Day 51 – Garden City to Lakin, KS

Rick doesn’t waste any time. “I sure as hell hope you’re not a Democrat.” Portland’s reputation precedes it.

“I love Trump,” he says, “and I know you probably think less of me for that.” I insist that my goal in being here is to talk with people who see things differently than I do, to understand how they’ve arrived at their conclusions. “Well, Trump loves this country,” Rick elaborates, “and he wants to see America succeed.” 

“What actions have you seen Trump take that make you believe that?”, I ask. “The economy,” Rick replies promptly. I acknowledge that we’ve seen economic growth during a good chunk of Trump’s time in office, and my mind whirls through possible responses. I disregard the evidence that highlights the beginning of that growth arc during the Obama years. I quickly toss the argument that we generally overstate the impact of the president on the economy. Instead, I settle on a third tack: “What worries me about the economic growth we’re seeing is that so much of the wealth is being concentrated into fewer hands.” “What about all of the jobs that have been created,” Rick challenges. “That’s true,” I confirm, “but we’re still seeing more and more Americans struggling to earn a living wage.” “I just don’t believe that,” Rick says, shutting the door on that line of inquiry.

“It’s just clear that Trump is working hard for America, while Democrats are trying to impeach him, just getting in his way. They need to do their jobs. He wants America to succeed. Totally different from Obama, who wanted America to be Muslim and socialist. Back when he was president, all the Democrats said they wanted a wall on the border. Now Trump’s president and they’re trying to stop it! They just want all of these immigrants to come across the border because they can’t win without them. And there are dangerous people coming across!” Rick proceeds to express particular concerns about the Muslim-ification of America.

I point out that I’d been reading about–and seeing plenty of evidence of–high levels of immigration in Rick’s hometown of Garden City. “There are lots of Mexicans that have come in. I’m not opposed to legal immigration,” Rick says. “If they come here, work hard, and are good citizens, then that’s great, but they have to do it the right way.” He proceeds to speak very positively about the impact of immigrants on Garden City. “But what’s happening around the border is terrible. The people living there are in constant danger.” 

I agree with Rick that the porous border is a problem and that it’s important for people to enter the country through legal channels. “It seems like the sticking point, in many cases, is what to do about the millions of people who came in illegally but have been here for years, have built lives here, had kids in many cases, and have never broken the law since they arrived. What would you do about them?” Rick takes a breath. “If they’re good people and they’re doing the right things, then there should be a way for them to stay and become legal. But we also need to have a way to get the bad people out.” I tell Rick that sounds reasonable. “Aren’t you worried, though, about us becoming a Muslim country, like in Minnesota? Those people treat their women like they’re shit and they are dangerous. You don’t want us to become a Muslim country, do you?” It’s my turn to take a breath. I affirm that I do not want America to become a “Muslim country.” “Before,” I note, “you were positive about Mexican immigrants and their ability to be good Americans. Do you not feel that away about Muslims? Is it possible for Muslims to be good Americans?” Rick pauses. “It’s possible,” he grants, but it’s a grudging acknowledgement, one that he’s not particularly comfortable with. “You probably think I’m a racist,” he says.

Still, I want to seize this moment. “Look at us!”, I declare. “A Trump supporter and a guy from Portland, Oregon, and we’re finding a ton of common ground on immigration.” Rick cracks a smile. 

With that settled, we pivot to socialism. “This socialism stuff,” Rick says, “is going to destroy America. Obama kept trying to push us towards socialism, trying to give everyone health care–and fining us if we don’t have it–and that’s going to ruin this country. People working hard are going to be punished, while people who don’t work will just sit around, waiting to be given more and more. Illegal immigrants get more benefits from the government than poor, hard-working Americans. Trump has worked hard to undo all of Obama’s initiatives over his eight years over his short time in office.” I agree with that last point. “You can’t want that, can you?” Rick asks. “Don’t you want America to be free?”

I tell Rick that I value freedom. I worry, though, about someone dying or suffering because they can’t afford medical treatment. Rick proceeds to rail against Obamacare and all of the problems with its rollout. “Trump wants to make it better, that’s his goal,” Rick says. I try to shift the discussion back towards values, about the importance of medical care being accessible, but he deflects it back to Trump vs. Obama.

Our time together nears its end, as he needs to drive onward and I need to resume my walk. “Aren’t you worried about this country changing, though?”, Rick asks. “Don’t you want it to stay the same?” “I worry,” I respond, “that it has already changed in some harmful ways. Wealth has become so polarized in this country that working class and middle class Americans–people who are working hard, doing everything right, doing everything that you value–are going to be worse off in this generation than in the previous one, while the richest Americans have an ever-greater concentration of wealth. And I believe that Trump’s policies are not slowing that down.” “I don’t believe that,” Rick says. 

We get ready to move on. In closing, Rick tells me, “I know I’ve probably pissed you off.” He seems concerned about me thinking less of him; he has made a handful of these statements now. I reinforce that I appreciate his candor and that we found a lot of areas we agree. We shake hands and part.

There are, of course, plenty of issues that Rick and I would disagree over, and I could have pushed back harder on some of his claims. His views of Muslims, steeped in fear and stereotypes, are certainly objectionable. On some level, he knows it, I think; that’s why he expressed sensitivity to being labeled a racist on multiple occasions. It’s striking to see, though, how divergent his views on Mexicans and Muslims are. He lives around a high concentration of Mexican immigrants; it’s inevitable that he knows and works with many. They aren’t an amorphous group; they are a collection of individuals that have become humanized to him. Whatever essentialized hatemongering might exist in the media, Rick’s personal exposure helps to deflect it. By contrast, though, Rick has almost no–if any–personal contact with Muslims. They exist only by reputation, through the media he consumes and stories he hears, and so there is nothing to counteract the stereotyping. He imbibes it whole. 

Rick’s perspective of the world is built around what rings true to him. When I raised points that are substantiated by research, he rejected them wholesale because they didn’t align with his sense of things. Even if I’d had printed articles to hand over, I still think he would have disregarded their conclusions. (Conveniently enough, one headline on this subject caught my attention this morning.) Mexican immigrants–and, more to the point, Mexican-American neighbors–have been a fact of life for him for decades. Similarly, the Muslim terrorist bogeyman has also been part of his worldview for two decades. When that continues to persist, entirely in the abstract, it’s a hard view to shake.