Posted on 08/04/2024 8:25:23 AM PDT by MtnClimber
I walk my dogs around my town twice a day. I’ve always known it was a 96% white and 99% liberal town. It’s the kind of California town with yoga studios and health food stores. The rules are very strict. My brother, who is building a house here, had to go to court three times to fight for a gas stove in his new house. It’s the kind of place that has those lawn signs, you know:
I’ve lived here for about a year. I am ordinarily a city girl, but there are reasons for me to be here right now. It’s been strange getting used to the slower way of life. I don’t exactly fit in.
But I know the vibe because I grew up in California. This is the hybrid-driving, green juice-drinking, MSNBC-watching utopia. It’s the kind of place where there is no crime to speak of, no abused pets tied up in the yard. It hardly ever rains. There are birds everywhere. You’d almost think you were in a David Lynch movie.
I don’t mind it too much. It’s beautiful and clean, and I don’t have to worry about my car being stolen. No sirens are blaring, and no helicopters are flying over.
I often see the same people out walking their dogs. Most of them are very friendly. Every so often, there is an angry person. As much as they want to project a loving and tolerant attitude, if you break the rules, they will come for you.
I’ve been chatting with a woman who walks her dog around town. She’s one of the nicest people I’ve ever met. After I broke my arm, she advised me on how to exercise it back to health. She is a Pilates teacher. We always say hello and have been doing so for a while.
Today, our conversation went a little deeper than usual. It was something about getting old and how fast time goes by the older you get. And it’s true. It does. I said to her, “I can’t believe it’s Friday already.”
Then she said, “Things are getting so scary. November is coming.” I pretended not to know what she was talking about. I didn’t add to the conversation or pretend to agree. I just said, “And it’s so hot.”
“We do seem to have just gotten some hope,” she said. I imagine that to her, hope means Kamala Harris now has the nomination. Again, I said nothing. What could I say? “It was looking dire for a while there,” and that I took to mean Biden, she believed, could not beat Trump.
I didn’t say, “Can you believe Donald Trump was shot just 13 days ago?” I couldn’t say that. I could not ding her hope, what little she had. I quickly pivoted again, “I can’t believe Summer is almost over! It’s July!”
We’d reached a door we could not open, a conversation we could not have. I realized it was expected that I was in her tribe. I fit the demographic. I live in this town. It would never occur to her that someone like me might not agree with her that a Kamala Harris presidency represents hope. Quite the opposite.
I smiled, and we tried to continue our conversation, but I left shortly after that, leaving the odd conversation hanging in the air. She would no doubt think about it and wonder why I didn’t go further. Did she not understand what I meant, she might wonder. Would that thought take her further?
She might google me and find out pretty quickly why I said nothing. Then what? Would she still say hello to me? Would she still invite to come and do yoga with her and a group of women once a week? I’d like to think so, but I don’t know.
It just made me think how strange our lives are now, how we are on such opposite sides, and how our votes could instantly end a potential friendship. I could hear her explaining it later to her boyfriend, “Then I found out she was a Trump supporter.”
If I could be honest with her, I would try to tell her that there is nothing to fear with Trump, that it’s a media narrative that got out of hand and inadvertently caused a mass hysteria event that we’re still not all the way through. I’ve tried to have that conversation with so many people over the years, but it has never gone well.
My dog Jack is funny. When I see he’s scared, I always say, “It’s okay, Jack.” But somehow, telling him that always makes him more anxious. To him, his fear is something he won’t give up, certainly not if I try to tell him that he has nothing to fear.
The same would be true if I tried to tell this woman that the truth awaits on the other side of the delusion. She would do what my dog does: Glance back at me before trying to get away as fast as she could.
And so went my Friday morning.
In the other America, Trump is headed back to Butler, PA. What a great thing to do.
As bad as Massachusetts is, especially Cambridge, at lease some of the super liberal towns are safe. That’s not so in California.
I have friends out in East Bay. They live is a very affluent town where their tiny 2 bed, 1 bath house is 2M+ but they are completely surrounded by Oakland. When they go out to dinner they use Uber, otherwise their car windows would be smashed.
What about the area around where you live? Your town may be safe but can you drive outside of your area at night?
I have FB friends from yesteryear, some who are wedded to the DemoRats no matter what. While cordial and friendly with them I just cringe when they post hateful stuff about Trump or acknowledge that Kam La La is some wonderful and smart Dem nominee. I try not to dislike them but I can’t help but see them as blinded idiots who vote with complicity to ruin the nation. What it is.
How could you!! are usually the first words I hear out of a liberal Democrat’s mouth when they aggressively probe and I say I voted for Trump. They are not very tolerant. Their generally high jerk quotient is why I avoid engaging them.
I have family in Sausalito and worked in Hawaii for years. There is an angstrom thick veneer of warmth and kindness to liberals. Once pierced, they are the most nasty vicious mean bullies you will ever meet.
“...and 99% liberal town...”
Makes me want to wretch.
Absolutely. The small towns between San Francisco and San Jose are all very safe (with very few notable exceptions). Even East Palo Alto is much more safe compared to 40 years ago.
Opposite for me. This is Trump country and people don’t mind letting you know. A Democrat once described the people here as “Those people” like we are a basket of deplorables.
“..My brother, who is building a house here,..”
Dumb as his sister.
If you really want to piss off a liberal, be indifferent. If you support Trump, you are a tooth-flicking corn-fed racist who can be dismissed. If you are indifferent to Trump, they lose their minds. “You can’t be apathetic. He wants to get rid of the Constitution. He wants to kill people of color. He wants to be dictator”
Meh, whatever. BOOM!
LEFTIST town, not, NOT “liberal”. A liberal is open to all sorts of ideas, leftists try to destroy anything they don’t agree with. HUGE difference.
Only a rew liberals left nowadays. It appeared to me that the Democratic Party kicked RFK Jr out for being a liberal.
You missed the point. It is liberal because it is all-white, safe, high quality of life. In short, it’s a commercial for racism.
I lived for 22 years in SF Bay Area, in a town not unlike she describes. When Obama became President I began writing a weekly column for the town paper. My pieces were 180 degrees off the town’s general politics.
Once a week I ate at a very small hot dog/hamburger stand and got to know the young man behind the counter.
One day he said to me: ‘You write that column in the Herald, don’t you?
Uhoh, I thought, here it comes. I pled guilty to his question. He the said I have to tell you what happened a couple of weeks ago. He went on to explain that a customer was reading my column while having lunch. He began cursing at the paper, yelling, calling me all kinds of names. He was literally getting out of control. The young man called the cops, but the guy left before they got there.
His story made me laugh knowing that I was right over the target. Never did find out which piece triggered his outrage.
You write articles for American Thinker occasionally, if I am not mistaken.
I know people in Piedmont who cannot leave their town at night. They are completely surrounded by Oakland.
After writing for the Benicia Herald, for about a year, I began submitting them to AT with some success.
Admittedly, the AT standards are higher than the herald and several were rejected. I think about 3 or 4 out of 5 made it to AT.
Piedmont P.D. use to have an “un-written” policy of keeping un-invited guests out of their city. I assume that’s still the case but you’re on your own in Oaktown!
The worst two years of my life were living in Berkeley many decades ago.
My car got broken into, I got fired from my job and my fiance dumped me.
I fled to Orange County, CA after that—and things got a lot better.
:-)
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