On Trump Hatred: A Plea from the Heart(land)

“Many features of this region have stood out—but few more prominently than the generosity of its people. They are devoted to their churches; they volunteer their time; they give to charity; they start charities; they adopt children.”

My wife and I are pilgrims; heathens, really, in a holy land. We’re impuritans.

Cosmopolitanly predisposed by birth (Paris and New York, respectively), fate has brought us to the rural Midwest (Central Illinois, more specifically). To the list of nicknames this land enjoyed before our arrival, a new one has been added since: Trump Country. It is in this expansive and amorphous territory that our home now belongs.

If a MAGA hat is enough for you to reach summary judgment about a person, that judgment likely does more to betray your own failings than it does those of the individual you decry.

In our impious minds, many features of this region have stood out—but few more prominently than the generosity of its people. They are devoted to their churches; they volunteer their time; they give to charity; they start charities; they adopt children—and it’s not just couples struggling in vain to conceive a child of their own, but parents who already have four kids and decide to adopt a child with a terminal illness so as to render what little time remains as pleasant as possible. It is humbling and inspiring. What makes all this altruism even more striking is that on the whole, the means of those who engage in it are modest.

Did some of these people vote for Trump? Of course. Does that render them bad people? I should hope not. Have some of these people never left their home states, so that they know little of what life is like in other parts of the country, to say nothing of the world beyond? Sure. Does this render them bad people? Again, I should hope not. It is not clear to me that the more one knows, the better one becomes. An educated person who lacks for probity is hardly an anomaly.