Vigil for Democracy update into third month – ‘Let’s talk’ …

As I stopped by for our weekly check on Len Sherp’s Vigil for Democracy protests of the Trump agenda and presidency on May 3, I again stopped to chat with Ralph Waller who had just arrived outside his pawn shop across the street.  As we have previously reported, Ralph and son Michael have provided a quiet counter-demonstration for a number of weeks with their “Trump-Pence” campaign sign situated on the bench under the town clock across Chester Street.

And if this reporter’s perspective would place him across the street ideologically on his down time (if he had any), I have long been able to talk to Ralph about a wide range of topics from NCAA wrestling to local sports and politics, and even politics at the national level.  And if we don’t always agree, we respect each other’s perspectives as meaning well and don’t take disagreement personally.

Trump supporter Ralph Waller heads into enemy territory, or is it? Maybe a little talk can find some common ground. Photos/Roger Bianchini

And that discussion was still going very civilly as we left at the official 1 p.m. vigil cut off time – from left, Ralph Waller, Michelle House and Bob Hill.

So why should I have been surprised as I turned to leave, that Ralph headed across the street into the “enemy” camp – or is it?  As I noted in our story on the April 19 vigil, I found a perhaps unexpected common ground on both sides of Chester Street that day.  That common ground was a desire to see Americans come together – dare I say it? – toward forming a more perfect union.

The trick of course is in the details – and if Trump-supporter Ralph has mentioned that he thought the weekly vigil demonstrations fostered division; as I replied to him at the time, most of those demonstrators across the street are protesting the division they believe Trump, as both a candidate and now president, is fostering with his rhetoric.  It is rhetoric that has described everything from ethnicity to race to national origin and even one’s sex as a one-size-fits-all negative stereotype.

Michael Waller joins the discussion and pats Rusty the Dem dog – dogs lovers always have common ground from which to start conversations.

Tune in next week for an update on how that meeting-of-the-sides conversation went.

On other Vigil for Democracy fronts, we heard quite a few passing motorist horn honks that seemed supportive, as well as some pro-Trump yells, including one fist-in-the-air passenger’s “I love Trump” yell to which a vigil participant retorted, “So does Vladimir Putin.”

Issues prevalent on signage prominent into the vigil’s third month were environmental ones, particularly the health of the Shenandoah River in the wake of the April 26 press conference on unsafe e-coli levels due to a failure of state enforcement of Chesapeake Bay Watershed Act regulations designed to reduce the amount of farm chicken-waste fertilizer and cattle manure going into the river.

In light of a recent report, the river’s health was on some vigil participants’ minds. To right, an expression of concern over the apparent move away from facts as necessary to political or policy discussions. Courtesy Photo

Organizer Sherp sported a sign critical of Donald Trump’s recent expressions of admiration for world leaders generally recognized as anti-democratic and oppressors, even murderers, of certain segments of their own populations.  Prominent on that list are the Philippines’ Rodrigo Duterte and Turkey’s Tayyip Erdogan (Tay-YIP, I promise that is his first name, not the noise he made when a rodeo horse stepped on his private parts during some ill-advised past campaign stunt).

The triple acronym sign is Rea Howarth’s protest of Trump’s appointment of climate-change denier Scott Pruitt to head of the Environmental Protection Agency. Polar Bears may be our northernmost “canaries in the coal mine”. To Howarth’s left is vigil organizer Len Sherp with an acknowledgment of Trump’s recently-expressed affinity for a pair of genocidal world leaders, the Philippines’ admitted extra-judicial mass murderer Rodrigo Duterte, and Kurd-oppressor Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey. Photo/Roger Bianchini

The latter whom the president phoned to congratulate for what an international-oversight-committee described as a “questionably conducted” election giving the Turkish leader unchallengeable presidential powers; and the former who Trump just expressed general admiration for while offering a “come visit” invite to the admitted user of police as extra-judicial assassination squads. – And Sherp reminded me not to exclude Trump’s long-time favorite, Russia’s Vladimir Putin.  (Don’t worry, Len – I learned in “Political Science 101”, NOT to cross former KGB chiefs – NO future there – YOU’re still Number ONE, Vlad, our Don just has to go easy on the pro-Russia comments right now – you know how our media is – not as compliant as yours … yet).