I was injured on the job a few weeks back. I'll spare most of the details, except to say that it was bad, but not as bad as it could have been. After a short stay in the hospital I was home wearing a clamshell brace, along with some pills and strict orders concerning them and my movements, including no work, no driving and no heavy lifting for at least two months.
So when I needed to talk with the boss about some things last Friday morning I had to ask my awesome wife to drive me to the shop. Some of the crew were already there, and since I hadn't seen any of them since before the accident they were surprised and pleased to see me. Very soon we were jawing and back-slapping, talking about my injury, my recovery and the past few weeks’ goings on.
That's when I looked over towards my wife's car, and saw the car in the above pic pulling in to park nearby. I saw a flash of blue on the white bumper, walked closer and read "Bernie 2016” just as the car's owner (we'll call him Bill) was opening the door to get out. My jaw dropped, I swore an oath or two, clapped my hands and couldn't tell Bill soon enough how excellent it was to see his sticker.
Given the nutbaggery I'd mistakenly assumed I was very pleasantly surprised to see Bernie's name on Bill's car, and he at first thought I was trolling him. He took on a sly smile, slumped his shoulders dramatically and said in bantering tones "Oh no not you too! Why does everyone give me crap about that?" He seemed to honestly think I was a right-winger trying to mess with him.
So I simply pointed at my wife's car, in which she sat waiting patiently, and told him to take a look.
This was what he saw
After Bill saw that his smile got a lot bigger, and grew bigger still as we shook hands and exchanged a quick word about coincidences that aren't really coincidences, and about the all-around awesomeness of Bernie Sanders. All of the present crew were standing near, and saw and heard all this.
Blue collar guys, every one of them, and on the whole a damn good bunch. Much better than I thought. To my surprise three of the remaining six chimed in, or rather one guy actually chimed and the other two offered assent, saying that they'd heard Bernie speak, and liked what they heard. To my further surprise only one of them (we’ll call him Ben) said anything negative out loud. In fact Ben came up to me right afterwards and asked with a grin if I were “coming out of the closet” as a Democrat. I matched his grin and told him that nobody'd yet asked me if I were a Democrat, and if anybody had asked I would've said Fuck yes I'm a Democrat.
This exchange took place with smiles and laughs on both sides, the on-lookers laughed at my closer, and that was that. Ben made no reply other than to laugh also. Just then the boss arrived and everyone pointedly got back to business. He and I had our chat shortly thereafter and we all went on about our day.
Now, the ease of that encounter was a complete surprise to me. A very pleasant surprise, but a surprise nonetheless. I am relatively new on this crew, even though I've known many of its members for a lot longer. And an exchange like that was unheard of on the crew I recently left. If you were a Democrat on that crew you kept a lid on it, or you'd regret it, and I witnessed first-hand both the lid blown off and the regret afterwards. The suddenly jobless regret.
It didn’t happen to me, mostly because I never let that old fucker goad me into dropping my guard, but it happened within earshot, and it was most of the reason I left. And I’d known when I switched that the new crew was a tolerant and easy-going outfit, that was why I chose it. But it's been my unpleasant experience, from close to twenty years working with a few different crews in this area, and talking with many more, that most of the building and construction crews around here are filled with and run by intolerant right-wingers. Not a few of whom are like the old boss and are known to send packing or run off anybody with a whiff of Democrat on them.
I knew already that four of the guys on this new crew were Republicans, including the boss. I already knew that the first time I walked into his office, and while he himself is a man both reasonable and mild-mannered, and so totally unlike the old boss, a few of the other guys on the crew are like Ben and a lot of the other righties around here, loud and aggressive wingnuts with variable grasps on reality when it comes to anything politics.
So I didn't know what to expect when I pulled in that morning, whether things would go smoothly or turn into a shitstorm, or whether anyone on this crew could openly support any Democrat, let alone Bernie, and be met by anything other than ignorant anger and fear. I can be pretty damn pessimistic sometimes, and although I made up my mind to go through with it anyway all along I assumed the worst, all the way up to the moment I saw the flash of blue on Bill's bumper and understood what it meant. And to say I was pleasantly surprised at that moment would be a colossal understatement.
Bill and Bernie Sanders showed me how wrong I was. They showed me that I don't need to be afraid, and that I am not alone. None of us are alone. Even on my old crew I wasn't alone. Allies were there then, I now suspect, just like they must be on this new one. Like I was, they've just been keeping quiet.
That’s going to change, is already changing. That’s what Bernie is doing.
He's making it ok to be a lefty.
He's making it ok to say fuck this shit.
Here are some handy resources for voting and GOTV. Because fuck this shit.
Do you know if you are registered to vote? Do you know where your polling place is? If not, click here for a handy resource for finding out.
Do you know which Democrats are running in your state or district this cycle? Do you know when those elections will be held? Do you know when your state’s presidential primary is held? Do you know what ID you will need in order to vote? If not, click here for another handy resource.
Want to help the Sanders campaign? Click here for their website. And another excellent resource, voteforBernie.org