Rejection of Trump strengthens America
The game was supposed to be just for fun.
We had been picnicking at Cook County's Elizabeth Conkey Forest Preserve near south suburban Crestwood when we chose sides for a game of 16-inch softball.
Seeing that we had only five in the field, a group from the adjacent picnic grove came over and asked to play against us, enabling a contest with both teams at full strength.
It was enjoyable for the first couple of innings. But then natural competitiveness and a hard slide into second base by one of the other group led to an argument. Players from both teams converged; and when violence seemed imminent, Bob Molloy sauntered in from right field.
“Everybody get the hell back to your positions,” he said. “Anyone who wants to fight will have to start with me.”
We all got quiet.
Though there were at least two men on the other team close to matching Molloy's 6-foot-5 frame, his flat tone of voice and dead-eye stare discouraged any takers of his offer.
He also had this air of authority, partly deriving from his late father, a captain with the CPD, and his brother, a lieutenant with the force.
We resumed play and finished the game without further incident.
Bob Molloy has been my friend since high school graduation. We went to college together, did our student teaching at the same time and attended each other's weddings.
While he can get dauntingly serious as he did that day at Conkey Woods, most of the time he makes people laugh. He has the Irishman's gift for storytelling, but he's an even better listener, peppering everyone with questions about their lives, their families, their latest adventures. The questions come so fast, he can be a challenge to speak with on the phone.
I know nobody else more interested in other people.
It's been decades since we last played softball or collaborated on a down-and-out pass play at our annual Turkey Bowl.
But we still get together with our wives whenever we can. This, despite our diametrically opposed political leanings.
Bob left teaching early to go into business, building a successful career. And his conservative politics versus my more progressive perspective inevitably leads to friendly banter. From Barry Goldwater vs. Lyndon Johnson, to Barack Obama vs. John McCain, we've been in opposite camps. Yet he keeps things light and me laughing, couching our differences in hyperbole and humor.
So when he and wife Connie were over the last time, Marianne did not wait long before asking him about Donald Trump.
He lowered his head, kept it there several seconds, then raised his eyes, slowly shaking his head.
“Donald Trump...” he began. And then he referenced him with an anatomical compound noun that in South Side lexicon denotes a guy who cuts in front of you in line, talks loud in a theater, or rides the shoulder to get ahead of traffic. The same guy is outraged if you call him that compound noun, since he thinks because he's rich or smart or connected, he's entitled.
He will belittle others or distort the truth, to inflate his image or get his own way.
What Bob said was not a surprise: he does not suffer fools. But I was edified at his response, which showed yet increasing evidence of what America really stands for.
Overseas allies and many of our own citizens have worried that Trump's ascendancy meant our country was becoming a tribal clan of meanness and isolation, owing to his thoughtless statements and insults.
But I had hoped and believed that American values of equality, integrity, and patriotism would prevail. That the country I know would reject Trump's race and fear mongering, even when it means rejecting their own party's endorsement.
Whether my friend Bob will vote for Clinton or will skip the presidential election altogether, I do not know. Same with Sens. Lindsey Graham and Susan Collins, among the several dozen high profile Republicans who have also disavowed candidate Trump after a 2005 video surfaced in which he bragged about groping women, saying, “When you're a star, they let you do it.” They would all likely welcome another Republican candidate stepping forward, if it were not too late.
What's important is that we are on the cusp of one of America's proudest moments. In rejecting Trump, we can affirm who we are as a country and a people, and show we believe in human decency.
In rejecting Trump, we certify our respect for women, as well as for all the other Americans Trump has belittled, from the Mexican descendant who became a federal judge to the journalist with a physical disability.
In rejecting Trump, we show that we value the truth as a nation that debates on the basis of facts and logic and not on ad hominem (personal attacks) or ad populum (“I hear a lot of people say...”) fallacies, or concocted conspiracy theories like his assertion that President Barack Obama founded ISIS.
In rejecting Trump, we show our pride in and support for our finest patriots, from the intrepid tortured P.O.W. who became U.S. Sen. John McCain to the Muslim parents of a U.S. Marine who gave his life for his country.
In a resounding repudiation of Trump on Nov. 8, we will show the rest of the world exactly what defines our country.
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