A few days ago after leaving my dentist’s office, I punched the elevator button for the ground floor. The door opened on the second floor. Thinking it was the ground floor, I took a couple of steps to walk out. In my haste, I almost knocked over a woman, who appeared to be about 50 years old, as she attempted to get on the elevator. She was barely 4 feet tall.

I apologized for bumping into her.

“Wait. I know you,” she said.

“Larry Elder,” I said, extending my hand. She said her name is Louise. We shook hands, stepped off on the ground floor and continued our conversation.

“You ran for governor.”

“Did you vote for me?”

“No!” she said emphatically.

“Because?”

“You’re a Republican.”

“So, you would never vote for a Republican?”

“I wouldn’t say never.”

“Oh, just not this Republican.”

“Right, and never Donald Trump.”

“What Republican would you vote for?”

“Ronald Reagan. My dad loved Reagan.”

“What,” I asked, “are the policy differences between Reagan and Trump?”

“Trump’s an a—hole!”

“So, borders were secure. Inflation low. Gas prices low. Mortgage interest rates low. No new wars. Our enemies feared us and our friends respected us. But you didn’t vote for Trump because he’s an a—hole?”

“It’s more than that. I have a disability, and Trump ridiculed a disabled person.”

“No, he did not. The person you’re talking about is an investigative reporter named Serge Kovaleski, whose disability is an atrophied arm. He does not shake or gyrate. This is important. During the first campaign, Trump said there were Muslims in New Jersey who cheered as the Twin Towers fell on 9/11. For a while, fact-checkers could find no confirmation of this. Trump produced a Washington Post article by Kovaleski.”

Louise listened.

“When asked about this, Kovaleski backtracked on the story. So, Trump, at a campaign rally, mocked his retreat from the article. Trump did not mock his disability. Trump mocked what he considered Kovaleski’s cowardice, his refusal to stand by his story. By the way, Kovaleski himself has never accused Trump of mocking his disability. Others have, but not the supposed target.”

“I didn’t know that,” Louise said.

“There is a website called Catholics4Trump. It shows several videos of Trump using this shaking gesture. He did it to mock himself, as well as to mock an able-bodied general. It is just not true that Trump mocked a disabled reporter. But a poll taken before the 2016 election found, among people who do not like Trump, this supposed incident is the No. 1 reason people gave for disliking him.”

“I didn’t know that either.”

“Louise, do you really think half the country would be OK with a politician who mocked someone for his disability? I have a liberal friend I’ve known for 40 years. We used to be very close. He has a son with special needs. He’s convinced, as you were, that Trump mocked someone with a disability. We no longer talk.”

“You know,” she said, “you’re making me think. I’m also Jewish, and I like the fact that Trump’s daughter married a Jew.”

“An observant Jew,” I said, “and she converted.”

“I know.”

“How do you feel about the way Biden and the Democrats are pressuring Israel into a ceasefire after what happened on Oct. 7?”

“It angers me. I know two people who were killed.”

“Guess who the Israelis consider perhaps the most pro-Israel American president ever? Donald Trump. He moved the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem; cut off funding to the Palestinians for being, as Trump put it, ‘anti-peace’; did the Abraham Accords —”

“You’re right. You make me think. Now I wish I had voted for you. You’re cute.”

“You’re cute, too. Mind if I take a selfie of us?”

“Not at all.”

I bent down and took the picture.

“Thank you for asking for permission,” Louise said.

“For asking for permission?”

“You’d be surprised how many people see me walking down the street, whip out their phone and take my picture, as if I’m some kind of exhibit in a circus.”

“Well,” I said, “they’re a—holes!”

COPYRIGHT 2024 LAURENCE A. ELDER