Chris Deluzio, pictured above, is a Member of the United States Congress. Deluzio represents a Congressional District in Pennsylvania, and last December, Deluzio got a nice shout out from George Packer, writing in The Atlantic:
A few weeks before the election, Representative Chris Deluzio, a first-term Democrat, was campaigning door-to-door in a closely divided district in western Pennsylvania. He’s a Navy veteran, a moderate on cultural issues, and a homegrown economic populist—critical of corporations, deep-pocketed donors, and the ideology that privileges capital over human beings and communities. At one house he spoke with a middle-aged white policeman named Mike, who had a Trump sign in his front yard. Without budging on his choice for president, Mike ended up voting for Deluzio. On Election Night, in a state carried by Trump, Deluzio outperformed Harris in his district, especially in the reddest areas, and won comfortably. What does this prove? Only that politics is best when it’s face-to-face and based on respect, that most people are complicated and even persuadable, and that—in the next line from the Fitzgerald quote—one can “see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise” (emphasis added).
Those who have read many of my blog postings will know why I am impelled to give some kudos to Deluzio, too.
Practicing politics "face-to-face" is not taking the "easy road." We tend to live, nowadays, "online," and it's a lot easier to do that than to find ways to connect up with people in the "real world." But let's be honest, a politics that is founded on "online" connections is almost certainly going to be a politics that is distorted by the power of the hidden algorithms that make decisions for us - decisions about whom we will learn about, whom we will see, what we will know about, and what we will see.
With face to face to face encounters, "respect" is possible, and our ability to make good political decisions is enhanced. That Trump voter's support for Deluzio is a good example of how real world contact can change perspectives.
So, here's a salute to Chris Deluzio - and a lesson for us all!
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