Home > Critic-At-Large > Warning Labels

Warning Labels

By Chris Colcord

Fort Wayne Reader

2018-04-05

In 2015, I did something during the local elections that I had never done before — I put up a political sign on my lawn, featuring the name of a popular incumbent candidate. My wife was responsible for actually attaining the sign, for she knew somebody in that particular campaign, and she agreed with me that we should make a neighborhood statement about who we liked for that elected office. Unusual for her, too, for she never felt compelled to make such a public declaration before. But we liked the candidate and agreed with his policies, and so we put the sign up about three weeks before the election.

It wasn't immediate — it probably took a week or so before we realized it — but we both felt profoundly uneasy for having put that sign up. I couldn't really articulate why, but I started to grimace every time I pulled up to my own driveway after work. Maybe it was the layout of our neighborhood — most of the lots are similarly sized and flat and when you looked down our street you saw yard, yard, yard, yard, POLITICAL STATEMENT, yard, yard, yard. I started to feel conspicuous about our sign, for, outside of one home-owner who lived in a cul-de-sac, no one in our neighborhood let you know who they were voting for. I still liked our candidate — he hadn't changed since I put the sign up, after all — but I started to actively hate the sign that carried his name. We left it up through election night, though, in spite of our ambivalence (and perhaps out of pure mulishness), but then promptly took it down on Wednesday morning.

Now, the kicker of the story is that the guy we backed was one of the most predictable winners in the 2015 election in the entire state. He took about 65% of the local vote without breaking a sweat, and was declared "winner" almost as soon as the polls closed. What we had done, then, wasn't quite like putting up a "Reagan" sign in Indiana in 1980 or 1984, but it wasn't too far off. We were front-runners, sure-thing bettors, chalk-eaters, risk-averse weasels. And yet we were scaring ourselves for publicly backing a candidate that most of our neighbors probably voted for anyway.

What was going on? I liked my neighbors well enough, and didn't imagine that any of them were hiding behind their blinds, muttering profanities my way and vowing vengeance fro my stated political preference. And I'm not exactly shy about dropping political/social pronouncements in casual conversations, anyway; I'm too old, too contrary to try to police my opinions while chatting with the next-door guy. So I'm sure most of my neighbors had an idea how I think and vote and they probably didn't care one way or another.

But maybe I had a premonition, back then, about the way political discourse was about to be transformed in the United States, and that maybe I should start being a little cagier about what I put out there. There's always been vituperation and mean-spirited growling between the two parties in modern American politics, but it feels like out-and-out war now. And does anybody really like being at war, every day, with everyone you meet? Arguments at the grocery store, at the bar, at the big-box store, at family reunions, movie theaters, PTA conferences? It's exhausting to think about, no matter the vehemence with which you hold your convictions.

On Facebook and Twitter I'm political as hell and a real asshole, to boot — most of my commentary is nothing more than profane name-calling and uncivil incorrigibility. I'm aware that this makes me a hater and a troll, but this doesn't bother me too much; like most people, I not only have a contempt for social media, I also have a contempt for myself on social media. Like: I know I'm wasting my time being here, and presenting myself in this way, but I don't have quite enough discipline to delete this account. Therefore, being a little ball of hate while I'm on is therapeutic: it feels cleansing to ridicule my own on-line existence, and that actually compels me to focus on real-life stuff. For a while, anyway.

And in real-life, I've made a point to be a little more politically ambiguous than I really am. I quit arguing with the other side about six months after the 2016 election; it made no sense to continue, and I never felt honest saying "let's agree to disagree" when I really meant, "I hate everything that you believe in." So I just quit. And now I keep it quiet. Any obvious "tells" I have about my political leanings I tend to shroud. I do subscribe to the New York Times, for instance, but I also go to Chik Fil-A and I smoke cigars like a plutocrat. I'm not concerned with buying free-trade coffee but nor do I care if I "buy American." I simply don't want to display obvious signifiers anymore to anyone paying attention.

Anybody who knows me is well-aware of my beliefs, but my world is full of people who don't (and likely won't) ever know me well: neighbors, teachers, congregants, bartenders, contractors, employers, parents of my kids' friends, co-workers. For those people, I intend on keeping my political mask firmly affixed in place. And it's funny, most of the people I meet in these situations tend to adopt the same pose that I do; they don't want to give any info away, either. In 2018, if just feels like a survival skill. Maybe in another five years or so — maybe — we'll be able to argue again without blood and gore and guts and veins in the teeth, but I’m not gonna hold my breath. I'm simply going to strive to become the most neutral guy at the bar, at the hardware store, at the ballpark, at church. The Switzerland of Dudes, if you will. With a smile and a handshake and absolutely nothing to say.