Yesterday, Harriet and I participated in an organized trip to Scranton, PA to canvass registered Democrats and encourage them to vote in this swing state. I couldn’t have been more out of my comfort zone: knocking on strangers’ doors and engaging in political conversation. I might be more comfortable on the front lines in a war zone.
But with a fervent desire to see Trump defeated and relegated to the dustbin of history, I’ve taken actions I’ve never done. First, I worked several phone banking shifts. Now door-to-door canvassing. Scranton largely felt like hostile territory. There were Trump signs everywhere, outnumbering Harris signs probably twenty to one.
The rallying point for canvassers was a union hall in the middle of Scranton. There was plenty of excitement among the amassed Harris supporters. But when we got our assigned route to canvass, things began to fall apart for us. At first, we thought we’d split our list and work solo on opposite sides of the street, but we abandoned that idea immediately and worked as a team. We weren’t given a walkable neighborhood but a rural area outside the city where the houses of registered Democrats were few and far between. We had to drive from house to house. Some of the houses were set back far from the road and we had no place to park. Others looked abandoned. Others had “No Trespassing” signs. We ended up getting through less than half of our list. We spoke to only a few people, although we hung a lot of literature on doors.
Our best conversation was with an eighty-one-year-old woman, Barbara, who told us she couldn’t understand how so many of her neighbors could support Trump. The poor woman lived next door to one of those Trump zealots who decorated his property with signage. The MAGA signs. A life-size cutout of the would-be dictator himself. Signs that lied: “Harris Open Border, Trump Closed Border.” “Harris High Taxes, Trump Low Taxes.” Barbara had to look at this train wreck every day. She can’t wait for the election to be over. I feel the same way.
The most heartening thing I heard that day was from Barbara. She said that even though there are so many Trump signs around Scranton, she believes there are just as many or more Harris voters who are remaining quiet. That made sense to me. It’s the MAGA crowd that crows and struts in support of their crowing and strutting leader. It’s the MAGA crowd that flies their flags as if giving a big middle finger to the rest of us. I believe they’ve been totally duped.
It was a long day of driving to and from Scranton with little to show for it. But no regrets. I believe there is more at stake in this election than in any other in my lifetime, that the country is at an inflection point and is about to veer toward authoritarianism or preserving some semblance of a democratic republic.
Although the two weasel billionaire owners of The Los Angeles Times and The Washington Post both refused to allow their newspapers to endorse a candidate (both of their editorial boards would have endorsed Harris), The New York Times made an endorsement, and their editorial board got succinctly to the heart of the matter:
Vote blue, readers. Vote blue all the way.
