An anti-ICE activist waves an American flag during a protest near Legacy Emanuel Hospital in Portland, Ore., on Jan. 10.Mathieu Lewis-Rolland/Getty Images
Dick Gordon worked as a reporter for CBC and as a National Public Radio host based in Boston and Chapel Hill, N.C.
I met the man with the metal detector as he walked along a deserted beach of Rhode Island earlier this month. I wasn’t going to interrupt him, but he looked up and smiled.
“Any luck?” I asked him.
He responded no, politely. But then, unbidden, and as if we met regularly, he continued. He told me about how he hadn’t checked this beach for a while, how Mary couldn’t join him on account of her hip, how they had both found a rusty old mortar shell here that had sat on their picnic table until it fell apart.
It was one of those chance encounters that reminded me of what I like so much about Americans. They are among the most engaging people you’re likely to meet – always happy to stop and share a story. I know this. I worked for 12 years as a host on NPR.
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After we moved on, the man with the metal detector wished me a happy new year. And then a few steps farther on, over his shoulder: “I hope!”
It reminded me that for so many Americans, “Happy New Year” needs an asterisk. Here in Canada we watch the chaos and moral conflict in the United States with a sense of disbelief; Americans are living it every day.
I’d gone to New England to honour a dear NPR colleague who died last year. I felt obliged to explain that to friends in Canada, lest they think I was making a frivolous journey south.
The trip gave me a chance to catch up with a crew of journalists and friends and to ask them what it’s been like living in Donald Trump’s America. Several told me they feel guilty getting up in the morning, going to work, and coming back to a warm home and family, as though they lived in a normal America. Two of them, who live in D.C., said they’ve become accustomed to seeing the National Guard loitering on the street.
But Chicago? Los Angeles? Now Minnesota? They started talking amongst themselves: Can you imagine those ICE goons clambering over your back fence or demanding to see your ID? Demanding to look in your basement?
One of them asked about the time I spent in war zones when I worked for the CBC and NPR. They asked what it looks like when a country collapses – and whether it looks like what’s happening now.
We talked about the point of no return – the moment when people feel they can no longer talk to one another, when the rhetoric of leaders seems calculated to divide. The Hutus called the Tutsis “cockroaches.” Donald Trump calls Somali-Americans “garbage.”
So they asked: How do we know when we’re at a tipping point? Was it Charlie Kirk? The National Guardsmen who were shot? Is it the killing of Renee Nicole Macklin Good? And where do we go from here?
They hope Mr. Trump’s low approval ratings, the midterms or some signs of courage in Congress will slow the President down. But they’re not convinced. These are smart people with good Democratic representatives, and for the past year they’ve watched Mr. Trump bulldoze all opposition into submission.
The most disturbing sense I got from my American friends is their fear that the vehemence and the violence in the “us-versus-them” attitudes are now permanent. And their greatest fear is ICE. They see Mr. Trump’s people using it as his own private militia, with its own set of laws, above the justice system, answerable only to his loyalists.
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Interestingly enough, we never did get around to talking about Greenland and Venezuela and Gaza. You would think America’s changing place in the world would have been our main topics of conversation, but everything is eclipsed by their own country’s internal turmoil.
On one of my last days there, I went to a café for lunch. No sooner had I sat down than the waitress started talking about her hope of being able to walk the dog while the sun was still warm. We chatted in between her working on tables; once again, that endearing American knack for reaching out to strangers showed up.
The delight I took in talking to those people should not have seemed unusual to me. I realized that I’ve been changing. I consume too much news, scroll too much doom. In the year of witnessing the callousness and the belligerence of Mr. Trump and his gang, I’ve started to see our southern neighbours in their images. I’ve been too out of touch with American friends and family. I’d forgotten how many people in that country yearn for a simple Happy New Year.