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A few days ago, I saw a tweet go viral from a progressive commentator that mocked the dental care of Trump supporters. I’m not gonna name who it was because I’m not trying to shame anyone here. That’s not the point.
But I’ll tell y’all a quick story.
Most of my childhood was spent at or below the poverty line. We were perpetually and painfully broke. There were a number of months spent in a shelter when I was younger. We’d move from trailer park to trailer park in Central Texas; I attended four or five different elementary schools.
My mother, outside of her minimum-wage jobs, did a number of things to keep us afloat during those years. Selling blood plasma and pawning our television was a regular source of income.
One morning, I woke up to find the few toys I had displayed on a rickety yard sale table on the street where we lived at the time because otherwise, we weren’t gonna eat that week.
There were months when simply having three meals a day was a challenge. During the Summer of 1996, bereft of the free breakfast and lunch program provided by the local public school, we subsisted on boxes of old MREs (Meals-Ready-to-Eat)—military rations—that were procured from the local Army base.
Those were rough times, and when I look back on that stretch of childhood, perhaps the most unnerving thing was the lack of access to good hygiene. A big part of that is due to my mother just not being a great parent, to say the least. I’ll spare y’all the details, but she was not someone who understood how to care for children.
Things that kids learn around this time—how to wash themselves, brush their teeth, sanitize the home with basic cleaning—were not things my mother prioritized.
This is not say that most impoverished families are like this. Most poor families have parents who take excellent care of their children, even amidst intense financial struggles. My family was not one of them.
How did we live like this? We just did. The growing doubts I had about our living situation were pushed down by fear of what might happen if I asked too many questions. Would I be taken away if I mentioned these things to an adult outside our home? What would happen to my mother?
So, I just developed a sense of forced, numbed obliviousness to it all.
The other part, of course, is how expensive it is to be poor. Dental care was not something available to our family. The first time I got my teeth cleaned was at 15 after I moved-in with my father. I remember the utter shame I felt sitting in the hygienist’s chair as she carefully worked to undo many years of neglect. She said nothing, but it was hard not to think about the judgment running through her mind.
My mother got upper dentures when she was 36 or 37. I still don’t know how she afforded them, but the oral pain she was experiencing was too much. I vaguely recall a personal loan may been involved. She went to a local dentist, who may or may not have been horrified by what they saw. They extracted the relevant teeth, which were beyond saving, and got her fitted.
Dentures at 37. Think about that.
I know we’re facing the hatred and bigotry of people whose cruelty seemingly knows no bounds. Because they have no ideas and threadbare logic, fueled only by their anger and resentment toward those who are different, they focus on childish insults, mocking appearances and disabilities and general suffering.
I realize there’s a strong temptation among many of us to give them a taste of their own medicine, make them feel small and ugly and disgusting, weaponize shame to achieve clarity.
Respectfully, not only do I think that doesn’t make sense on its face, but it tends to alienate and push away people who want a better country and want to support Vice President Harris and want to reject the hatred that drives Trumpism.
There are a lot of people in this country with great values who don't have access to affordable dental care or good hygiene practices generally, and they so often go unnoticed because their existing struggles are seen as inconvenient to those who would rather not be burdened by acknowledging that suffering.
I worry that mocking the dental care and weight and general appearance of Trump voters for a cheap laugh on social media turns off people who want to be part of the solution but feel shamed and shunned by the cruelty they see on display from some on the left.
I worry that doing things like fat-shaming and intentionally misgendering hateful conservatives only serve to undermine the progress we’re all working together to achieve.
Because that’s the past. That’s moving backwards. That’s telling undecided folks that we’re really no better than the average, awful MAGA bigot.
I see Vice President Harris offering the vision of a country in which people aren’t left behind, regardless of their socioeconomic status. I see her looking at folks in all their pain and struggle and asking them to trust her on the way forward.
How can she effectively do that if some of her supporters are shaming people who have never had access to good dental care?
This election is about the past versus the future. Trump is offering more of the same reactionary, blistering, divisive, cruel politics that thrive on making people feel unworthy, and Vice President Harris is pointing us toward a horizon that offers hope and says your worth isn’t based on how you look.
I know which way I wanna go. I hope everyone starts walking that way, too.
The Courage to Be Kind in This Election