France, Arrogance, and Civility

The French have a reputation among English-speakers for being prickly about people speaking French. Forty years ago, I myself was once upbraided by a tobacconist for pronouncing my French Rs “in German,” as she put it, which was probably true since I had just spent a year studying German in Austria. Picky, picky, picky. But in my two months in Paris so far, I have never had a bad experience on this score. Both in Paris and on a recent trip to Normandy, everyone has been very kind. My wife, who is still learning French, has never had anyone be unkind, and as a result, she is increasingly willing to try speaking. Perhaps times have changed, or maybe this notion that the French are surly and critical of other people speaking French was never really true, just an exaggeration, a stereotype. And nowadays, especially in Paris, many people speak English quite well, at least well enough to offer service in restaurants and shops. Often, people will break into English when we speak in French.

Sign urging politeness

On the other hand, it is now Americans who are sometimes obnoxious. In a restaurant two days ago in Bayeux, the American lady at the table next to ours became impatient with the slower pace of service that is typical in French restaurants. She had ordered a cheese plate as her appetizer but did not finish all the cheeses, and had moved the platter to the side to try to indicate she was done. She then started calling out to the harried waitress to get her to clear the table. Calling out like that is not done in France, at least not in restaurants with white tablecloths. She made matters worse when started calling out “Scusi!,” which is the Italian word for “Excuse me” and means nothing in French. Ugly American, Exhibit A.

I just got back from the barber, and while I was in the chair getting my hair cut, I heard the door open and a lady speaking in American English with a young boy. She then said “Bonjour” in American-accented French, but to my surprise continued in English saying, “I need a haircut for my son.” The other barber, who was free at the moment, happened to know English and offered her an appointment for 4:00 or 6:30, and the exchange went off fine. After she left, I asked my barber, “Does it happen often that people come in and just start speaking in English like that?” He laughed, and said, “Oui! On est pas en Amérique, hein ? [Yes! (But) we’re not in America, right?]” Note that he’s not a French ethnonationalist; his name is Mohammed and he has just come back from Morocco. There is something arrogant and disrespectful about assuming that others speak your foreign language—even if English is now the world’s lingua franca. Mohammed said that his English is very poor, so it is a good thing his colleague was there to handle the situation.

Commuter train, with poster

Paris is a very civilized city. They work at it, with very good public services (even though the French complain about them all the time) and campaigns encouraging civil behavior (The poster above says "There are those who remain polite, even if they are irritated... and then there are the others."). When out walking or in museums and restaurants, it is common for me to hear American English spoken more loudly than French. I hear it in part because it’s my native language, so it pierces through the noise, but also because Americans do speak loudly, at least more loudly than the French. On subways and trains in Paris, there is no loud talking. So civilized.

Three Observations on My Trip to Asia

I have a few observations on a very pleasant and productive trip to Hong Kong, with a brief visit to friends in Tokyo (that's in Japan, BTW; Hong Kong is not in Japan, for the Americans reading this who may not know 😉). 

First, the level of English in the Mainland Chinese students I taught at a workshop was surprisingly high, noticeably higher than four years ago when I last taught this workshop. I asked several of them how they learned their English, and some have spent time in the US or UK, but not all. One said she has been attending English tutorial classes since she was in nursery school. The look on her face suggested she did not enjoy these classes, much like American-born Chinese hate going to Chinese school. But her English was very good, whereas most ABCs don't learn much Chinese. One young lady sticks out in my mind; she said her mother regretted that her own English was not good, and so sent her to a boarding school in New Jersey for a year when she was 14. The daughter then came back to China for high school and university, and now, 10 years later at 24 years of age, she is bilingual and will be a top candidate at any graduate program she applies to. Sadly, her mother passed away, so cannot see how successful her strategy has been. This young lady represents, for me, a new generation of cosmopolitan Chinese who were exposed to English in the early 2010s and now, a decade later, are comfortable in both English and Chinese.

Secondly, I attended a small conference where young mainland and Hong Kong Chinese students presented their research to each other. I was struck by how the students spoke openly about the limits of what can be said. No one made doctrinaire statements or argued politics, but I was struck by how, in an intellectual context, everyone could assume that everyone knew we were subject to authoritarian rulers. People were not being cautious; they were matter-of-fact. It reminded me of how in the US, in university settings I have been in, there is an open contempt for Trump and matter-of-fact criticism of his boorish ways, in a way that is different from pre-Trump days. On the one hand, the heavy hand of the state and CCP is obvious (Chinese University still requires a University ID to enter the campus, though no ID is required at HKU). On the other hand, I'm told that it is now harder to get into Chinese University because high school graduates are choosing Chinese University over HKU because it is viewed as more politically liberal. I was told that many people are leaving, but that while in the 1990s, before the 1997 Handover, people held "going away parties" before they left, now people are leaving quietly. Often, I'm told, people find out someone has emigrated only once they see their friends' pictures set in the UK. I met one student who is accommodating to the new pro-Beijing rule, but it seems most people who are staying are waiting for the winds to change. As one friend put it, even Xi Jinping will not live forever, and his successors will have to respond to the problems and frustrations his policies are causing. From the US, it is easy to think of "the Chinese" and focus mainly on the nationalistic extremists and authoritarian ruling class, but the reality is much more diverse. And the problems of extreme nationalism and authoritarian thinking are unfortunately plaguing the US too. 

Pedal-assist bike with children aboard

My third observation is about how Hong Kong and Japan "work." Americans (at least some of them) spend much time criticizing the government, so it surprising that anyone is actually willing to work for the common good. Michael Lewis' The Fifth Risk is a paean to the dedicated civil servant, because it is surprising anyone accepts the call of public service given current criticism of government. One cannot spend time in Hong Kong or Japan without being impressed by how their infrastructure works. Hong Kong has built an impressive and efficient subway system over the past 40 years. The new subway line connecting Shatin to Admiralty makes the trip to Central, which my wife took daily, spending 45 minutes with two transfers, now takes only 31 minutes with one transfer. 

Vulgar Texas traveler

And Japan is so orderly and civil, in so many ways. Service workers are very polite (using a series of stock phrases that probably carry little literal meaning because they are used so much, but do have the effect of making interactions smooth and polite.) Customers in restaurants and cafes speak in hushed tones; the noise level is noticeably lower than in Chinese or American restaurants. (Contrast that civility with the "gentleman" in the photo to the right, at the STL airport, waiting for his latte, wearing sloppy clothes with a vulgar statement on the back). Sidewalks and roads are well maintained and clean. The birth rate may be low in Japan, but we saw many parents taking their kids out on pedal-assist bikes, on bike lanes that are narrow, but everywhere. And in contrast to much of the world, where people can park cars on public space for free (see Henry Grabar, Paved Paradise: How Parking Explains the World [Fresh Air interview here]), in Tokyo one can only buy a car with proof of a parking space. This makes neighborhoods more tidy and easy to maneuver in (not to mention that people don't drive around in circles looking for a free space.) 

The flight attendants on my JAL flight bowed to the passengers in the waiting area before they boarded the plane (many passengers would not have noticed it, because it was not announced, but I saw it). It reminded me of how Thai rugby players bow to the audience before a Sevens match. My flight on JAL (which I choose because it was the cheapest ticket) included two meals and a snack. The meals were good, and I was charmed by the miso soup they served in paper cups, as an additional drink. The plane was an American-made Boeing 787, but it was the first time I have seen windows that do not have shades that you pull down, but have a button that you push that makes the window go dark, like the sunglasses that go dark in bright light. Very cool. 

When I got to Chicago, I had to transfer to an American Airlines flight for my last leg home. Once in the airplane, the flight attendant announced that the toilet in the front of the plane was broken, so everyone would have to use the toilet at the back of the plane. Oh, and there is no WiFi, because the system is broken. To make matters worse, the flight attendants spent much of our 46 minute flight haranguing us with a sales pitch about the "great deal" we could get on an American Airlines credit card, for which they would give us 50,000 miles, which she said enough for a one-way ticket to Asia. The male flight attendant then had to go down the aisle holding brochures for the credit card to hand one out to anyone who wanted one (I did not see anyone take one), and the female flight attendant stood at the front of the plane as we deplaned, holding brochures fanned out in her hands. How humiliating. It's bad enough that flight attendants who are there primarily for safety in an emergency have to also serve food and drinks, but now they have to hawk credit cards. At the same time, their planes don't work properly.

Finally, people in Missouri complain about the humidity here. But they don't know humidity. Here are my glasses after I exited a subway station in Hong Kong, where we have real humidity.

Real humidity

Athletes Are not Heroes

One of the impressive aspects of the St Louis Cardinals baseball organization is their farm system, meaning the organization they have in place to select, train and prepare their young players for the Major Leagues. As a result, the Cardinals are never a bad team; they are not like the Marlins or Cubs, who have sold all their good players once they win a championship. Being consistently above average maintains fan interest in the team: St Louis has been second or third in attendance in the National League in most years, which is pretty good for a small-town market.

 The Cardinals’ two stars, however, are actually on the team as the result of trades. First baseman Paul Goldschmidt was traded from the Arizona Diamondback in 2019, and 3^rd baseman Nolan Arenado came from the Denver Rockies in 2021. They were both named to the All-Star game last week, and are having phenomenal seasons. Goldschmidt is batting .333, and Arenado .299. Both are outstanding defensive players, with Arenado making unbelievable off-balance throws all the way to first base.

Equally important to me, both are humble and team players. When Goldschmidt had streaks of 25 games with a hit and 46 games on base, he repeatedly told journalists that he did not care about these personal accolades and that all that mattered was that the team won the game. Both seem to be team players.

So it is with great sadness and disappointment that I read today (also here) that both Goldschmidt and Arenado will not be traveling with the team to play against Toronto because they have not been vaccinated. Canada requires all people who enter the country to show proof of vaccination. They will forfeit their pay over those two games, but given their importance in producing runs for the team (a desperate need for the team), they will sorely be missed.

But what disappoints me is not that the Cardinals will more likely lose the games, but what it says about the players. The Cardinals did not give an explanation for Goldschmidt’s vaccine refusal, but apparently he’s an evangelical Christian, so perhaps he’s influenced by that community’s vaccine skepticism (though Tommy Edman is also an evangelical, and is vaccinated). In Arenado’s case, the team president, John Mozoliak said Arenado “was hoping to begin a family with his wife and for him it was a personal decision, and we honor that.”  Of course, there is no evidence that getting vaccinated against Covid has any effect on fertility or a baby.

I believe in being civil and polite, so try to respect other people’s opinions. But I always struggle with how to react to opinions that are illogical and/or unscientific. I do realize that today’s scientific consensus may turn out to be wrong, so we cannot be doctrinaire about science. But how are we supposed to react to people who thumb their noses at not only at science, but also at the rest of society, because by not being vaccinated, they undermine “herd immunity.” They are making their bodies available for the Covid virus to spread and mutate (hence Canada’s immigration rules). At what point do we start condemning people for their irrational and anti-social beliefs?

They will both be penalized financially. “Arenado will forfeit $384,615 of his $35 million annual salary for the two missed games, while Goldschmidt will lose $285,714 of a contract that pays him $26 million in2022.”  I respect people who stick to their beliefs despite financial costs. But in this case, given that there is no evidence to support their skepticism (but plenty of political misinformation and pseudoscience), how do we balance respect for other people’s beliefs with an insistence that the truth matters, and that social responsibility is important?

My respect for the two of them has plummeted. This is a reminder of why athletes are poor role models: they are lauded for performance in a sport, and that has little or no bearing on other aspects of life. They may be famous, but they are not heroes. They may even be knuckleheads.

Election day as a poll worker

I spent election day as a St Louis County poll worker, in a mostly white working-class district of what people call “South County.” There are many aspects of this election that depress me, but the kindness and civility of everyone involved gives me hope.

Because of the pandemic, I was not initially eager to serve (I’m close the age category considered at high risk but don’t have any other medical issues), but when Trump called for 50,000 poll watchers, I felt the need to respond. 

In the US, only poll officials are allowed to stay in the voting area, so Trump’s call seemed ridiculous, but since there was a shortage of poll workers this year (which led to the number of county polling places being reduced from almost 400 to about 230), I decided to volunteer. I say “volunteer,” but I should note that I will get paid $225 for my work. But no one in my polling place did it for the money. We were seven election officials who worked in three bipartisan teams of two (with one extra Democrat rotating in other positions as people rested) and four nonpartisan “safety coordinators” helping with lines and disinfecting.

Polling place before opening

The day was very long; I had to report at the polling place, which was an elementary school gym, at 5:00 am, and the polls opened at 6:00 am. We were there until 7:00 pm. We were supposed to have an hour lunch-break, but that was impossible; it would have put too much of a burden on the colleagues left to work. I took a 30 minute lunch break in my car, and that was the only time I was seated all day.

My job was “Safety Coordinator II,” which meant that I was responsible for wiping down the voting areas after each voter left. I did that for 13 hours. It was exhausting. We were given only two containers of 300 wipes, so we had to use the wipes on multiple voting areas before getting a new one. The containers claimed the wipes “kill 99.9% of bacteria” but did not say anything about viruses, nor did it say it had over 70% alcohol. The ingredients did list many types of alcohol, but it also listed “aqua,” which is just a fancy (Italian) word for “water,” so I’m not so sure that all our wiping was more than theatre.

I was not told what to wipe, so I decided to wipe the desk surface and the parts of the chair that people likely touched, especially the top of the backrest and front of the seat. The other Safety Coordinator II was a young woman, and she wiped seats, but I stopped doing that when I realized it took too much of the wipe’s moisture. Many people seemed reassured that we wiped the voting area and thanked us for doing it. But a small number of people refused to sit down; some just leaned over the table and filled out their ballot, and one woman just stood next to a table we had set up as extra voting space. When I said to her “You can sit at that table,” she replied angrily, “I’m not sitting down! No one should be sitting down.” I’m not quite sure what their theory of infection was, but I assumed people’s clothes and underwear served as masks of sorts that would prevent any virus from infecting them from below.

One awkward detail I learned is that some people sweat when they sit, and leave a wet mark on metal chairs. This is especially common with heavier people, but not the heaviest people.

I wore a surgical mask all day (and changed mask at my lunch break), and wore nitrile gloves all day as well. The gloves were bright orange, which was convenient because they helped me motion to voters to help them find empty seats. But I do wonder if, as I leaned over to wipe the seats and the desks, did I inhale virus being spread by an asymptomatic or pre-symptomatic Covid-19 patient? I guess I’ll know within 14 days.

Poster on face covering

Everyone was required to wear a mask in line and in the voting area. It was the job of “Safety Coordinator I” (not me) to make sure everyone wore a mask and stayed 6 ft apart in line. They also handed out the pens to voters. The pens had a stylus at one end to sign for a ballot on an iPad, and a black ballpoint at the other end for filling out the ballot. We told voters they could “keep the pen as a souvenir” but the pen did not have any writing on it. This was an improvement on the August primary, because it meant we did not have to wipe and reuse pens.

The voting process is interestingly baroque. There are three stations that operate simultaneously to process each voter. Each station has two poll workers, one Democrat and one Republican, and their equipment includes an iPad, which displays the voter’s address and allows him/her to sign for the ballot, and a printer that prints out the double-sided ballot on 14-inch paper. Each voter needs to produce an ID or the sample ballot flyer mailed to their address, and this gets scanned. Both officials need to approve on the iPad and actually initial the printed ballot. These two officials have to work right next to each other; even wearing a mask, there is no “social distancing,” and after 13 hours together, I would be surprised if an infected person did not pass the infection to their partner.

The voter then takes their ballot and finds a space to fill it out. The spaces are just tables with cardboard partitions for privacy. The process of filling out the ballot would be much faster if voters were given wide markers, but they have to fill a box with a normal pen, and since there are around 25 items to vote on, it will take 6 minutes even if the voter only takes 15 seconds to fill in each box. (As an aside: one voter did not understand me when I said “fill in the box”; she insisted she had done so with an X, and then corrected me, saying, “Oh, you mean I have to shade in the box.” She made me feel like English was not my native language! I see now that “to darken some bounded area” is the second meaning of “shade in.”) If a voter needs to look up information, it will take longer. Missouri does not have a box that allows one to vote the straight party ticket; one man commented to me that it would be better if we did. And they do not provide or allow markers. It Taiwan and Hong Kong, voters have an ink-stamp in the voting booth and the just stamp a check mark in a large square. That makes voting a lot faster. It is interesting, though, because ballots there are much shorter; they do not vote on the vast number of offices, judges, and propositions that we vote for in Missouri.

After the voter has finished making their selections, they take the ballot to a machine they call “the Verity,” which refers to a company that makes the ballot machines. It can scan the ballot no matter what side you insert first. After about 6 seconds, it either confirms the ballot was read correctly, or spits it back out and tells you that there is some error. Sometimes voters accidentally mark a second candidate, or they fail to notice the choices on the back side of the ballot (this happens to a surprising number, maybe 10 percent). Since the back side of the ballot includes only questions about retaining judges and constitutional amendments, many voters have no opinion and so either purposely left it blank or decided to approve the ballot in the Verity machine even though leaving it blank was actually an oversight. (You can see a video from the manufacturer here or below) 

One big advantage of the voting system in St Louis County is that if the voter makes a mistake filling out the ballot, they can be issued a new ballot. The ballot with the mistake is taken back and marked “SPOILED,” and the voter can try again. In Hong Kong and Taiwan, if your stamp mark is outside the box, the ballot is spoiled, and they cannot give you a new ballot because the ballots come pre-printed and are limited to the number of registered voters (to prevent ballot stuffing). One family must have spent about 40 minutes in the polling place, as one member made repeated mistakes and had to get a new ballot twice, for a total of three ballots.

In the past, voters put the ballot in a folder, and the folder was presented to the machine to preserve secrecy. Now, the poll workers who run the Verity machines can see who you voted for as you put the ballot into the feeder. Most people held the top and bottom of the ballot together so other people could not see who they voted for. But as a poll worker, and one who was near the voters as they filled out their ballots and put them in the Verity machine, I noticed that it is very difficult to see the ballot and identify who they voted for. It is still quite private, even if voters flash their ballot around.

All the ballots are collected in boxes under the Verity machine, and at the end of the night, they were removed, put into a neat stack, and put in an orange bag for a supervisor to deliver to a drop-off point, along with the disk drives in the Verity machines that include the totals for each race. These totals can be easily uploaded, which is why the results of the election were known just hours later. I was a bit surprised that we had all the ballots scattered across two tables as six of us created a neat pile, but with bi-partisan judges present, there could not be any hanky-panky. Plus, the paper ballots were only back up in case of a recount or technical malfunction.

The Verity is next to the exit, and voters left at that point, with their stylus/pen as a souvenir (though many chose to leave it next to the Verity machine). All voters got an “I voted today” sticker.

Everything went smoothly, but there were a few issues. In the morning, I suddenly saw an attractive woman in line; I was so tired, it did not immediately occur to me that she seemed “attractive” because I could actually see her face. She had apparently worn a mask on in line outside the building, where the Safety Coordinator I was checking, but later took it off. A supervisor went over to talk to her, and then a Republican poll worker escorted her out of the gym without incident. I’m not sure what he told her, but the rule is very clear that voters were not allowed in the polling area unless they were wearing a mask. Alternative arrangements had been made at the Board of Elections office in Saint Ann; persons not wearing a mask could vote in an outdoor tent. The woman had waited close to an hour in line, but still preferred to leave rather than wear a mask. Another woman came in with only a clear face shield; that should not have been allowed, but no one said anything to her. I estimate that about a quarter of voters were not wearing the mask properly, either leaking too much around the nose or not tucked under the chin, and one person wore a mask that looked more like a screen because I could see his mouth through it. None of this was commented upon.

As soon as the polls closed at 7:00 pm, two of the four Republican poll workers took off their masks; not only were they putting all their fellow workers at risk, but I’m pretty sure that was against the county mask mandate. Everyone else kept their masks on, so that I will never recognize my fellow workers because I did not see them without a mask. It is also interesting that a few years ago, Republicans passed a “Voter ID Law” that requires voters to produce a photo ID, but no one checked the photograph, and no one had to take off their mask to prove who they were. A Middle Eastern woman all dressed in black, with her hair covered in a black chador and wearing a black mask, almost looked like she was wearing a burqa.

I was probably overly cautious, but I made sure I did not wear any red or blue clothing; I wore a yellow oxford shirt and grey sweater. Voters were not allowed to wear any partisan clothing or other items, like a “Make America Great Again” hat. I did get the impression some people may have worn Cardinals hats because they were red like MAGA hats, because they also often wore a T-shirt with an American flag on it, but not everyone with a Cardinals hat voted Republican. One woman wore a T-shirt that said “Why be racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic when you could just be quiet.” Another had a T-shirt with an American flag on it and the words, “Just honor it.” Not much doubt about their politics. One Black woman had a mask with the words “Black Lives Matter” stitched on the side, and a supervisor—herself a person of color—told the woman to lower the mask a bit so the writing would not be visible. The supervisor told me later she was not sure if BLM was allowed, but did not want any controversy or complaints. This same supervisor had told me earlier that other people in line had said they were uncomfortable with the woman not wearing a mask, though I did not see anyone complain or make comments.

Part of the line outside the school at 1:00 pm

Our line was 150 persons long at the start of the day, and shortened to about 75 over lunchtime, but got longer again after lunch, to almost 200. We processed about 150 voters per hour. Finally, at 6:10 pm, there was no line. We continued to process a few people who came in, but they did not have to wait in line. This year, voters could vote at any polling station, and did not have to go to the one in their district. There was also a new app this year that told voters how long the lines were at each polling place, and some late voters were coming from a nearby library, where the line was still very long. One woman told me she had been in our line in the morning but realized she did not have time to wait because she had to go to work, so she came back after 6:00 when she got off work.

I have two final take-aways from the experience. First is the realization that a huge number of voters have no idea what they are doing. They probably know how they want to vote for president, but are increasingly unsure as they go down the ballot. The district I was in had some immigrants and non-native English speakers. Some were like an Arab man who sheepishly told me that this was his first election and he wanted to know what to do. He was well-dressed, seemed educated, and spoke fairly good English, though he had to translate for his wife who seemed to know no English. They seemed to know how they wanted to vote but were not familiar with the ballot layout and voting system. A family of four Asians, perhaps Burmese, had to have their ballots re-printed multiple times because they made mistakes. One man had chosen multiple candidates for each office, and we had trouble explaining to him that he had to choose one for each office. Several immigrants had trouble with this. While immigrants were more likely to have major errors and require help, plenty of native-born people were confused and/or did not fill out the whole ballot. One man in his 30s asked me if the constitutional amendment “to extend the two term restriction that currently applies to the Governor and Treasurer to the Lt. Governor and Secretary of State, Auditor and the Attorney General” meant that they would also have a limit or if it removed the limit.

One older lady read the proposal for Constitutional Amendment No. 3 and asked me if I could help her decide, because her note said to vote against it but it seemed to make sense to her. She herself added, “You probably aren’t allowed to tell me, right?” to which I agreed. That Constitutional Amendment passed by 51% to 49%. It was pushed by the Republican Party to undo an anti-gerrymandering reform proposal passed by 63% of voters two years ago. This amendment was purposely phrased in such a manner to be deceptive, because the first clause bans gifts from paid lobbyists to legislators (which is already heavily limited) and “reduces legislative campaign limits” but does so insignificantly. The main clause is the third, which reversed the reforms passed in 2018. In addition, I found out today, the day after the election, that this amendment also removes children and the undocumented population from the population for each district, giving more power to rural areas (where the population is much older than in cities and where there are few undocumented workers). Commentators note that this further cements the Republican Party’s structural advantage in the Missouri legislature.

You might say that this is clever political maneuvering by the Republicans, which is a valid point. But with so many races to vote on, it is hard to focus attention on these propositions and amendments. Americans are used to accepting the results of elections, even when so many of the voters are uninformed. As I mentioned, many people did not even bother to vote on the second page of the ballot, and these important amendments are at the very end of the ballot. In a close vote like this one, 51%-49%, with many voters confused, the result is essentially random. 

This reminds me of E.E. Evans-Pritchard’s discussion of how the Azande made important decisions. When they needed to schedule an important trip or venture, they would consult an oracle. Their most famous oracle is called a poison oracle, because benge, a poison made from plants, was force-fed to a young chicken, and a question is posed to the oracle: “If this is a good time for the venture, kill the chicken” or “...spare the chicken.” The result told them what to do. Evans-Pritchard is famous for arguing that as a way of deciding things, it is as good as any other. We, as modern Westerners, see this as absurd because whether or not the chicken dies is random, affected by the amount of poison fed to the chicken, the poison’s concentration, the health and strength of the chicken, etc. But I’m sure that many in China are looking at our elections and thinking our results are just as irrational and random as the “poison oracle.” All we can say in our defense is to quote Churchill: “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.”

The level of ignorance among voters is a bit depressing, but another aspect of the experience is more uplifting. Quite a few people thanked us for volunteering, and one woman told us that she would order six pizzas for us, and sure enough, 30 minutes later, a Domino’s deliveryman brought us six pizzas. I was struck by how uniformly polite everyone was, with nearly everyone saying “Thank you,” as we pointed to empty seats for them or wiped areas. The Democrats and Republicans checking IDs and printing ballots and running the Verity machines never had any arguments or disagreements. Even late in the day, they were cheerful and polite to all voters. We knew who was of what party because we needed to make sure there was someone from each party at each machine, but someone coming in and watching would not have known who belonged to what party. No politics was discussed at all, even obliquely. No one said anything about the outcomes, or even that this election was close or nerve-wracking. I had two conversations with workers where the topic of what we would do the day after came up, and no one talked about staying up late to following the results. The civility and courtesy of the whole process made recent talk of possible violence and even civil war seem ludicrous. This was not only “Midwest nice”; it was also democracy in action.