Our political food fight ends with today’s election, although the American family feud surely will continue. We do love to hate.
So forgive me for seeing hope in the teensiest sliver of evidence that, despite our disagreements, we’re all alike.
We can thank The New York Times. It published a feature on Oct. 27 headlined “Quiz: Can You Tell a ‘Trump’ Fridge From a ‘Biden’ Fridge?”
The package presents photos of hundreds of open fridges. Readers click a “Biden” or “Trump” button under each to guess which candidate its owner supported. They clicked more than 22.8 million times, the Times says.
Yet guessed correctly only 52% of the time.
Which means: There is no discernible difference between Trump and Biden voters’ fridges.
I scored 54% after clicking through 67 photos. A Biden fridge held Budweiser. A Trump fridge displayed Coors. I got both wrong.
My initial reaction? This guessing game is silly, just another way to juice our self-destructive culture wars.
But optimism is a tonic. I see now that the bridge to more productive politics starts in the fridge.
More on civility
‘Division in the American house’
Can’t we be nice to each other?
