The very first time your child teaches you
something new, something you didn't know, may not seem like a momentous
occasion, like their graduation or their wedding or the start of their first
real job, but it stays with you. It is a
private moment and occurs with no advance warning, one day it just
happens. It is not recognized or
acknowledged, and your child will be oblivious to it. You may not even realize it when it happens,
until you stop and look back and it hits you.
All you can hope for is that you don't miss it, for it will come with a
lasting sense of satisfaction.
My son went to a small college in Ohio to
study Equine Business Management; it’s only noteworthy to point out that his
education was much more outside the classroom as he traveled around the Midwest
competing on his college’s equestrian team. In the process, he was interacting
with all kinds of people, all outside the academic environment. In his senior year, my wife and I went to
visit him and watch one of his competitions.
During the visit he and I ran an errand together to pick up his riding
jacket at the dry cleaners he used. He
got out of car while I waited, returned with the jacket, and began to talk
about how nice the owners were, how beyond the good service they provided, he
always enjoyed seeing them. And then it
happened. He said “You know dad, I
never gave it much thought, I guess I thought it was just one of those
stereotypes, but it's true, the people out here in the Midwest are really,
really friendly. They are good, genuine
people, honest, and down to earth”, And
he added, “It’s a really nice place to live”.
I of course had heard the stereotype of the
friendly Midwesterner before, but in all honestly, I had never given it much
thought. But on this day for the first
time ever, I did. I smiled to myself,
and the moment passed.
Over the years, I have silently gone back to
this moment reflecting on the statement itself, and re-living the satisfaction
that came with it. More recently, I went
back to it in the days following the Presidential election on November 8, 2016,
when Donald Trump upended the world and surprisingly became our 45th president.
Many of my left-leaning friends were sure
Hillary Clinton was going to pull it off.
I was much less certain, and despite the fact that some of Trump’s
positions were acceptable to me (I say some), I thought he was a horrible human
being, and I thought he would be an absolutely terrible president. So on the night of the Election Day, I sat
glued to my chair with the worry of a nervous parent watching their child act
in a play or perform in their sport. The nervousness turned to worry, the worry
turned to sadness. I cursed at the TV as
the results came in from Ohio and Michigan and Wisconsin, all of them, in the
Midwest. All of them had been in the
Democratic column in recent elections, and they all went for Trump.
It would be easier to say, that it didn't
happen, that the swing of just 77,000 votes in Michigan, Wisconsin and Ohio
hadn’t won the Presidency for Donald Trump, despite the fact that Hillary
Clinton had won the popular vote by almost 3 million votes. But it did happen, I knew it was real, and
that hurt even more.
I have since reflected on the words of my son,
words that I believed were true, but I couldn't reconcile how the kind,
friendly folks of the Midwest, who had in recent years been leaning left, all
of a sudden leaned right, and more disturbingly had chosen Donald Trump to be
the leader of our country. I asked
myself, what did they see in him? Didn’t
they see the constant stream of falsehoods he promotes? Why did they fall for it? Did they despise Hillary that much?Did they
want change so badly that they will tolerate his miserable behavior?
I wanted change too, but I was worried the
host of Celebrity Apprentice and the owner of the Miss Universe pageant did not
have the skills, the smarts and the morals to morph into a leader for all the
people. While he might be the leader we
deserved, but he was not the leader we needed.
Then I remembered the words spoken by Michael
Bloomberg at the Democratic National Convention in the summer of 2016.
“I’m a New Yorker, and New Yorkers know a con
when they see one”.
With that perspective, I could now
rationalize, at least for myself, how the pieces had fallen into place. Of course, the folks from the Midwest are NOT
from New York. They have not seen the
Donald close-up. More importantly they
are kind and caring, and they repay a stranger’s kindness with more kindness.
They give strangers the benefit of the doubt.
They don't question a stranger’s authenticity, certainly not the way New
Yorkers do. They don't look at them with
cautious eye. And they had to be impressed by the number of times that the
Donald came out to visit them during the campaign, and they had to be equally
unimpressed with the number of visits Hillary didn't make. For them, actions speak than words.
They didn't realize it at the time, but they
were falling victim to the con. They
came to believe Donald Trump was their friend.
He would be their voice. The
victims of Bernie Madoff’s scam were his friends too, and while the newly
minted Trump supporters were not as personally abused as Madoff’s victims were,
they should feel no less aggrieved, no less appalled when they finally came to
grips with the fact that they had been used, they had been fooled, they had
been taken.
Their vote counted. As it turned out their votes were by far the
most important votes in the entire country.
39,000 people in the Midwest pulled the lever for Donald instead of
Hillary, and here we are.
New Yorkers, on the other hand had seen this
movie before. They had endured 40+
years of the escapades of the Donald, well documented in the New York Post and
other local rags. They had seen
successes earned in New York real estate and the building of Trump’s brand, but
they had also witnessed firsthand the failures of Trump Shuttle and the New
Jersey Generals and Trump’s Taj Mahal in Atlantic City. They endured Donald’s affair with Marla
Maples, his first divorce, his second divorce, his third marriage and the
Donald’s disco days, and they were not impressed. Despite the fact that Donald was born and
raised in their city, that he was one of them, he was not the favorite
son. Donald received 36.8% of the vote
in New York State in 2016, pretty much on par with the 36.03% Mitt Romney received four years earlier. New Yorkers knew what to expect from Donald,
and so the needle never moved.
A lot has passed since the election results
were affirmed the night in November and I haven't spoken to any mid-westerners
who voted for Trump since, so I offer no tangible proof or even anecdotal
evidence of what I am about to say, but I do believe that in the next
presidential cycle, provided that the Democrats put up a half-way decent
candidate that the Midwest will swing against President Trump.
I say that because after four years, they will
have been forced to bear witness to the actions of President Trump and they
will conclude that he is not like them, that his service to others takes a back
seat to his personal addiction to the service of his own ego, that his general
animosity to those who don't bow down to him does not fit with their own Midwestern
values. I say this because they are
genuine and because they are part of the best our country has to offer.
And I know this, because my son taught me it
was so, so many years ago.
I’m from New York.
No comments:
Post a Comment