By Don Hall

For some reason I like to use the name “Carl” to act as a neutral placeholder for my straw man points. “Jack” is too overused and “Carl” seems racially ambiguous enough.

This guy was actually Carl.

Carl is a truck driver from Washington State, parking in the truck plaza daily lot across the street and attached to the casino I manage. After checking in on the plaza staff (it is considered essential in Nevada), Carl asks me if there is anything to do in Vegas. I respond that, no, we’re still in shutdown but it’s looking like June 4th will be our re-open date. There are a few dine-in restaurants around but no casinos or bars. No movie theaters.

“Unbelievable,” he barks. “I’ve just about had it with these Communist Governors.”

FULL STOP. RECORD SCRATCH.

I’ve been struggling with my ability to openly communicate with the Other Side of Things. The realization that I tend toward debate and trying to win the argument isn’t serving any pragmatic purpose, I’m looking to truly communicate with people whom I disagree. Carl is an opportunity to practice.

Instead of stating my opinion on his comment, I ask “Which governors are communist?”

“Cuomo for one.”

“What makes you say that Cuomo is communist?”

He pulls out his phone. He scrolls through a series of screens.

“Cuomo stated—and I can show you the video—when asked what people who have businesses not considered ‘essential’ should do to feed their families and, you know, pay their bills—he said—‘there are plenty of essential jobs available for them.’”

“How is that communist?”

“Deciding what is essential and what is not makes him a dictator!”

“Hmmmm,” I muse. I land upon a verbal placeholder that for the next forty-five minutes served as both a self deprecation and an opportunity for Carl to fully explore his own perspective for me. “I could be wrong, but I’m not sure that’s what communism is. I mean, I don’t really know but that doesn’t sound right.”

He dives back into his phone, looks up ‘Communism’ and reads for a bit.

“Huh. Well, I guess he isn’t communist but it’s still tyranny.”

“Interesting. Good clarification. How is it tyranny?”

And the game, as it were, was afoot. I refused to argue my point. I wasn’t trying to win. I simply asked him questions and looked for clarifications. About ten minutes into the back and forth, Carl sussed up that he and I were on very different sides of the partisan fence. His game then became to test me, to see if he could get the argument he was now looking for.

I decided to only offer my own opinion on something if first asked. For those who know me well you understand how almost supernatural is this feat. I also decided to be as blunt and plain spoken about my answers. No quotes of facts I had read. No references to expertise. He was looking for those to dismiss so the less I provided the more chance we wouldn’t be formulating arguments while pretending to listen.

We landed on whether churches could be shut down during the pandemic. He was furious that any pastor would close down worship because of the government. He quoted the Old Testament from his phone and revealed that he was a fundamentalist Baptist. He asked me if I was atheist. 

“No. I’d say I’m agnostic. I don’t believe there is a higher power but, given I’m not really in a position to know, I’m not arrogant enough to dismiss the idea altogether.”

This answer leaves him visibly disappointed. “Oh. If you’d said atheist, I had a joke.”

“What’s the joke?”

“What’s the best atheist holiday? April Fools Day. Because the Bible says that he who denies the existence of God is a fool. Get it?”

I smile. “Yeah. I get it.”

“I bet we totally don’t agree about abortion.”

This was a fishing expedition on Carl’s part.

“You think? What do you suppose my position is?”

“You’re probably pro-abortion.”

“Hmmm. I could be wrong but I’m not sure anyone is pro-abortion. I mean, maybe it’s just that I’ve never met anyone that is, like, ‘YEAH! ABORTION IS AWESOME!’”

“Then what are you?”

“Oh. I’m pro-choice but I’m pro-choice pretty much across the board.”

“So you think killing babies is okay?”

“Yup. I am in favor of killing babies.”

Carl isn’t sure what to make of this answer. He stops moving for a moment, taking it in. “Wait... what?”

“Oh, I get the scientific debate between the fetus and the baby, and when does human life really start and all that. I’m not a scientist so it’s just more honest to acknowledge that, yes, we are killing babies and I’m okay with that.

It’s sort of like looking at how we deal with real people versus abstract people, you know?”

“Abstract...?”

“If you tell me your mother contracted COVID at a Walmart because she thought masks were a part of the hoax and she might die, for you she’s a real person. For me, she’s an abstract person—don’t know her, never met her, just met you. Abstract. If your mom dies, it doesn’t affect me in any way.

It’s like the COVID deaths in general. 100,000 Americans have died from it but that number allows me to see them all as abstract. They’re real to somebody but not to me. I don’t know anyone who has died from it.

Same with abortion. Unless my wife or my niece or a friend of mine gets one, all those babies are abstract. I mean, do you care about the 300 or so Indonesians killed in the tsunami in December?”

“What? No. I didn’t even know about that.”

“Exactly. They are abstract so we don’t care. Humans are quite good at finding ways to make others abstract. Aborted babies aren’t even interesting enough to remember so who cares? I mean, All Lives Matter, my ass, right?”

He wanted to talk about the Second Amendment and gun control. I agreed with him that the Second Amendment was sacrosanct and should be followed to the letter. “Are you a member of a militia?”

“No.”

“And you own guns?”

“Yeah.”

“I could be wrong but, according to the Second Amendment, you have to be in a militia to follow the Constitution and own guns. So, the government has every right to take your guns, right? That’s the letter of the Second Amendment?”

He kept bouncing from gays (“Homosexuality is wrong” but “I have a gay friend.”) to Obamacare to why he ignores his GPS (“It’s a woman’s voice and I’ve been trained to ignore that sound!”).

At around forty minutes in, I was exhausted. This was fucking hard. I told him I really needed to get back to work, which was a lie— with the casino closed my work at this point is that of a night watchman. I really just wanted to escape this conversation.

As we parted, I offered my only unrequested opinion.

“You know,” he said. “This is how all people should talk to each other. We don’t agree on much but we’re walking away as friends.”

“I don’t think we’re friends, Carl. I could be wrong but at least we’re parting friendly.”

I don’t know if I accomplished anything. I doubt I convinced him of anything but it wasn’t the typical ranting at one another. As I’m trying to get better at this communicating with the enemy sort of thing, the act of not treating him as an enemy might be the first step.

In fact, the most startling thing about this entire encounter was that I simply did not notice until thirty-five minutes into it that he was proudly wearing a red MAGA cap.