Constable: In our red-and-blue state, identifying 'pod people' is tricky
"At first glance, everything looked the same. It wasn't. Something evil had taken possession of the town," explains Dr. Miles J. Bennell, the chisel-jawed movie character who sounds the alarm about the alien "pod people" in the 1956 sci-fi classic, "Invasion of the Body Snatchers." In a movie remarkably pertinent for today's America, everybody in town looks the same to Dr. Bennell as they did before the "pod people" invasion, but some people are very, very different on the inside. And it is difficult to tell which ones are which.
I experience that same sensation as my son and I travel from the blue suburbs of blue Illinois across the red states of Indiana and Ohio to visit a blue college campus in our fragmented postelection nation. Uncertain how neighbors, co-workers, friends and even loved ones voted, we now have a tendency to profile strangers.
At first glance, Shannon appears to be a perfectly normal, small-town hotel desk clerk. She smiles, hands me my key card, offers me a fresh-baked cookie and even tells me about a little pub within walking distance that serves the best homemade coconut cream pie. She laughs knowingly when I suggest that pie might be just the training I need for my upcoming Thanksgiving gluttony.
But is she the same as me on the inside? Is she one of those people living on the outskirts of this small college town whose yard displayed a Trump sign and a Confederate battle flag, or did she rush home and sob as she watched Kate McKinnon as Hillary Clinton perform Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" on "Saturday Night Live?"
The portly white guy wearing overalls and a camouflage cap as he puts gas in his pickup truck - are we sure whose side he's on? When Trump said, "The blacks love me," was he talking about that graying African-American man wearing a sweater vest outside the coffee shop, or is that guy a liberal professor who joined the Discrimination Advisors, Peer Counselors and college chaplains serving as grief counselors to students and staff crying into complimentary copies of The New York Times as they ponder the prospect of Trump in Charge?
Folks are studying me, too. A person making fun of Trump politely assures me she means nothing personal against me in her comments. She sees a 58-year-old white guy who grew up in rural Indiana wearing a baseball cap and sporting a wardrobe from Costco, and assumes I voted for Trump. As long as I don't open my mouth, I easily pass that test. After all, both sides have people who root for the Cubs, honor veterans, use turn signals and talk passionately about leaving their kids a better world, just as I do.
In a nation divided on so many important issues, we all agree on one thing: That half the voters are out-of-touch, willfully ignorant or wildly stupid mopes who refuse to recognize the reality of the modern world and are mean, sometimes violent and always intolerant of those of us who possess the moral fortitude to know what is right.
The woman sweeping up the university lunchroom confides in me that her son is looking at colleges, too. Refusing to assume he found a conservative college campus in a red state, I ask if he's considering this liberal arts college. "Oh, no," his mom says. "He's already been accepted at Northwestern University."
In "Invasion of the Body Snatchers," Dr. Bennell wages his crusade for the truth in spite of the obstacles. In today's America, people wave rebel flags and wear safety pins, post #BlackLivesMatter and chant, "Build that wall!"
"Only when we have to fight to stay human do we realize how precious it is to us, how dear," Bennell says in the movie. We'll repeat that same mantra at Thanksgiving dinners across our nation, when college kids who shut down highways as part of the protest against President-elect Trump, women with travel plans for the mass march in Washington, D.C., to decry Trump's inauguration, and men who donate to Planned Parenthood share turkey and pie with loved ones who hate liberals, think Stephen Bannon will bring fresh ideas to the White House and post memes about how Melania Trump will be a far classier first lady than Michelle Obama.
The original "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" ends with the danger exposed, but the outcome uncertain. In real life, both sides are working for control of the election sequel.