, a six-page speech delivered in Burke’s one term in Parliament, advising that Britain should grant representation to the colonists because, if they didn’t, a revolution would come about. I interrupted him to say that later revolutions did occur in other British colonies, but his point was that few leaders could predict the future that succinctly.

Then the dental assistants arrived, and he was brought to one room and I to another.

Why do I recall this five-minute encounter? In the present day United States, the “Make America Great Again” cap is seen as a taunt to those of us who didn’t realize “again” was necessary, or that perhaps if we “make America good again,” greatness might follow.

This gentleman did not fit the stereotype Trumpkin – he was elderly and dignified, wore a starched white shirt, was articulate, well read, and up to date. His political views were based on a long life of thoughtful engagement, not a knee-jerk response to “build the wall” or “lock her up.”

In the old comic strip, Pogo the possum quoth “We have met the enemy – and he is us!” Our neighbors, in the dentist’s office, in Wal-Mart, at the farmers’ markets, or down the road, are not our enemies. Our enemies are those who would divide us by zip code, by color, by religion (or lack thereof), by sex, by political registration. We can converse with someone who appears on the surface to be stupid, ignorant, misguided, or brainwashed – they may have legitimate reasons to cultivate their viewpoints.

Let us reserve our hostility for the politicians themselves: hold them accountable for their words, their actions, their inaction, their hypocrisies and untruths. Vote for folks who are sincere, and listen, sincerely, to those who don’t espouse the same views that we do.

Kirk Ashworth