Not much new news this weekend. A cooler Sunday in most places. Golf is the presidential fixation of the week. So in the absence of crucial developments, I’d like to send up a personal story, then offer you all a challenge. It involves buying someone a cup of coffee and bringing the cancer that’s infesting our society up close and personal to a friend who is a potential Trump supporter.
First the story:
Many decades ago I got a passport. It had my maiden name on it as a middle name. Used it for many wonderful trips. I recently got a Global Entry card to make trips to Canada a bit faster. I was told that I had to update my drivers’ license to match the Global Entry card exactly (or get in the slow lane to Canada.) So I brought all that moldy documentation to the Secretary of State, and after an hour in line, got that done. (I have very traditional documentation, no moves or changes, so it wasn’t all that difficult.)
So I get that done and the SoS employee warns, “Now you have to change your social security card or the cross check will make it impossible for you to vote!” (Realize, we’ve voted in EVERY election, including city dog catcher, since the 60s.) I am dumbfounded, “Tell ME I cannot vote?” But yes, I spend another hour in the social security office to make sure everything matches.
Now I have the time, and I have the documents (brittle and moldy as they are.) Had I been married a couple of times, moved or other complications, or had a one letter error in spelling, this could have been a months-long challenge
My point: The stuff we read on the web, those distant events that get us upset (like voter cross-check crap) become intensely personal when you see how they affect average citizens. Perhaps if we had done a better job of telling our neighbors how Trumpism would affect them on Monday morning, we wouldn’t be in this horror movie.
Now here’s the Sunday challenge. Find a very real consequence of what has happened in the last six months, buy someone a cup of coffee, and demonstrate how it is REALLY hurting him or her. It could be the threat to Medicare (Mom’s nursing home), the price of mangos (Trump’s “wall” payments) or tomatoes (the fear of migrant workers.) It can be the price of gas if Trump alienates allies, or the potential way in which China will “clean our clocks” manufacturing almost all of the green energy technologies so we have to buy them from them.
Or if your coffee mate is a bit more of a thinker, let them know how making us the laughing stock of the world is going to hurt us in the end.
What does it mean when the idiot says: “You HAVE to pay for the wall. We could just add tariffs to produce. I told all my rallies you would.” (BTW that means the average family pays for it)
Or “Do you really want people to start getting their medical care in the ER again?” (And we all pay for it!)
Or “Do you realize that foreign students who want to attend our universities are down 75%? That means our universities suffer and our future innovation suffers.”
Or “You realize that abortions were at an all time low last year, and if we take away birth control coverage and Medicaid they will jump up again?” (That could be a tricky one. Put a lot of sugar in the coffee.)
So what’s my Sunday point?
I’m about as progressive as could be, and yet I was shocked at how one of Trump’s moves affected ME. Wasted time isn’t tragic.
Take tomorrow to make something personal for someone. Trump isn’t just a hypothetical menace. Make it up close and personal to someone tomorrow.