Purple America

This article was written after witnessing Trump’s Inauguration and the Women’s March, but before President Trump’s first week in office. In keeping with the spirit of this reflection, I chose not to edit it to reflect Trump’s latest actions, with which I disagree. I believe that if you genuinely discuss the issues with Trump voters, not Trump, you will find more reasonable opinions.

I don’t know if I will ever encounter a dichotomy so stark, so quick, and on such hallowed ground. 24 hours earlier, I was watching Donald Trump be sworn in as the 45^th President, an action so unrealistic, surreal and significant that I struggle to describe it adequately. Surrounded by Americans from all over the country, from an Alaskan oil-field employee and his wife to a group of teenagers from Lockport, Louisiana, I felt calm and comfortable. Growing up in Ohio with conservative parents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents, I understood these Trump supporters and enjoyed being in their company and learning their stories. But how can these friendly Americans be the scorn of the more than 500,000 protestors that overfilled the streets of D.C. just 24 hours later? And how can I march with these same protestors, understand their cause and concern, yet still consider my family of Trump supporters as respectable role models? I can agree with points of both sides, but I can neither see nor understand nor rationalize how one side can detest the other. Have they ever talked to someone from the other camp as I did?

I am still struggling to reconcile these two experiences. All the Trump supporters I spoke with at Inauguration didn’t have hate in their hearts and I believe genuinely want the best for the country and for themselves. How can you not sympathize with a man’s decision to vote Trump when his family’s and his friend’s existence depend on oil-jobs in Alaska? Yet when Sen. Chuck Schumer spoke and Hillary Clinton was announced, a switch flipped inside everyone. It was like being at an Ohio State game and booing the Michigan athletes, the Michigan coaches, the students and anything evenly remotely associated with that state up north. There’s no reason behind it other than that’s the way it is. You’re in a crowd that is all booing, crying profanity at the other side, and being part of your team, you feel all the more reason to chime in. You’re not listening to what Chuck Schumer actually says, but rather listening to hear his trigger words, words like “gender identity” to which you’re accustomed to booing.

The other side wasn’t much better. While I do agree with most of the causes related to the Women’s March, the tone of some of the protestors irked me. Chants like “F**k Trump” don’t get anything across and only exacerbate the divide. There was no sympathy for the other side—rather incredulity about their stupidity and inability to defend against demagoguery.

Maybe I’m looking in the wrong places. After all, an inauguration is a celebration and a march is a protest; neither of which are supposed to be a conversation. Yet something is still off. The nation as a whole sees and feels headlines. They see explicit "F**k Trump” signs and righteous Trump supporters and this shapes their opinion and, more importantly, their view of the world. When is the last time there was a headline about a compromise? What example do we have that compromise still exists and that it is something worth striving for? They don’t talk about the lives of liberals on Fox News or the plight of the rust-belt on MSNBC and I’m afraid that if the news doesn’t cover it, we forget it. I fear that too few Americans will ever have the chance I had: to attend a Trump-rally and a Women’s March in less than 24 hours. Doing so humanizes the other side to a degree that no headline, book, nor tweet can. We need more of these types of interactions, but with our digital society and echo-chambers we lack them and forget to seek them out.

Usually the political map of the U.S. depicts states as either red or blue. Winner-take-all. If you live in Texas, you can travel all the way to the Atlantic Ocean without ever running into a Democrat. With this mindset, the country seems hopelessly divided and the other side so distant and foreign. But there is a different map, where shades of counties are colored in different hues depending on the margin of victory. This views shows the country as purple. Not Republican, not Democrat, but American. 

Purple.

On the train back from D.C., I realized that what frightened me the most from both sides was the lack of listening. The lack of liberals trying to understand why rational, educated citizens voted for Trump. The inability of Trump supporters to understand why as a woman or a member of the LGBTQ community, Trump scares you and everything you love. I hope that every American can have a similar experience and not just read about a Trump supporter or a women’s activist, but actually speak with them. Try listening, with no regard as to what you will say in response. It takes courage, an openness to question everything, and the ability to forget your dogmas and just simply listen. It’s not easy, but it’s necessary. My hope is that with no thought of a riposte, we can finally hear each other, and realize that America, when you listen carefully, sounds purple.