I have worked on and off at a restaurant chain for nearly three years in my hometown of Minneapolis. Labeled “gourmet” fast-food, the chain is popular in the Midwestern United States and is known for its fresh meals despite its sub-five minute wait time.
Coming back from my freshman year of college, I decided to work at the restaurant again. Not to my surprise, the staff that I worked with in high school were no longer there, having since moved on, and were replaced by new high-schoolers, all working their first job. Ranging from sophomores to seniors, I felt a bit of a misfit amongst teens talking of SATs and prom. Nevertheless, they were all hard workers and delightful to work with.
On a normal weekend day, shortly after the lunch rush, an elderly man walked in with what seemed to be his son (and later found that was correct). He looked like any other of the hundreds of customers that walks into the restaurant. As he stepped up to the register, I noticed the white engraving on his red hat. Make America Great Again.
The four words have become infamously associated with the campaign and presidency of Donald Trump. To his supporters, they have become a new vision of a promised brighter America. To his critics, a symbol of progression by close-minded ignorance.
I took the men’s order with a smile and promised them fast service. “Much appreciated,” they replied.
After their order was cooked, my co-worker, a seventeen year-old student, returned from serving the table. His eyes were bugging out of his head like he’d seen a ghost. The boy explained that the elderly man had complained about the amount of food that he had gotten. He described the exchange as hostile and that the man was rude and out of line. From the back of the store, I heard, “Well, that makes sense. He’s a Trump supporter.”
The comment came from another college student in a similar position as me. After many discussions about politics and social issues, I knew my co-worker, as well as myself, considered them to be sided with many liberal ideologies, but tolerant.
I couldn’t believe what shortly unfolded in front of me. Almost my entire team agreed with my co-worker and blamed the man’s apparent rudeness on his support of the man that was elected as President of the country they live in. In fact, one argument I overheard blamed the man’s “close-mindedness” on his support, as well as on his age. The hypocrisy was undeniable.
This small example is just the beginning of a common trend in America’s liberals, who pride themselves in their tolerance and open-mindedness. Only a few weeks ago, hundreds of graduates of the University of Notre Dame walked out of Vice President Pence’s commencement speech before it started. After President Trump was elected, classes at my university were cancelled by numerous professors. It seems the very platform of tolerance liberals choose to emphasize has a grave exception: people who do not share the same ideological priorities. The difference between excepting race, gender, or sexuality is small. Open-mindedness does not exist with exceptions. Open-mindedness is universal.
I myself am a liberal as well as a college student. I do not support President Trump nor his Vice President. I do not agree with the policies they are pushing nor their approach to leading our nation. I do not support the obvious racist and sexist undertones that they uphold that are slowly tainting our Executive Branch and country as a whole. However, I support an American’s right to think as they should. I support the freedom of speech. I support intellectual tolerance across all ideologies in the United States. I have noticed that the same people who pride their tolerance are the quickest to judge and be intolerant. As it turned out, the elderly man ate at our restaurant at least once a week and felt as though that day he was not getting his money’s worth after eating the same dish for months. Without the hat, he was a regular customer trying to get what he paid for. With it, a rude, self-absorbed bigot whose character was defined by four words. I have four new words that some liberals could see: Actions Speak, Words Don’t.
