Getty Images So, my daughter and her friend volunteered on Election Day to pass out literature on behalf of local Democrats near our local polling place in PrettyBlue County. I'm not going to disclose her age, but she isn't voting yet. And yes, as you might suspect, Dartagnan's daughter does lean Democratic, although that's been mostly reflected by the values of tolerance and respect of others she's developed rather than any overt political affiliation.
But that probably changed today, and wouldn’t you know, I had absolutely nothing to do with it. Some old Republican white dude did it for me.
You have to be pretty fucking ignorant to verbally abuse a school-age girl just trying out the experience and virtue of performing her civic duties. In fact you probably have to have your head firmly embedded in your anus before you apparently scrunch your neck down a sufficient distance to provide yourself adequate breathing capacity and power of speech to tell her and her friend that they “deserve to be run over by a bus,” just because they were passing out literature—sample ballots, as I understand it—for local Democrats.
Or maybe you could just be a typical Republican, I don’t know. But what I do know is that this guy—described as “old” by my daughter, which honestly could mean anyone from 30-95—did not get the response he evidently desired.
No, actually they laughed at him. And they came home, after their shift was over, still laughing at him. Giggling, in fact, with that high-pitched, joyous giggle that only teenage girls seem to be capable of.
Look, I try not to be a helicopter Dad, so I didn’t explain to her that this might be one of those “teachable moments.” I didn’t need to tell her that if I’d been there, this interesting fellow they met wouldn’t have been on the receiving end of laughter (to put it mildly), because I didn’t need to.
The thing is, she learned something about Republicans today like nothing Dad could have told her. And she, just like countless other people her age, has an awesome memory, especially of formative, “off-the wall” experiences like this. They take that memory with them, it germinates and grows as they mature and get older themselves, becoming part of the way they view the world and certain people in it.
See, they notice everything. They see everything, and they take it all in. They see the racism, they see the bigotry, they see the hate, and they recoil. They’re repelled by it. Because they don’t want to be like that. That’s not what they want for their future, most of them, anyway.
And they make a choice, and usually that choice stays with them for the rest of their lives.
I don’t pretend to know what Republicans are thinking when they embrace Trump, Trumpism, and all the bigotry, racism, and hatred that comes with it. But they might want to seriously think about what values they’re projecting to our young people every time they open their mouths. Because those kids are going to be running the show very soon.
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