United and American
Looking around the Austin airport terminal, I am curious about the bustling crowds and what we each think about each other in this post-election society now that Donald Trump is our President elect. Am on my way to a board game convention and we might be playing the same game in our heads with everyone we meet: "Did you vote for Trump?"
For me, the questions continue: Do we have kids? Are we in love? Racist? Wealthy? Poor? Middle? Why do people I know see positive in Trump that I do not? Where are we going and how far may our travels extend into this puffy and sunny sky outside these picturesque windows at Gate 17 with the United and American planes entering and leaving their queues (oh irony).
For me, the questions continue: Do we have kids? Are we in love? Racist? Wealthy? Poor? Middle? Why do people I know see positive in Trump that I do not? Where are we going and how far may our travels extend into this puffy and sunny sky outside these picturesque windows at Gate 17 with the United and American planes entering and leaving their queues (oh irony).
In the shuttle bus from The Parking Spot to the airport, a fellow passenger is chatting with our bus driver, a gentleman from Puerto Rico, who gallantly helps every lady with her bag and eyes the lot for more passengers as we drive around in circles to fill up the bus with help from a radio dispatcher. I think about what may have brought our driver here, a man in his mid-40s, because Puerto Rico is a lovely place with few job opportunities and (as a Commonwealth of the United States) no right to vote in our election.
To each passenger he asks: "What is your space number? What airline are you with?"
Oh, how I wish this was a space flight! Stephen Hawking says this week that humanity needs to colonize other planets or our species will go extinct within 1,000 years. I would wager much sooner at this rate. Plus, the horror that billions will not be able to leave and the sci-fi stories already written.
Soon, a frequent traveler boards the shuttle, he and the driver shake hands and begin to catch up on their holiday plans.
"So, what are you doing for Thanksgiving?" says the driver.
"We're taking the kids to Colorado...but there's no snow."
This is not quite true (but close). At this moment, of 23 skii resorts, all but two are closed because there is no snow.
No snow. In Colorado. In November. We have just elected Donald Trump, a man who does not believe that global warming is real and he should care more than I do because he has children and grandchildren to consider. How does he not see this crisis? What will it take to make us all care about each other and our planet regardless our political beliefs?
At the airport, the sun is setting and people like me are mostly sitting alone and looking at their phones or wearing headphones but not engaging with each other. This is why Trump won. We each create our own experiences and more often than not this does not involve anyone else except our own prejudices. As one TED Talk social scientist puts it: We already live in the Matrix and we choose our pill: red or blue.
