I was going to link to an Omaha World-Herald article here, but now can’t find the confounded thing. It’s an article by Erin Grace, a great reporter. But she was apparently given the assignment to write about the “common ground” between conservative and progressive neighbors in the Field Club area as they prepare for their non-political July 4th parade. What she found there were a progressive gay couple who try not to talk politics with their clients, and a Republican woman who is a stay-at-home mom (and she recycles). Her husband, a more politically active Republican, wasn’t home. Also, they were interviewed separately, not together. Hm.

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The article was an earnest attempt at completing the writing assignment, so why did it just make me more pessimistic about this society’s future? Maybe because the very few (3) subjects in this article really don’t represent the enormous gulf that has opened up between those of us who want a compassionate government and those who want a Trump-style regime of fear and intimidation. The two progressive men seem reasonable enough, to be sure – they are tolerant of their conservative clientele and “listen” more than talk with them. Who wouldn’t? And the “conservative” woman (who recycles?) seems normal enough – but of course her “politically active” conservative husband wasn’t available for comment. What would he have to say?

So – three Omaha neighbors, none of them straight white males, trying to put on a no-politics parade, working hard trying not to hate one another. Good stuff. But what if the journalist went beyond the niceties and started asking the progressive guys how they feel about kids in cages at the border? About the EPA being run by a flagrant criminal who hates the EPA? About Flint or Puerto Rico? Trump-Putin “summit” coming up and zero action on Russian election meddling? The millions of tax dollars being spent each month at Trump golf courses? The $82 million Jared and Ivanka made last year as “administration officials”? Continued insults to our allies and continued praise for dictators like Kim, Putin, Xi, Duterto? The economy-killing Trump trade war? Or how about the administration ignoring Pride Month, weakening LGBTQ legal protection, and trying to rid the military of trans people?

And how would the “conservative” woman defend these policies and this president? Would she defend them? We’ll never know. Perhaps it was incumbent on the World-Herald to go out and find some real Trumpers to provide the (civil?) “counterpoint” to the gay men’s politics of inclusion and tolerance (or even the Republican woman’s recycling)? I’m sure that a true Omaha Trumper (there are thousands out there) would have had a full-throated response consisting of lively arguments supporting the Trump agenda. They would also have let the reporter know exactly how they feel about liberal gay people and their wedding cakes, and I’m gonna go out on a limb here and predict that their defense of the administration and their ideas on liberals would not sound like “civility” to anyone not on board the Trump train. Go find some of those Nebraska boys in the MAGA hats “rollin’ coal” with their modified diesel trucks—the anti-environmentalists this state is famous for–sticking it to the libtards in their rice-burning Priuses. Or you could go to Lincoln and interview that Nazi student. Or if that’s too tough, just go talk to the governor and his cronies in the legislature. They’ll be happy to tell you what’s wrong with liberals and Democrats, and that they really ought to just keep quiet and leave the running of Nebraska to the GOP patriots.

The problem, I guess, is that the reporter was sent to interview “liberals” and “conservatives” about tolerance and partisanship. They left out the group actually running the country — the Trumpers.