Laugh about it, shout about it

It's a minor Election Day here in Oregon. In my part of Portlandia, the only things on the ballot worth looking at were the two tax measures. One was renewing the extra property tax we pay "for the children," which of course will pass, no matter the sorry state of our public schools, because "for the children." The other is a revolutionary new capital gains tax to be imposed by the county to fund free lawyers for deadbeat tenants. That one has drawn a lot of opposition, and if I had to bet, I'd say it will fail. But the number of people who will vote for it will be depressing.

Politics in this city isn't like in a normal place. Right now, America's big battle is between the people in the middle and the scary autocrats on the far right. Out here, the contest's between the people in the middle and the scary socialists on the far left.

Here's a thought as you ponder whatever election might be going on in your part of the world. I stumbled across it last night as I was working through some unread magazines. It came at the end of this interview with Anthony Fauci. I love that guy. 

One of the things I did in my life that I’m most proud of that isn’t purely science was my outreach in the gay community during the early years of H.I.V. Now, the gay community with H.I.V. is very, very different from the ultraright MAGA community with Covid. However, there is a bit of connection there — a segment of society that was bucking against what the government was trying to do.

What the gay population was saying is that you’ve got to take our thoughts into consideration, and that you have a too-rigid clinical-trial apparatus. One of the best things I did in my life was put aside their theatrics and their attacks on me and started listening to what they had to say. And what they had to say was not just a kernel of truth; it was profound truth. It was mostly all true.

So I have always felt when there are people pushing back at you, even though they in many respects are off in left field somewhere, there always appears to be a kernel of truth — maybe a small kernel or a big segment of truth — in what they say. One of the things that we really need to do is we need to reach out now and find out what exactly was it that made them push back. Because so many people cannot be completely wrong.