Zipper

What brings us together?

When I was a kid I was fascinated by zippers. The sharp metal teeth surrounded by supple fabric, rigorously aligned by the zipper slider with its little pull. Who thought of that? What a great idea.

Basically, I have confidence in zippers. When I packed my suitcase to go to North Carolina this weekend for my cousin’s big Italian wedding I closed the suitcase with zippers. The little pulls are decorated with blue so I can recognize my suitcase when it comes out of the baggage carousel, a job made easier by the bright pink unicorn stickers my granddaughter used to decorate the bottom of the suitcase.

When zippers break, there’s that moment of surprise because I have so much confidence in the mechanism. One of the small cosmetic bags I use came apart, the zipper came undone in the middle so there was this space where the teeth gaped. It’s hard to fix that.

Like many families, we don’t agree on politics. We will not be voting as a block, the Peirolos. This is not a new situation, and we’ve long ago learned how to navigate it, which is generally to avoid talking about politics. Although many of us do like a good argument, we find it bracing. We argue the way other families might play tennis or board games or golf. Even when we disagree, vehemently, there’s that moment where one person looks at the another as if to say, ‘good point there, I salute your rhetorical chops, even though you are totally wrong.’ I love that look.

Recently, I was catching up on podcasts and listened to an episode of the Ezra Klein show from March 29 called The Rise of ‘Middle Finger Politics’ with the author John Ganz. In the episode, Ganz and Klein discuss why many people support Donald Trump, and how that support is part of a historical pattern. That podcast influenced this substack and I am using ideas that Ganz talked about.

Because I’m curious. One of the things I say to my clients – and myself – all the time is that people do what makes sense to them. Where we have options, we make choices that make sense to us. If you are baffled by another person’s choices, you could try getting curious about why a particular decision or opinion makes sense to them.

So, this weekend, I got curious. My Uncle Carl, as the oldest surviving sibling after my father’s death many year ago, is the Padrone. He is a veteran, a life-long conservative Republican and a Catholic. We have never agreed on politics, and we’ve never voted for the same candidate. But we like and respect one another and we both like a good argument.

The weekend gave us a couple of opportunities to talk/argue/discuss. And what was interesting is that we were able to do it without rancor. High energy, yes. Enough so that some of our more peaceable loved ones moved away to refresh their drinks and left us, heads together, waving our hands at the end of the table.

We were, fundamentally, curious about the other person’s ideas. We respect one another. Every conversation I have with my Uncle Carl has, in the background, the memory of him at my teenaged son’s bedside in the many hospitals we travelled through after RJ’s car accident and subsequent brain injury. Carl flew back and forth from Ohio to Seattle many times to sit by RJ’s bed, praying the rosary, the beads playing through his fingers. Carl is 6 ft 4 and was a Colonel in the Air Force and he has such a strong aura of command that the nurses and doctors did whatever he asked them to do, but ignored me. He’s in his eighties now and still has that height and authority. Since his kids, my cousins, are generally conservative as well, I think there are few people who take him on in an argument about politics except for me.

I’m not going to get into the specifics of Carl’s opinions, but many of his ideas echoed what Ganz was outlining in the Ezra Klein podcast. Too often, each side of our political divide portrays their opponents as idiots, misinformed by a manipulative media or political system, and too stupid to see that they are being duped. Both sides think that. If we assume that no one is stupid, each person has a reason to believe what they believe, what might we learn?

First, Trump may be a scoundrel, but many believe he can get things done and think that having a scoundrel on our side might be helpful in dealing with a world full of scoundrels. If you are threatened by bullies, you might want a bully in the fight with you, even if you wouldn’t want them to come over for dinner. The felony convictions, lying, adultery and business bad behavior are part of that equation – if others are doing it we need someone on our side who can play that game against them.

Second, the conservatives are also afraid. I’m afraid that Trump is going to dismantle our democracy, deconstruct the hard-fought rights to privacy, reproductive health care, equal rights, same sex marriage, roll back the rule of law and persecute people seeking a new life in this country. Trump’s been clear about that, and the actions and statements from his Supreme Court appointees show the blueprint.

Conservatives feel the same doom, they believe the stakes are high as well. As Trump’s 2025 site says he plans to “rescue the country from the grip of the radical Left.” They think they are fighting for our survival as a nation. They fear the radical Left wants to harm their children, and continue the slide into a godless anarchy. They’re afraid of China and deep hidden forces that seek to ruin us.

Conservatives believe that capitalism is good, and unchecked capitalism is better. Everyone, they think, has a shot at becoming really really rich. And they don’t want to have to pay much in the way of taxes when they get there. I think Jeff Bezos should pay the same percentage I do in taxes, which he doesn’t, but even if he paid just a few percentage points more we could fund important programs. Conservatives think that Bezos employing lots of people and building Amazon gives him a kind of pass on contributing anything else to the public good, or having responsibly for the impact of his corporation on the environment. There’s a reason so many rich people are throwing their support to Trump. They will make and get to keep more money.

I don’t believe the fairy tale that we can all get rich. Roads, education, health care, power grids, should be part of the public square and funded by all, even the billionaires. Children shouldn’t die because they can’t access health care.

Everything makes sense to the person who believes it. This is why I was thinking about zippers. Each hard metal tooth is a belief, a narrative, a conviction. I have a whole row of them, so does Carl. We’re far apart. But we’re aligned, there’s that tape of fabric in which our beliefs are embedded, which is our shared love of family. When we talk about policies we are opposed. But when I point out the specific impact on a family member of a policy I can see Carl shift.

“When I had a miscarriage,” I told him, “If I’d gone to the hospital and the doctors had to decide if it was ok to give me the surgery I needed to stop the bleeding I could have died.” That’s not going to change his vote in November, but it might give him a more nuanced understanding of the implications of life at conception policies.

And the square piece of metal attached to the pull, sometimes called the “slider” that pulls us into alignment? A belief in the republic. We will both vote. One of us will be bitterly disappointed and concerned about the results. But we will support the republic.

I don’t write about politics overtly that often. But this seemed important for two reasons. One, because I think making the effort to talk with relatives and friends who vote differently to us can make a difference. Finding a shared value and telling a story can shift people over time. Gay marriage became law, at least for now, because people started coming out of the closet, and it wasn’t an abstract, it was real. Joe and Rick across the street who make the best pie, Naomi and Rita who have those adorable dogs, your sister, your nephew, your pastor.

Why do they believe what they believe? Why does it make sense to them? Is there a place we can find shared values?

I’m not naïve – some Trump voters are not safe to engage with, they aren’t interested in conversation, just hate and destruction. But if you have an Uncle Carl, maybe give him a call and get curious.

Progressives have work to do also. There are progressives who say they won’t vote for Biden no matter what. I understand their arguments. To them I say keep up the pressure to get Biden to change his policies and hold Israel accountable. Push for economic consequences. But vote for Biden. Then run for office yourself, get progressives in line so we don’t have to face another contest between two old white guys.

That’s what American democracy is. You get to choose between the candidates you have. The person you vote for won’t be the embodiment of all you want, or some Platonic ideal of a leader who checks every box. That’s not how it works. You might hate both of them, but your duty is to vote and choose the one who will do the least damage and then work to get better candidates next time.

If you are concerned about Palestine and Gaza, do some research into the Evangelical Christian commitment to Zionism. They’ll be calling the shots in a Trump presidency. They will be voting for him, every one of them, in swing states, en masse. Read Trump’s 2025 plan and give serious thought to being complicit even in a small way in allowing that to come to fruition. I remember when people said that they wouldn’t vote for Hilary Clinton because there wasn’t any difference between her and Trump. The overthrow of Roe v Wade and the coming dismantling of our rights is the difference. The stakes are high. Be on the right side of history. Zip into democracy and hope it holds.