"With malice toward none, with charity for all..."
We began yesterday in Williston, North Dakota, an oil town in “Trump country.” While waiting outside the hotel for my son, I struck up a conversation with Fred, a retired Marine Corps staff sergeant, who supervises 20 oil wells for a global energy company. He was dressed in Trump regalia from head to toe — hat, shirt, belt buckle. Atop his truck were both a Trump 2020 and 2024 flag.
Fred asked where I was from. I told him we were traveling through the country from California.
He said, “I’m sorry to hear that.”
I said, “C’mon, it’s Reagan country…”
We talked for almost an hour because my son was dragging. Fred asked me what I did. I told him that I had spent a career working in Republican politics, and had founded the Lincoln Project. I listened to him. I asked him what we were going to do about the country. Before we took off, Fred shook my hand, wished us well on our trip, and said he’d pray for our safety.
I was reminded of these words contained in Abraham Lincoln’s second inaugural address:
With malice toward none, with charity for all...
I made clear to Fred that I have no place to compromise — and no room to find any —with a faction that refuses to accept the results of an election. He acknowledged that Trump had lost the 2020 election.
The point of the story isn’t about a conversation. It’s about the good wishes at the end of the conversation, which was civil, dignified and normal on a Wednesday morning out in America.
Fred also wasn’t lying about there being a Trump store in town.
We rolled out of the hotel, and by day’s end had crossed the Great Plains and the prairies of Minnesota.
I had a premonition that we’d get a speeding ticket in North Dakota, and sure enough, that’s what happened. The affable North Dakota officer told me that I was lucky. I asked him why. He said, “Your ticket would have been a lot more expensive had you been pulled over in Minnesota.” We were just 15 miles from the Minnesota border. Guess it was my lucky day!
After nine hours of driving, we ended our day in Duluth, on the shores of Lake Superior. The Ojibwe/Chippewa call it “"Gichigami" or as Gordon Lightfoot refers to it in “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,” “Gitche Gumee.” It is the world's largest freshwater lake by area.
Today, I’m very excited to head out across the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, a place I’ve never been before.`
Sounds like a fantastic trip. I wish you and your son the best.
I know you chose not to discuss the conversation you had with the veteran with us, but I was wondering what exactly had the two of you at odds?
He admitted Trump lost the election, and based on his condolences for living in CA, he sounds like a person who blames all the country ills on the coastal elites; yourself included.
Do you feel these people can be reached, or is it a fools errand to even try?
Looking forward to a reply. In the meantime I wish you and all of the subscribers a happy and productive weekend...:)
Steve, thank you for your writing. It takes me on a trip I never made and I am thoroughly enjoying it. You see I am a seventy year old Black American woman. When I was a child, my family never felt it was safe for us to travel by car to this area of the country and explore and enjoy it. We would take the train, when I was younger, and then fly over as I got older, to Los Angeles to visit relatives. Your writing of this trip with your son brings me joy thanks again!