A day in the Trump campaign
I meet her on the street. I am supposed to go to Trump's campaign office in Charleston, West Virginia, but the door is locked. Suddenly, the door opens, and I ask her if she knows how I can get in. Yes, she does. She works for the campaign herself. "Come back in half an hour," she says. Then there will be more of us.
But she is alone when I knock again. She almost apologizes that the others haven't arrived yet. She is a little surprised that I want to talk to her about . It is clear that she does not think she is important.
But she is. Shelby has spent every waking hour of the last two years bringing Trump to power. She proudly recounts that it took four years to wrest power from the Democrats in the state, who had held a firm grip on office for 88 years. Now, not only do the Republicans have a majority, but the state also secured Trump the most votes of any state in the last US election.
Shelby also works for Trump in her spare time. She has succeeded, for example, in convincing her elderly father, who has voted Democrat all his life, to put his X on the Republicans.
"It's difficult with my sister. She has seen and worked in the world," she says. For several years, her sister has been actively working to stop human trafficking in Tanzania. "She is much more woke," she says, without batting an eyelid.
I ask her whether the division has also created rifts in her family. I tell her about my father and me. He votes for Erdogan, and for several years this has divided us.
"No. I can talk to anyone because, ultimately, we are all citizens of the United States. Social media is different. Then people call me a bigot," she says. Her face is expressionless again. "What is it?" I ask her.
She doesn't know how to explain it, but she goes to the computer and starts reading: a person who is stubbornly or unreasonably attached to a belief, opinion, or faction, especially one who is prejudiced against a person or people because of their membership in a particular group. A racist," she concludes.
"But now we've started to be able to X (formerly Twitter) because Elon Musk has made sure that we can express our opinions without being blocked," she says.
Shelby is friendly. She is welcoming and quiet, without any grand gestures. I wonder what she writes on social media, I think to myself.
She is concerned about high gasoline prices, the endless wars around the world, and liberal abortion laws. Shelby never had children of her own, but she loves her nieces so much that everything she does is focused on creating a better world for them.
When I ask her if I can take a picture of her in her office, she starts tidying up a bit, but quickly gives up. "I should tidy up this office one day," she says with a shy smile.
She invited me to Chris Tempel Church on Sunday.
As I walk away from Shelby, I can't help but think that, on the one hand, she confirms all my preconceptions about Republicans. Christian, anti-abortion, blind Trump supporter.
But on the other hand, she is also everything I did not expect. Loving, attentive, non-judgmental, genuinely concerned about the way the world is developing.
I accept the invitation to the church, and it will not be a farewell but a see you again.
(I am in the US with dialogue coffee, and over the next two weeks I will be meeting with my preconceptions, organizations, passionate individuals, and experts to learn more about why the world's most important country is so divided. Or is it?)
