Except for 10 years in St. Louis, I’ve never lived any place where a majority agreed with me politically. And though I think I’m right (who doesn’t?), I also understand that people believe different things than I do. I live among people who believe abortion is tantamount to murder; I think safe abortions should be as uncomplicated to get as any other medical procedure. It’s easy to dismiss the anti-abortion folks when you live in a blue town; it’s harder to dismiss them when they are your friends and neighbors. Every Sunday morning, our driveway is the only one with a car in it; my neighbors are at church.Mainly, I think I’m a better person because of the ways I’m forced to reckon with this difference, day in and day out. When I was a child I was taught to respect that difference, that finding ways to understand points of view that challenge your own can be valuable.That has become harder, lately. This summer was hot, so hot I couldn’t let my children play outside when the sun was brightest. And though the heat of Southern summers is legendary, this place is going to become hotter and hotter, until humans can no longer live here. I don’t know if this will happen in my lifetime, or my children’s. I want them to be able to live anywhere they want, and it makes me unbearably sad to think that living in the South is going to become increasingly difficult because of a quickly warming planet. Sometimes I’m glad we don’t live near a coast, where we’d be more vulnerable; then I think about a state that’s half-destroyed by flooding, as Alabama will be if the effects of climate change continue unabated, and I remember we’re all in this together.I’ve delivered signs myself, to trailers and ranch houses and apartment buildings and farms. To all manner of places, to all manner of people. It’s often said by liberals that Democrats care more about people than Republicans, but that’s a hard pill to swallow when you know good people who are Republicans. Yet, when I see signs for Doug Jones’s Republican opponent, Tommy Tuberville, I look at them in wonder. I think, How? How are you supporting a man who will likely work to make the lives of the most vulnerable among us harder? Who will work to deny women access to contraception and abortion? Who will reduce Medicaid? Who will promote the interests of big business at the expense of the environment?I want Doug Jones to win, of course. But I know he probably won’t. Tommy Tuberville hasn’t been accused of any unthinkable crimes, and I live in a place that, as I said, loves football (Mr. Tuberville is a former coach) and guns (Mr. Tuberville has earned the N.R.A.’s highest possible rating). Sometimes I ask myself why I spend so much time organizing sign deliveries for a candidate who will need a miracle to win. Then I think, Maybe we are that miracle.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/04/opinion/conservative-politics-south-doug-jones.html