Across the Great Divide

being neighbors in a time of Trump

Proof that it’s possible to co-exist

June 21, 2024 / Full Moon

If you need a little hope that we can find a way to live together with some degree of harmony during these fraught times, take a look at this picture of me and my neighbor, who I’ll call Andrea.

That’s her in the Make America Great Again hat, I’m holding up the “Be woke, stay woke” button that hangs from my car’s rear view mirror. I had picked Andrea up that morning after she dropped off her vehicle for service, and told her it was the only time anyone with a MAGA hat would ever get a ride in my car. We both laughed and agreed it was worthy of a selfie. Maybe we could even have our own reality show!

But let me back up the story to four years ago.

In the middle of the last U.S. presidential election year in 2020, I moved into a new home in Española, New Mexico, about a half hour north of Santa Fe. This was the first house I had ever owned – a story in its own right that I’ll save for another time.  

Not long after I moved in, our neighborly relationship got off to a rocky start. It started out well enough. Andrea and I saw each other through the fence one morning and she let me know she was hosting a party that evening, and invited me to stop by. This was the first summer of the pandemic, pre-vaccines, and while I appreciated the invitation, I was being super cautious. I visited my elderly mom and dad in their nearby assisted living center on a regular basis and didn’t want to chance that I might expose them to COVID. So I was keeping my social interactions pretty limited.

That evening I had a friend staying in my guest room and we both heard the beginning of the party next door. It sounded like one of the guests was a preacher of some sort, as we could hear him intoning various things about God through an inexpensive speaker system in Andrea’s backyard. The gathering seemed to be winding down around 9 pm and I thought, “That wasn’t so bad.”

But then there was a second wave to the party, with people were sitting on the porch of her house, a stone’s throw from the window of the guest bedroom of my house. The only thing that separated our properties was a coyote fence – wood poles with enough space between them that sound easily got through. It was a hot summer night and my house had no air conditioning, so we kept the windows wide open. The voices got louder, the guests were drinking, and the music got louder. This went on until 3 am. Neither my friend nor I got much sleep and I was feeling pretty cranky about the whole situation.

The next morning I saw Andrea out in her yard folding up the portable chairs she had rented for the party. In my best 9-on-the-Enneagram voice, I tried to point out that was pretty late for loud noises when our houses are in such close proximity, and wondered if she could keep that in mind for future gatherings.

My diplomacy was met with singular surliness. She snapped at me, “You’re living in Northern New Mexico now, this is what we do here!” I felt like I’d been slapped hard with a wet dishtowel. This neighborhood interaction was not going at all the way I wanted.

Things weren’t helped when, a couple of months later, Trump signs began popping up all over Andrea’s property. I started making up all kinds of stories about her in my head, none of them positive. Every morning my dog Lucy and I would walk past her house, and every morning those signs triggered ragged agitation in me.

bridge across troubled water

But then an interesting situation started to unfold. As the fall came and election day grew closer, each night some mysterious person or people were tearing down Andrea’s signs. On our morning walks, Lucy and I wandered down the road and I’d see the shredded remains of “Trump/Pence” posters on the ground – which had their origin in Andrea’s yard. The next morning, without fail, she would be back out putting up replacement signs along her fence and in the yard. It seemed as though she had an endless supply because this happened multiple times. 

Around the fifth time I witnessed this mini drama of torn-down signs and Andrea putting up new ones, I was surprised to notice a new feeling arise in me: a begrudging kind of respect. I actually had to give her credit for being incredibly persistent in the face of adversity. 

One morning this same cycle played out yet again. Lucy and I walked by as Andrea was posting the newest batch of signs. Even though we hadn’t spoken in months since the summer party debacle, I felt I wanted to say something. This came out of my mouth: 

“Hello, good morning. I just want to say even though I would never vote for your guy, I am sorry that your signs are getting torn down. This is your property and you have the right to express yourself even if I disagree with you.” 

Andrea looked at me, kind of stunned. I doubt that was at all what she expected to hear, and honestly I surprised myself by thinking and saying those words. With a great deal of sincerity, she thanked me and told me how hard it was for her to feel targeted by someone in the neighborhood.

We didn’t get into any kind of political conversation in that moment. I could easily have noted how folks from immigrant and trans communities and people of color feel targeted every day, but I simply left it at that. There was a sense that we had genuinely connected, for the first time.

After that short conversation things began to shift. A couple of days after the November 2020 election, I broke my arm and was fairly incapacitated for a while. That Thanksgiving, Andrea’s daughter knocked on the door to let me know they had some dinner to give me if I would like it. A while later she came back with a lovely plate of turkey, potatoes, and stuffing. That winter, Andrea had a bad flu that lasted days and I dropped off some cough medicine for her. After my parents died in January of the following year, she left a beautiful bouquet of flowers at my front door.

In the time since then we’ve gone out for breakfasts and learned about each other’s families and lives. When there was a string of burglaries in the neighborhood, we kept an eye on each other’s homes. Andrea and I will probably never see eye to eye on politics. But we’ve come to know each other as humans, and we’ve surprised each other with how much we have in common. For example, in talking about the homeless population of our town, we discovered that we’re both committed to helping the local shelter succeed. We’ve found a way to respect and appreciate each other beyond labels, which is kind of rare and amazing in these times.

I don’t mean to oversimplify our country’s situation. Democracy is in dire straits, a Trump victory would bring an extremely dangerous level of authoritarianism, and we need to do more than just sing kumbaya. No matter who wins this election there are deep systemic problems that go far beyond the individual level.

But at the same time, some of the most important work we can do is relational and involves building strong connections in our communities that transcend partisan politics. 

One of the ways that this work starts is with a willingness to drop whatever preconceptions we may be holding about each other (a capacity that, by the way, is greatly enhanced through having a consistent contemplative practice). It’s also the place that community organizers start from – listening to people’s concerns and encouraging collective problem solving, no matter where people might be on an ideological spectrum. It begins with the power of a simple “good morning.” This is peacemaking at the most basic level. 

Intrigued by the possibility of bridging these kinds of divides?

You might be interested in this recent New York Times article: “Is the Partisan Divide to Big to be Bridged?” I’ve posted it as a guest link so you can read the article even if you don’t subscribe to the Times.

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