Deep Canvassing - will it save the Dems?
“I’m a Trump supporter,” the man told Danny Timpona, and went on to say that as much as he needed affordable health care, he absolutely was not in favor of any plan that included undocumented immigrants. “This country’s too damn free. We need to take care of our own people,” he said. That wasn’t the end of their conversation on a front porch in rural North Carolina. It was the beginning.
Timpona shared a bit of his own story, said there were many people he knew and loved who’d moved here from other places. He asked the man what his experience with immigrants has been. Turns out a lot of the people he worked with were immigrants. “They’re hard-working, family-centered, love ‘em to death.”
“Anyone in particular?” Timpona asked. Turns out the man had a friend named María, and she got notice that she could be deported. “I wrote a letter to the judge for her, wrote about six pages, got my buddies to bother the judge too,” he said. Maria stayed, at least for the time being.
The man was diabetic and really needed health care. Timpona asked him if he thought his friend Maria was to blame for the hospital bills piling up, the prescription medicine he couldn’t afford. “He said, ‘I never thought about it that way.’”