Talking to a neighbor, Monument@lemmy.sdf.org finds a better understanding
Talking to a neighbor, Monument@lemmy.sdf.org finds a better understanding
I was minding my own business rule - Lemmy.World
There’s a guy on our dog walking route that put up several Trump flags last year. My wife and I actually wound up having an interaction with him because he was spying on us through his cameras and got mad that we referred to the flags as embarrassing and said that Trumpism was a cult.
By mid-April, he’d pulled down all the flagpoles and didn’t even take the flags off them, just laid the poles with flags wrapped around them in the dirt by his driveway.
In May I actually talked with him. Initially I had no intention of trying to be nice to him - he just had done something sort of shitty a few days before (encouraging his dog to bark at our dogs). I was going to be like “Look, if you wanna call me gay slurs over your ring camera, that’s fine, but don’t encourage your dog to be hostile to mine.”
But somehow he tied his dog to military service, and while I was fully prepared to connect the lack of a veteran license plate to his statement to call him a liar and a Reddit ninja, he fielded the license plate question and said that he’d suffered a TBI that resulted in an appreciable percentage of brain dying, and that made him unable to be rational when he felt any sort of threat or insult. So he didn’t use the military plates, because he’d had negative experiences with motorists while using them.
I don’t know if I believe that - it seems dumb on the part of the other motorists. But I’m not willing to keep pressing for the sake of picking a fight. I’ll throw a barb, but not over-extend myself. It’s just not worth it.
So I listened, and we chatted - for like an hour and a half. My wife left after a few minutes with the dogs. We talked about politics, the world, our community, and how fucked everything is. He supported Trump because of the 2016 (Obama) economy. He believes in women’s rights. He is conservative, anti-immigrant, and believes in stronger policing. I told him I believe in increased social support, so folks like him can get out of the VA benefits trap. I told him I think the way to stronger communities is through stronger schools and increased civic engagement - more pride, less punishment. He even asked if we’d be willing to help train his dog better, because he notices that ours don’t bark at other dogs, and don’t pull on their leads. I told him I’d have to think about it, and ask my wife, since she’s the one who really had the patience to get our dogs where they are.
We parted - not as friends - but certainly not as enemies. Just - neighbors with a better understanding of each other.
I had a somewhat similar things while waiting at a bank a some months back. I don't remember the details of the convo but I was wearing a mask which got this old lady asking if I was liberal in a somewhat insulting way (your one of those X type or such). I spoke with her about things and I remember asking if she knew how X worked which again it may have been like progessive taxation but may also have been about a particular political process. Anyway the funny thing is I would say something like don't you think X in regards to these things and she would mostly agree. Here is the thing. She does not understand how things work, me talking to her im almost sure only brought understanding briefly and I doubt she will retain it, and im 100% that moment she was gone from that interaction she want back to default. I have not yet met a maga person who was knowledgeable about how government and laws work (when they are excersized properly) and most seem to have mental issues. This is why these blatant abuse of powers don't even phase them. You know I was talking with my brother how maybe it was sorta nice that many folks used to not vote as many of those disinterested in politics can't really make very good decisions. I think what maga did was make it entertaining enough to get these people to the poles. Its a social thing to them.