Tag: democrat

Taking back the red hat

On By aftheadIn politics3 Comments

This is my favorite workout hat. It’s a great sweat wicking material and it reminds me of my family’s trip to see the World Junior Hockey Championship in Edmonton in 2022. When we were vacationing in Canada it was a lovely hat. When I got home to the United States I remembered that red hats had been claimed by a demographic I don’t support.

In this latest election cycle, Democrats are reclaiming patriotism. They are claimed the flag at the national convention. I’m jumping on this wave of progressivism and taking back my red hat.

Let me be clear, my anti-red hat stance goes both ways. One, I don’t agree with the red hat folks on values or presidential candidates. I think that January 6th 2021 was an abomination: antithetical to one of the basic tenets of the United States of America — the peaceful transfer of power. Second, I am a middle aged white woman, and people who look like me are often right-wing Christian, forced birther, pro-authoritarian-white guy supporters. I don’t want my red hat to make me or other hikers uncomfortable – even as it’s wicking properties make my head super comfortable.

My first brave hike was with women, all in their 30s to 60s. We were in an area of Colorado where Trump won in 2020 by 7.1 percent. We saw a few folks in trucks and four-wheelers, but the only people we interacted with were two men taking down trees with chainsaws. They were friendly and joked with us. I don’t know if they felt camaraderie because of my red had, but I know it didn’t make them aggressive or violent, which is ideal when when dealing with chainsaw wielders, so this was a win for the hat.

Second hike was nondescript on the human front. I was solo and saw three sets of women – two with dogs and one with kids — no one commented on my hat. I also saw 14 amazing fuzzy caterpillars who had no hat opinions and was divebombed by one hummingbird, who though my hat was a giant flower. Total hat win. I like being mistaken for a flower. After the hike, I went by the grocery store and the clerk checking me out pointed to my hat and asked if I’d ever been to Canada. When I said I had, he started a litany of all his relatives who live in Toronto and asking if I knew them. Several minutes passed with me saying “no” to all the names he could remember, but the conversation was amiable, so a hat-neutral encounter.

The final hike was lovely. I was with my husband who wore his Colorado hat and Fleet Farm t-shirt. (Fleet Farm is another thing I would like to take back, if it’s been claimed by the right. Alas, the one we visit is in an area that Trump carried in 2020 by 19 points, but we still love it.) The trail was busy, but everyone was friendly. Some ladies horseback riding warned us of trail runners ahead who weren’t sharing the trail. By the time we got to the trail runners, they were sweaty shirtless walkers, and stepped out of our way. It would have been a completely neutral hat encounter, except I got to take this cute picture on a bridge of me with my controversial hat, my patriotic sunglasses, and tiny “Vote” earrings. (You can’t really see them in the picture, and they are upside-down anyway.)

There’s a chance that I blew this whole red-hat thing out of proportion. When I see the other red hat I get an instant rush of fight or flight, but that doesn’t mean those red hatted people are going to confront me. Or it doesn’t mean they are more likely to confront me than any other hat wearing person. I don’t go around espousing the advantages of Canadian Hockey when I wear my red hat, but I would recognize another Canada hat wearer. That’s my final concern. I’ve yet to see the other red hat in the wild while I’m wearing my red hat. I don’t want some Vance wanna-be to chase me down on the trails, thinking I’m a kindred spirit and then try to convince me to join his red hat clan. If I got trapped in a conversation around a women’s rights to bodily autonomy, or the guns used to kill children in schools, or the legitimacy of the 2020 election, or even school vouchers I would feel unsafe. Again, probably won’t happen, but there’s a reason the man versus bear meme exists. Anywhoo, tomorrow me and the red hat are going leaf-peeping, just the two of us. I’m cautiously hopeful that me and my head will be safe in the Colorado woods.

Even the dorks get a vote

On By aftheadIn Uncategorized10 Comments

i voted
My mother.  Her lessons on how the world works are tiny seeds planted throughout my life that grow and change producing new life lessons as the years go by.

In grade school, I think third grade, I got a hankering that I needed to run for Student Council: some minor position, like Treasurer or Vice President.  I put my campaign posters, buttons and speech together with the idea that I had a few key people I needed to impress and I’d win for sure.  My target were the kids that everyone wanted to sit with at lunch, play with at recess and get invites to their birthday parties.  As my mom helped me get ready to run she offhandedly mentioned this life lesson-to-be, “You need to remember, even dorks get a vote.”

I remember being affronted by this at the time.  Of course you had to get the popular kids to vote for you because everyone does what the popular kids do.  As the popular kids go, so goes everyone else.  They were the ones who dictated that Outback Red and Forenza were the things to wear, and the next year when the rest of us wore our new Outback Red sweaters the first day of school they showed up in OP.  My mom, what did she know?

Well, she knew a lot.  She was head girl of her senior class in high school, so I should have known that she understood a thing or two about rallying people around you.  Of course, being a kid growing up in the 1980s, I had no idea what a head girl was and wasn’t curious enough about my foremother’s accomplishments to find out.  My only student council campaign run ended when I was beaten by the cool kid running against me.  I had neglected to realize that my opponent already had ties to the kids I was trying to impress: the same kids who didn’t notice me on a daily basis.

When I look at the United States national political scene today, I realize that all the candidates – no the  major political parties – need to sit down and talk to my mom, because the backlash they are seeing is that the dorks are tired of not getting a vote.  The dorks are wising up to the political process and realizing that their right to a vote has been absconded with and they want it back.  The dorks are worried about their families.  The dorks want to ensure a world where their kids have a chance at a better life than they had.  The dorks don’t understand why they keep working harder, longer hours and can afford less each year as the cost of living rises more than their annual piddling raises.  The dorks wonder why the people who run our country spend most of their time rubbing elbows with themselves, the top 1%, and lobbyists, and only bother to talk to us when they sit down at a diner on the campaign trail.  The dorks really just want to eat their eggs and drink their coffee and not be a sound bite for the candidate’s daily propaganda.

The dorks don’t understand PACs or SuperPACs, but are willing to throw a hard-earned buck or two to Bernie Sanders because he’s a dork like us and maybe he thinks our lives matter.  The dorks support Donald Trump because he’s different.  He may not say the right thing, but the dorks are tired of polished mealy mouthed politicians and want someone who speaks the language of the people, which is angry and sometimes crass right now.  I find it hard to believe that anyone really wants a wall, but everyone wants something big, something different, and something to change because we are frustrated.  I can only imagine the backlash if the Republican Convention goes to a brokered convention and the cool kids get to pick whatever cool kid friend they want for the nomination.  Talk about denying the dorks their vote.

So listen Hillary, Ted, and whatever Republican candidate that is waiting in the wings to claim the cool kids nomination let me try to channel my mom here.  You’ve made a great run at building an exclusive club of insiders that kowtow to the privileged few in this country, but the dorks are tired of being ignored.  Even if an establishment person becomes president, it’s not going to make the dorks happy.  You may go live in your big white house, but if you don’t start doing your job representing the entire country’s needs and keep pretending that bickering with the other party is your most important job, there is going to be hell to pay, because the dorks are ready.  We are ready for a collaborating centrist leader and we will support him or her with our votes, our pocket books and our voices.  We are hungry for one brave leader to eschew the big dollars behind the two major parties and stand up and represent us, the no longer silent majority.

It may not happen this year, but it will happen if the dorks continue to be ignored.  This isn’t elementary school anymore.  We are done with the cool kids.

Photo courtesy of jamelah e. and provided under Creative Commons License.  My apologies to the photographer if the dork movement does not correspond to his/her views.