However, a Trump/MAGA cap? Twice:
- The parking lot at the Publix at Dale Mabry and South Village, sometime around September/October 2016: I’m getting groceries at our then-regular grocery store (this is when we lived in Carrollwood) when a MAGA-capped guy in truck with Trump stickers throws an empty beer can at me, missing by a mile. “Go back to where you came from,” he yells, to which I reply “Learn to throw like a man!” as I pull out my phone. He drives off.
- Charlotte Douglas International airport, October 2016: I’m traveling to my new job at the company formerly known as SMARTRAC, and a guy in line at Carolina Pit BBQ in a MAGA cap yells something I can’t quite hear at me. I walk toward him, asking in my best radio voice, “Would you mind repeating that?” As I close in, it become apparent that I’m a head taller — he bought into the stereotype that Asian men are meek and short — and he starts high-tailing it in the opposite direction, presumably towards his gate. He loses his place in line, I take it, and enjoy some barbecue.
This sort of courage/cowardice is consistent with a couple of contradictory mindsets:
- The fascist mindset that the enemy is both very strong and very weak at the same time.
- The fact that for all their apparent brazen behavior, at their core, bullies are craven cowards.