Trump

As I entered the Uber picking me up from a medical appointment yesterday afternoon,  it didn’t take more than a nanosecond to realize I would be traveling in an alternative universe.

The Trump hat was the red flag,  but the buttons on the visors and bumper stickers told the same story.

Instead of recoiling, I was fascinated as I would be by encountering an Alien.

In a friendly and enthusiastic voice, I said he must be excited about the upcoming inauguration.

He chuckled, grinning broadly from ear to ear, and said enthusiastically “Yeah!” I asked if he was going to watch it on TV and he told me that he was attending a convention in Vegas that day but that they would likely have large screens set up for viewing as they did in January 2017.

I kept the fact that I wore a pussy hat that same day 8 years ago to myself.

When I inquired what kind of convention it was,  I wasn’t the least surprised that he said it was a gun convention.

He went on to talk about Trump Jr being a big gun enthusiast, and then proudly mentioned that he had seen Donald as the keynote speaker at the NRA conference 3 years ago. The one right after the Uvaldi Texas school shooting. The one where 19 children and 2 adults were killed. He blamed the vastness of the shooting on the ineffectiveness of the police.

We left Trump in the dust and the conversation turned to gun control. I baited him by asking if he felt we should be doing more around mental health issues, and I could have predicted his answer. “Guns don’t kill people.” he said. “People do.”

He matter-of-factly stated that every citizen should have a gun-  we would have less crime. Proudly he pointed out that he could leave his guns lying around the house and his son would never touch them, because he had been trained in gun safety.

Despite his red hat, the guy was not a red neck. He was well-spoken and measured even if his ideas were not. His real job when not driving an Uber was publishing an online gun and hunting magazine.

It was two Americas – one in the front seat,  the other in the back,  even if one kept her leanings to herself.

Come January 20th it’s terrifying to know who will be in the driver’s seat.