There Used to Be a Floor

And a lot fewer mean spiders

There used to be a floor.

It was a virtual floor comprised of unwritten rules and common courtesy. No matter what you believed about corporate tax rates or immigration policies or reproductive freedom, you respected the floor. You didn’t look beneath it because you knew that under those planks were mean spiders feasting on innocence and kindness and empathy.

Sometimes one of the spiders would find a weak spot on the floor. He’d crawl up and tell a dead-baby joke and be deservedly stomped.

Some people slipped down through that weak spot too. But you could recognize them easily by their callousness and no matter what you believed about corporate tax rates or immigration policies or reproductive freedom, you avoided those people. You ignored them, or maybe you tried to correct them.

This, you explained, was why we don’t go under the floor.

But then you noticed some weird sounds coming from down there. Angry voices spewing hateful insults and lies. What the—? People were broadcasting from under the floor. There was a radio station down there and it sounded like someone just told a black person to take the bone out of his nose and someone called 12-year-old Chelsea Clinton a dog and someone claimed Michael J. Fox was exaggerating the effects of a debilitating disease—

And then you realized there was more than one spider broadcasting.

And more than a few people sliding down toward that weak spot.

You sighed and took solace in the fact that most people stayed on the strong solid floorboards and that the ones who didn’t were maybe better off with the spiders. The floor is still a good place to be, you said. Some people are up on the second floor and some are in the rafters, but the floor still puts us in good company.

But then the floor collapsed. It was showing signs of weakness in a growing number of places—right under where those spider stations were broadcasting from—but then it just gave way on November 24, 2015. That’s when a presidential candidate (a presidential candidate!) did a grade-school impression of a reporter with a congenital condition called arthrogryposis. This candidate mocked the reporter by flailing his arms around and wiggling his head and slurring his speech in a way that made it clear he had not been raised by good parents.

There’s a famous picture of that candidate in mid-mockery, and you often see it with the caption “For the life of me, I don’t understand how this wasn’t the end of it.” But it wasn’t. This candidate not only won his party’s nomination but eventually became the president.

Because the floor was gone and suddenly millions of people were in the dank dark malodorous basement wondering why they ever needed a floor in the first place. If this guy running for president can make fun of the disabled, all bets are off. We are now free to say whatever we want with all the other mean spiders.

The rest of us were horrified. The floor was keeping us together. The floor meant you could disagree about corporate tax rates and immigration policies and reproductive freedom while still acknowledging our shared humanity.

This same candidate, by the way, has a nephew whose son was born with intellectual and physical disabilities. The candidate suggested to the nephew that he should just let his son die so he could move to Florida.

He has found the floor beyond the floor.

Some of the people mingling with the spiders have worked their way out of the muck but others have been down there so long they’ve forgotten there ever was a floor. Their first instinct in any situation is to say something outrageous, something to show they have no regard for shared humanity or common courtesy or decent behavior. Why would they care when the spiders will cheer them on no matter how low they go?

On Wednesday night of the Democratic National Convention, Minnesota governor Tim Walz delivered a powerful speech and his neurodivergent 17-year-old son Gus was not only moved to tears but inspired to stand up and shout “That’s my dad!” You couldn’t help being moved by that moment. You had to admire a young man—a teenager—who could express his love and respect so publicly.

Unless you lived amongst the spiders.

Soulless media whore Ann Coulter tweeted a picture of the tearful Gus with the caption “Talk about weird.” Convicted felon and racist bootlicker Dinesh D’Souza said that Gus had mental issues, while a conservative radio host in Milwaukee called him “a blubbering bitch boy.”

“Oh, we didn’t know he was disabled!” claimed Coulter and the spider from Milwaukee.

What difference does that make? It was a real, touching, heartwarming moment, but because the floor has been gone for years these heartless dickheads fell all over themselves trying to be the first to wipe their stench on it. They don’t recognize love anymore. They don’t recognize decency. If it comes from above the floor, their only instinct is to shoot it down.

There used to be a floor. If it could be rebuilt during my lifetime I would really appreciate it.

Three That’s-My-Dad Moments

I think if John William Donovan had ever been nominated for vice president I probably would have had tears running down my face while shouting “That’s my dad” too.

But I do remember thinking it more than once. These anecdotes might have previously appeared in this newsletter but I think they’ll make a nice wrap-up for this topic.

1. One evening during my youth baseball career, my Uncle Bill and his family happened to be visiting and came to my game at Wickes Park in Hillsboro. I was ready to impress them by coming off the bench and getting the game-winning hit or at least hitting a loud foul or something, but as the game progressed the other benchwarmers got inserted in the lineup before me. The bottom of the last inning came and I thought well, the coach must be planning to use me as a pinch-hitter—although the fact that we were losing and that much better hitters were scheduled to bat made me doubt that. We went out 1-2-3. The game was over. My dad immediately confronted the coach and asked why I was the only kid on the team who didn’t get into the game. (This had never happened before—everyone always got to play for at least an inning.) The coach stammered something about how he thought I’d been in, although I’m not sure if he thought I had sneaked out to the outfield and hid behind one of our fielders or what. Dad didn’t make any threats or lose his cool, he just went out of his way to defend me in public. I might have been a little embarrassed at the time, but man, looking back on it now I can say “That’s my dad.”

2. Dad taught industrial arts at Fountain Central High School and toward the end of his career he and the rest of the faculty were subjected to the whims of a superintendent who apparently got into the education business because there was no such thing as a job where you got paid for literally pushing papers. This guy was obsessed with behavioral objectives and thought they would result in better educational outcomes, which is not really the same as “kids actually learning stuff.” My dad complained that he used to teach kids how to build things, but “now they want me to teach the philosophy of wood.” Somewhere in 1983 there was a school board meeting to discuss behavioral objectives. The superintendent was there to defend the extra layer of bureaucracy he was forcing on the faculty, and my dad was among a group of teachers there trying to explain that they didn’t need some professional educator coming in and getting in the way of doing what they did best: teaching. At one point—and this is a matter of public record—my dad said “What I want to know is, when did the teacher become the village idiot?” Yep, I thought—that’s my dad.

3. Summer of 1971. We always made one trip to St Louis to see a ballgame with John Curtis and his family, but this year we were going to make a second trip in August. Dad had purchased the game tickets and made the hotel reservations during our first trip, so on a hot Saturday in August, Mom and Ric and I waited in the car in the hotel parking lot while Dad went inside to get our room. It’s hot in St Louis in August and I’m not sure the old station wagon had A/C anyway, but we sat and sweltered and presently Dad came out fuming and said they didn’t have a room for us. Something something computer something lost our reservation something. What were we going to do? I was 11 and didn’t want to have to sleep in the car after the game. Dad said somebody at the desk was trying to help, so he went back inside and we sat in the heat some more. We sat and sat and then suddenly there was Dad coming out of the hotel front door with a smile on his face. And I had never in my life seen anyone do this before, but as he ran down the sidewalk to the car he jumped up and clicked his heels. At the time I thought “People actually click their heels?!” but now I can look back and think “That’s my dad.”