I drove down to Bob’s Hot Dog stand five or six miles down the road for lunch today. Bob cooks excellent hot dogs, and it’s a friendly, inexpensive, and pleasant way to eat on a beautiful end of a summer day.

He has a clean, shady set up by the side of the road, and the old-timers love to come by and call him names and banter back and forth.

Maria and I often go down there together when we don’t feel like cooking or haven’t had time to shop (she does not shop for food.)

Bob has a simple stand where he makes his hot dogs in the Spring and Summer and then spends the rest of the year in Boston going to hockey games.

He is a friendly, outgoing, and gregarious man; his buddies usually sit around his bs table, joking and trading stories. I am tolerated, but as usual, not one of the boys.

Bob is always friendly to me, but only lately have we begun calling each other names. We are getting more comfortable together.

I got there early today, and my usual spot at the picnic table was occupied by a man we’ll call Jim. He was eating his hot dog at one end of the table; I sat on the other, figuring he might want his privacy.

As it turned out, he didn’t.

I talked to Bob about my decision to hire a credit company that monitored all my bank transactions for fraud or identity theft, or changes in my credit.

Since our bankruptcy ten years ago, I’ve paid close attention to my credit rating, and it has risen steadily and without incident. This monitoring company only charges a few dollars a month. They let me know instantly when there is abnormal or unusual activity on my bank card.

“Excuse me,” said Jim, “I don’t mean to intrude, but I overheard what you were saying, and I just wanted to tell you I signed up with that same company a few years ago, and it has been great for me. They are honest and helpful, and available. They even have tips that help boost credit ratings if you need that.”

Jim and I got to talking, and somehow we got on to social media and the challenges children face now.

We are all learning how to be careful since mobs of political vigilantes are ever on patrol looking up old social media posts to use as ammo against opponents or people they perceive as opponents.  It is dangerous to be open and accessible.

As I wrote the other day, many people on the left or the right had lost their jobs or teaching positions or college admissions because of the dumb things they wrote when they were ten.

The mobs on social media are out of control. They are far too powerful and too much too little good.

This led Jim and I to a broader decision of the hostility online now and the difficulty Americans disagree civilly. We both acknowledged we have succumbed to anger online and have also been the target of angry people.

Jim said he lost friends and family members online in that way. He seemed sad about it. He no longer speaks freely online or anywhere else.

It was clear right away that he was a profoundly conservative Trump supporter and that I was not. We both joked about how easy it was for us to talk to one another – we were strangers – at a picnic table, then it would be online.

“I think you would hate my guts if you read my blog,” I said; I’ve written some sharp things lately. “But I’m enjoying our conversation. I’m guessing we have a very different political view from one another.”

He smiled; he nodded.

Jim was a country guy; his job was physical; I could see that from his build and the dirt under his fingernails. Also, from the muck on his boots and his pick-up, splattered with mud.

There was surprisingly good chemistry between us. I learned as a reporter to find some common ground and start from there. Jim and I both found common ground as fathers of intelligent and strong-willed daughters.

We both had daughters that we had worried about and felt uncomfortable if they talked about talking politics to anyone, strangers, or friends. In America, in 2021, that can be dangerous.

“Has your daughter figured out yet how stupid you are?” I asked, and we both cracked up. “All five of them,” he said. Lord, I said, you poor man. I asked him if he knew what they did on Facebook. He said he had no idea.

He said he didn’t have much idea about anything they did since they got to junior high school.

I suggested he might pay some attention to that; Facebook was a bee, I said, that often comes back to stick people when they apply to college or for a jog.

He paid close attention to that; he hadn’t heard about that, he said. His daughter’s world was so complex he had given up trying to follow it. He said there was a time when you just had to trust them; there was no other choice.

Jim appreciated the heads up about social media. His girls were on their cell phones for most of their waking hours, even between classes in s School. He got a special deal on iPhones; they all had their own. He had one too but only used it for phone calls, for work.

We traded tips on buying phones, we talked about the new Iphone 13 and if there was anything worth buying it for now. He said with five daughters getting everybody the latest iPhones was a central challenge for a father.

It was expected of him. He didn’t want to disappoint them. He said they do everything on their phones now.

I went on my phone and shared some links I’ve used with tips about when to buy an Iphone and how to save some money. The Iphone is my creative tool. Maria’s also.

I’m something of an authority on this.

Jim wasn’t the only father with many kids who would demand what their brothers and sisters got.

There we were, two guys, talking about their daughters and eating hot dogs and potato chips. It was peaceful, it was nice, it was safe.

I was enjoying it. This was a community, two people in the same community talking at lunch.

It is possible to do this, I thought. I would listen to and learn from them; I thought he felt the same way about me.

We were edging towards a talk about politics; I could sense it.

Jim started it, talking about how many friends he had lost, especially on Facebook. I said I would never argue about politics on Facebook or anywhere else. I didn’t need to share my beliefs or fight about them. I got over that.

“You’re entitled to what you believe,” he said, “we don’t have to hate each other.” I said it was hard to hate a nice guy who was sitting right next to me to eating a hot dog and offering me helpful advice.” It is so easy to hate online and on e-mails and blog posts.

We didn’t talk much politics, at least not openly. We didn’t need to. It is surprisingly easy for me to spot Trump supporters, and it is simple for them to spot people like me.

Up here, they always peg me as a college professor or a writer. Nobody confuses me for a local.

I always peg the people here as locals or country people. Our cars are different; our clothes are other, our conversations are different, our politics are different.

And yes, we are bitterly divided. One of the first things you do when you meet somebody is to figure out which side they are on. It’s like wondering if somebody is gay.

You can’t always tell, but you can sometimes tell.

I am fortunate to have moved up here some years ago. I am better positioned than many to understand the anger and frustration that led to Trump’s rise and popularity, the disease we call Trumpism.

During his presidency, I made it a point to try and explain where Trumpism came from, how rural America was abandoned and left to rot while the cities boomed and the country’s children fled the farms. There is no doubt in my mind that rural towns and cities and people got screwed again and again.

Their laments are legitimate. But they whine way too much for me. I wasn’t so understanding about it.

After Trump lost the election, the tenor of the rural-urban schism changed for me. Trump followers were falsely charging that any election they lost had to be rigged, even though there was no proof.

Then Republican legislatures started passing Jim Crow laws aimed at making it harder for African-Americans.

It is now illegal to bring grandma a cold drunk in half a dozen states if she’s waiting outside the polls in the heat to vote.

Then there was January 6 and the horrifying insurrection at the capitol. I told Jim – we were talking pretty comfortably by now, not as red or blue people but just as two husbands and fathers looking for a more peaceful world.

It felt good to talk to Jim. He was intelligent and thoughtful, and friendly. He didn’t pay that much attention to January 6, he said, all these crazy loudmouths on both sides, anything can happen.

That was the kind of generality that tells you to slow down or back away.

I told him that people had a right to believe what they wanted; I was not interested in telling people what to do. But as a child in a refugee family and an ex-journalist, and a Democrat more often than not, I was increasingly angered by what I see as Donald Trump’s assault on our democracy.

I believed that if people wanted to stop black people from voting, they should come out and admit it. The election was rigged. If they wanted to make it harder for urban and liberal and black people to vote, they ought to be upfront about, rather than claim; they were being picked on by conspiratorial elitists trying to “cancel” them.

I have real trouble with liars and hypocrites, I can’t help that, and I’m not sure I ever want to get over it. Jim has a right to be Jim, and Jon has a right to be Jon. Get over it.

I said I was a writer. People were responsible for what they said and did and for who they supported.

People accused me of hating Donald Trump so much that it made me blind to write about him.

They were wrong. I explained a hundred times that I am not a hater; I don’t hate Donald Trump, hate anybody,  I hate what I believe he is doing to our country.  I hate what he has come to stand for; I hate what he has unleashed.

There is a big difference.

I don’t argue the point anymore; it’s a waste of time.

And nobody wants to hear it.  Online, dialogue invariably fails, and the reason isn’t too complicated for me to figure out.

We don’t get to know one another online. We don’t see each other as human beings. To see what the other is wearing, what their hair is like, what kind of clothes they have on, hear the voice, and see the eyes.

We don’t know our neighbors on Facebook; we pretend. Social media is a horrid substitute for genuine community.

We are talking about being good fathers connected us right away. It told us we’re both human beings, not somebody else’s labels.

It is so easy to grasp onto labels and stick labels on other people and ourselves. Brands make us all stupid; they are the anthesis of thought. Once you label someone, you will never get to know them.

The people who hate Donald Trump hate what he is doing.  The people who love Donald  Trump love what he is doing. Acceptance is the cornerstone of reconcilciation.

Many people seem to hate him as well, just as I read these cruel and hateful stories about Joe Biden, a decent man to me. I’ve never heard anyone, even Jim, accuse Donald Trump of being proper.

So here we are again. Honestly, we have no choice but to come together; the alternative is a nightmare with no peace of mind for anyone.

I want to be human, but I also want to be honest, not a sap. None of this is or will be easy.

I think it would take a convention of shrinks to figure out how to get Americans to start talking and listening to one another. But I also felt my interaction with Jim was important.  And not that difficult.

Jim and I did connect as human beings. So it is, without question, possible. But not, I think on social media. I believe this new technology is killing our community and our sense of humanity. It is a wall and a distance between us. We are too dumb and weak to survive its lies.

I think we aren’t looking low enough – one at a time, one person at a time, face to face, sharing a picnic table, eating a hot dog, talking about the awful challenge of good parenting.

I don’t believe most of us want to fight and call one another names all the time. I think I will take that belief to the grave.

Jim was listening, nodding; I could tell he was comfortable with me – our conversation about our daughters set a good tone. I wasn’t trying to change his mind and had no delusions about it.  But it felt worthwhile to me.

I did learn things from it.

Jim wasn’t used to talking to people like me, didn’t read the same news in the same places, and our backgrounds differed.

He is younger than I am. He left the county only once in his life to take his girls to Disney World.  And he says he will never get over how much money he spent there.

All of his life, he had seen and heard the sad stories of relatives going back decades – losing jobs, watching the farms vanish, hearing the broken political promises, seeing the doctors flee,  the near genocide afflicted on rural towns, visiting the factories move, the drinking, the drugs, the downtowns die, seeing their children leave, watching their communities dry up and die.

Their whole culture had crumbled under neglect and the government policies of people they consider egg-headed elitists.

All the jobs went overseas or to the cities; it was as if a giant Dracula had come along and drained their blood.

We all know this story now, and I know that it is true. I see the evidence and damage done to our heartland every day.

I said my, eating a hot dog with Jim, each getting up to add some mustard and relish to joke with Bob.

Here we are, two whiners, sitting at Bob’s hot dog stand, listing our woes, complaining about each other. At least we didn’t get made and decide to call each other names. A voice in my head said, suck it up, guys, you are all among the fortunate of the earth.

“I’ve never had a conversation like this with one of you,” he said. “We don’t agree on much, on guessing. But I do agree that sitting her talking like this – opens my eyes a bit. It doesn’t make me a Democrat, but you’re a lot more like me than I would have thought,” he said.

I ribbed him a bit about being called “one of you,” just what you might call a Martian, I said. He smiled.

I laughed, “and yes, I said, we are both careful to keep our credit ratings good. That amounts to something.”

I felt that we were both dying to get into it and feared what might come next. In America, almost no one speaks freely in person.

Jim said he had to get back to work, and he reached over and offered his hand, and I took it.

His grip was a lot stronger than mine. But it felt good. It felt like we respected one another.

We didn’t hug or kiss or make plans to have a drink together. This isn’t a Disney movie.

We are not going to be best friends or even friends at all.  Rural America is segregated almost everywhere: new people live here, locals live there.

We each headed back to our different worlds; Bob’s was one of the very few places where the two sides could meet. Even in this small town, I doubted I would ever see Jim again. I had never seen him before.

We aren’t going to be dining out at one another’s house.

But he did say he hoped we ran into each other again at Bob’s; “it felt good to be able to have an  honest conversation without being called a stupid bigot.”

I said I appreciated not being called an arrogant elitist also. Name-calling is for middle school, not the real world, I said.

If either one of us were all that smart, we wouldn’t need to worry about our credit ratings.

We left each other laughing.