It's Not Always "Muh Rights...."
The Cult of Selfishness doesn't always get to win
The first time I came across an article about anti-maskers, I thought it had to be satire.
“There’s no way that’s real.” I responded almost involuntarily, all but certain that it was fake news. “No reasonable person would be that way, right?”
The very idea that an educated, responsible adult human being could be living through the greatest public health crisis in our lifetime, witnessing the swift and terrifying loss of life—and come up with a ideological stance that made protecting themselves and others, through perhaps one of the simplest and least invasive methods some sort of personal oppression—seemed patently ludicrous.
When my Dad died last July, I went back to southwestern Wisconsin for the funeral. I stayed with my Mom for three weeks afterward so that she wouldn’t have to be alone after losing her life companion of 63 years. It was a bittersweet time for both my mother and me. We had conversations we never could’ve had before. All it took was the death of my father.
About 35 years ago, Mom and Dad had moved to a few bucolic acres outside of Sparta, WI, a small town about 15 miles east of LaCrosse and about two hours southeast of the Minneapolis/St. Paul. It was their sanctuary and retreat from the wider world.
Their land was out in farm country, which meant there were a few homes dotted across the fertile landscape. The distances meant you couldn’t just walk over to grab a beer and say hello. I’d always taken that to mean that they didn’t know anyone and were isolated and alone. During the three weeks I spent with my mother, I learned how wrong I was. I also learned a very basic fact about the social/cultural/ideological divide that cleaves America today.
It was less than four months prior to the 2020 election, so campaign signs dotted the landscape and political ads polluted the airwaves on local radio and TV stations. Southwestern Wisconsin is about as red as red can get, and Trump signs were EVERYWHERE…except for my parents’ home, which proudly displayed a “Biden-Harris” sign in the front window.
Yes, my mother and father, each of whom had voted for Richard Nixon- TWICE- had bucked the trends and become more Liberal as they aged. Dad was less vocally political, having suffered a stroke in 1990 that left him unable to speak except in very short bursts. My mother more than made up for the enforced silence my father couldn’t defeat. You did NOT want to get her started on Donald Trump. She had no filter when it came to Mango Mussolini, and she didn’t much care who was around to hear it. At 79, she figured there wasn’t much anyone could do or say to her that would knock her off course, so once she got rolling, it was full speed ahead.
Even so, my mother is a kind and lovable outlier, a blue anomaly in a very red landscape. Sometimes, she just needed to vent, because it wasn’t as if Dad could talk her down off the ledge.
Outside of Mom and Dad, what I learned about Conservative America from my time in Trump country was that people are exceedingly compassionate to those they know (usually White, Conservative, and Christian like themselves) and decidedly less so towards people and groups they don’t. Ultimately, it’s about familiarity and trust.
After my father died, the neighbors (in farm country, “neighbors” can mean anyone within 3-4 miles or more) came seemingly out of nowhere to check on Mom. People competed to cut the grass. One neighbor volunteered to take her trash to the dump on Saturday mornings. Another cleared an unruly patch of underbrush near the creek that marked one edge of their property line. Others brought pies and casseroles. The mailman checked in every few days. The Schwan’s deliveryman made sure that he checked to see how Mom was holding up.
(And this was during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic…at a time when Wisconsin was one of the worst-hit hot spots in the country.)
It turned out that there was an entire network of neighbors that kept up a sort of Neighborhood Watch on Mom. Some had never even really spoken to Mom or Dad and only knew of the Cluths from seeing Dad sitting in his blue folding chair in the garage. He would often spend hours there lost in thought, waving at the occasional passing car or truck.
Mom sold the house within a couple of months and moved to Minnesota to be closer to one of my brothers, but I’ll never forget the kindness shown to her. In some cases, that kindness was shown by people she either barely knew or had never even met. I’m fairly certain that if I had discussed politics with any of these folks, it would’ve been a very contentious and probably very short conversation. That said, politics never came up, because all they cared about was my mother and her well-being.
I’ll never forget the kindness these generous, kind, and sincere people showed to Mom. They drove right past the “Biden-Harris” sign in the living room window as if it didn’t matter…because for what they were there for, it didn’t.
I would run through walls for any of them, no questions asked. When the chips were down, and before Mom needed the help she didn’t even know she needed, they were there for her. That’s not about politics or ideology; that’s about humanity.
Of course, there’s the flip side of Conservative America- the dark, ugly, hateful side that considers kindness to be weakness and compassion to be a moral failing. This was never more clear during my time in Wisconsin than when it came to wearing masks.
Coming from Oregon, where face masks had been mandatory for some time, I was shocked to see how many people were not only NOT wearing masks but were militantly opposed to the idea.
About a week into my stay, Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers issued an order making the wearing of face masks mandatory in public spaces (it was later overturned by the Badger State’s very Right-wing state Supreme Court). You could’ve been forgiven for thinking the Governor had ordered Wisconsin residents to swear a blood loyalty oath to him.
The hue and cry and metaphorical rending of garments could be heard from LaCrosse to Green Bay and from Janesville to Superior. The Walmart I took my Mom to for her grocery shopping had created a sort of cattle chute at the entrance. They funneled everyone wanting to enter the store past a couple of employees who ensured that everyone coming in was in compliance with the mask mandate. It was the only way they could ensure cooperation.
If you watched the news or talked to those opposed to wearing masks (I did my best to avoid those folks), what you heard were arguments that came down to one thing- selfishness. It wasn’t about public health or preventing community spread of the coronavirus. It was about “MY RIGHTS,” “MY FREEDOM,” “MY LIBERTY!,” etc. The cult of selfishness was fully engaged and fully propagandized by Fox News, the Trump campaign, and others on the Far-Right invested in minimizing the seriousness of the pandemic.
In small-town Wisconsin, the pandemic felt very far away, a distant threat that only reared its head on Liberal (i.e.; CNN, MSNBC) cable news. Two hours east down I-90 in Madison, though, COVID-19 was very, very real. Despite this, small-town Conservatives couldn’t- or refused to- break through their wall of denial. They couldn’t grasp that wearing face masks and social distancing protocols weren’t about quashing their freedoms and liberty. They weren’t about turning them into compliant sheep. They were about trying to prevent the spread of a virus that there was at that time no cure or treatment for. Vaccines were still several months down the road.
To these folks, I was just another West Coast Liberal. To my parents’ neighbors, I was my mother’s son…and we’d just lost our husband and father. They cared and they showed it in whatever way they could. It was sweet and tender and human and beautiful.
And I suspect most of them voted for Donald Trump…but that’s OK. At the moment they displayed their humanity and compassion, I neither cared nor did I ask who they were planning to cast their vote for. It didn’t matter.
My experience reinforced why I never want to live in that part of the country again, but it also showed me something else. Even in a place where people can be and sometimes are dark, ugly, and mean-spirited, there are also those (probably in much greater numbers) who are kind, generous, compassionate, and giving.
In the end, it’s not about who you vote for. It’s about how you treat others. Kindness is never weakness. Compassion can never be considered a moral failing.
Love never loses, no matter how bad things may look. The people who cared for and about my mother made a bittersweet and difficult time more bearable. It reminded me that when tragedy strikes, there are those kind souls for whom love and humanity rise above all other considerations.
My mother no longer lives in Wisconsin, which means I will almost certainly never see any of those people again…but I’ll never forget them. They’ll always have a place in my heart for the way they came together and cared about and for my mother at a time she didn’t even know she needed it.
So what have we learned, Grasshopper?
Most people are good, kind, and compassionate souls who will rise to the occasion when called upon to do so. Politics and ideology and but one small part of who we are. The rest is our humanity and how we relate to one another.
Oh…and wear a damned mask if and when appropriate. And get the vaccine when it’s available to you.
Sometimes it’s not just about you, knowhutimean??