This story was first published Oct. 2, 2024

How do so many crazy things creep into our heads?

I was enjoying my morning coffee on our front porch earlier this summer as the serene sounds of the birds and the bees were soothing my soul. Then I picked up a conversation across the street in front of my neighbor’s house.

The voices barely carried through the buzzing landscapers getting to work, but amid the whirs and murmurs, I could make out, “Biden … scoff, scoff,” and “our ‘president’ … chuckle chuckle.” Amusing for this political scientist — there was, after all, only about four months to go before the presidential election.

Suddenly, loud and clear, my neighbor screamed, “They want to rip babies from the womb! That’s murder!”

Wow. Crazy, huh?

Well, that was before a gunman took shots at former president and Republican nominee Donald Trump at a rally in Pennsylvania, current President Joe Biden announced he would not seek re-election and Vice President Kamala Harris earned the nomination at the Democratic National Convention.

Then two hurricanes hit the East Coast.

Shortly thereafter, on a trip to New England, I read that Trump was claiming FEMA was “all out of money” because it had spent all its available funds on housing undocumented immigrants (he didn’t use that term). Then I saw North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper tell reporters the federal government was expediently providing the necessary aid for his state and he pleaded through the press for Republicans to stop spreading such disinformation because it was dangerous.

Foiled again

That night at a meet and greet for our tour group, a guy from Iowa started parroting Trump’s prattle about hurricane aid and finished with, “You know, dumbo Joe doesn’t know what’s going on.”

So I chimed in with “3,000 pallets of supplies and 300,000 bottles of water,” which is what I heard NC’s governor claim was sent to his state the day after the storm struck.

“Well, I heard they haven’t gotten anything,” the guy said as we ate our appetizers. “I heard it on the news.”

“What news?” I asked.

“Fox News,” he said.

“Oh, well there you go,” I spit out (Hey, it was a long day of shuttle busses and airports).

And just like that all the life was sucked from the dinner table. My foil and his travel mates from Iowa kept quiet, and they would look at their shoes after our clash of views when we’d bump into each other.

“How do these people actually think these things?” I asked myself over and over. “Extreme MAGA, right?”

Life experiences

Speaking of extremes, remember that Trump rally in Butler, Pa.? I keep harkening back to retired emergency room doctor Jim Swetland, who was interviewed on site after he tried to save Corey Comperatore’s life. Swetland was rattled, but spoke professionally with a calm, caring demeanor. I marveled how this man, a real-life superhero who just had a fireman die in his arms, was doing the interview in a blood-stained USA T-shirt while wearing a red “Keep America Great” hat.

Why were they at a Trump rally? How could these men vote for Trump, much less attend a rally?

There used to be an internet meme around 2016 that read “Your vote for Trump tells me a lot more about you than it does him because I know who he is.”

And I distanced myself from a lot of friends and family because I could not come to grips with what I perceived as them condoning what I considered terribly bigoted and irreverent behavior from our 45th president.

But here we are, eight years later and roughly half the nation — roughly half my friends and family — are Trumpsters. Most are not the “extreme MAGA” like Democrats will say. Most don’t need to twist themselves into knots to justify/rationalize Trump’s buffoonery. They know Haitian immigrants are not eating pets. They have their beliefs, and they got them how they got them — just like me.

They are Republicans who are sticking with their party nominee. Putting “America First” sounds like a good idea. They are pro-life, want lower taxes, decreased regulations and less government spending. They have been told things.

Real people

My neighbor is a great, great man. He put a roof on my house and takes care of all our neighbors with love and understanding. A pillar of our community, he told me he was in D.C. to stop the steal and there’s a Trump-Vance sign in his yard across the street from our Harris-Walz one. He treats me like a son.

On the fourth or fifth morning of our trip out East, my mother and I were waiting for the hotel elevator to go down to breakfast when my “Dumbo Joe” guy and his wife approached. We exchanged obligatory “good mornings” and boarded the elevator.

We then walked into the dining room for the breakfast buffet, my mom decided to sit with them at their table. Soon their two friends from that first night who had also been sheepish toward us (don’t get me wrong, so were we), sat down with us.

Awkward?

Thankfully, love — and basketball — broke through the thickness. “Being from Iowa, are you guys big Caitlyn Clark fans?” I asked the foursome about the former Hawkeyes hoopster who has been taking the nation by storm.

Everybody’s face lit up. “Oh yeah!” … “What a player” … “Isn’t she great?” … “Amazing story” … we all agreed.

Ice broken, we joked about the cold pancakes and for the rest of the trip we were cool. Found out they gone had to The Masters a couple years ago, and I told them Augusta National is on my bucket list.

We had a lot in common.

— Brian Ludwig is Managing Editor of The Community Word.