As a newspaper journalist, I wasn’t allowed to actively engage in politics, and I’m still working my way into it. I give trivial amounts to the Democratic Party, for which I in turn receive dozens of emails a day asking for additional trivial donations. I decided I’d volunteer a bit for the Udall campaign, first because he’s a good guy in a very tight race.
At 6 p.m. on the last Tuesday in October, I headed to a stripped down office space next to a gigantic Halloween store that was once the Safeway that fed me when I moved to Denver in 2001, at Leetsdale and Quebec. The trash can belched out soft drink cans and junk-food wrappers. Four young staffers sat in various ancient office chairs and collapsed couches, eyes pinned to their laptop screens. The idea was that I would make some calls, but I asked if I might be of more use knocking on doors, to which a bearish, bearded young guy said, “Yeah, if you’re willing to do that.” Another, shorter one handed me a clipboard with a Google map with what would have been red-dot houses had it not been a black-and-white printer, plus several pages of addresses. These would be registered Democrats or others identified as undecided, he explained. It was about getting out the vote.
The map took me to a wealthy area a couple of miles away, Denver’s Hilltop neighborhood, where a scattering of pre-scrape-and-pop places that are merely pricey salt a landscape of million- and multimillion-dollar palaces. It was pitch dark out, the streetlights spaced wide. I had not looked at the list’s arrangement, which I found out too late had been printed in alphabetical order rather than one that might make sense to efficiently walk. I was between early traverses, just arriving on 2nd Ave. from 1st Ave., when a big fifty-ish guy walked by in the street, apparently for exercise. I was reloading the thick stack of door hangers, which on several occasions made their escape after an ill-advised tilt of the manila envelope below their clipboard.
“Udall,” he said.
My first instinct was surprise, as I’d forgotten I’d stuck a “Udall for Senate” sticker on my chest in a bid for legitimacy. Maybe he thought it was a name tag. Before I could explain, he said. “I hope you guys lose.”
It was quite dark in this particular spot, and I couldn’t really see him well. He had glasses and, judging by his body type, had clearly not applied Republican self-reliance dicta to his own dietary and exercise philosophies. He had a bullying tone, probably well-practiced. He was perhaps 10 steps away.
I was alarmed at my first instinct, which was that, if he was actually walking for exercise and not for the sanity of a dog, I could most likely kick his ass and leave him to bleed out in a shrub. I remembered the Udall sticker and clipboard and that I have two kids and let that evaporate. But he lit me up. Before I could come up with anything, he spoke again, now walking away.
“You goddamn liberals are ruining the country,” he said.
He kept walking. I said, “That right? How’d things go under George W. Bush?” This was not in my Colorado Democratic Party script. But what the hell.
“I love George Bush,” the guy said. “His tax cuts made me and my family so much money.”
He took a few more steps. I said, “That’s kind of a narrow political worldview, isn’t it?”
“And Obama didn’t change a thing. We’re making so much money. We’re doing just great, thanks to you guys.” He was farther away now, yelling.
“Enjoy it,” I said.
“Oh, we are. We’re really enjoying it,” he said, and off he walked down 2nd Avenue.
I had knocked on a few more doors, mostly Udall homes, before the root of my disquiet crystallized. This guy epitomized the worst of the Republican electorate. Despite what in this neighborhood had to be a massive pocketbook, he viewed the political sphere’s sole role to be preserving it. This is as narrow-minded as voting Republican because of the party’s pro-life platform. It’s just not as dumb, because voting Republican won’t change Roe v. Wade and won’t ban gay marriage and won’t end Obamacare and won’t make a difference as far as whether or not you can own a gun (you can), but it will up the odds of the doughy rich like this guy retaining more of their earnings. Thomas Frank spelled all this out a decade ago.
This ethos runs all the way up the flagpole. Hyper-wealthy Republican funders like the Koch brothers spend in their self-interest – their political outlays are an investment in the extractive industries that built and sustain their fortunes, a legitimate business expense. The billionaires on the Democratic side, your George Soroses and Tom Steyers, they’re not driven the same way. How can Tom Steyer personally benefit by fighting climate change?
The worst of Republicanism is cold-hearted, appealing to those blind to the built-in advantages that brought their success, which range from genetic smarts to advantages conferred by station of birth or lucky breaks along the way. It is a philosophy of solidifying gains and pulling ladders up behind you, leaving the unfortunates below to claw at the masonry. It has little interest in the greater long-term good, choosing to ignore the corrosive impacts of income equality and the looming catastrophe of climate change. It chooses to forget that poor children in poor neighborhoods with poor schools landed there through no fault of their own. And so, as I calmed back down, I felt a bit more resolve at each subsequent doorbell.
