"Mostly, we don't want to harm each other."

The two sisters were selling Christmas ornaments and paintings by a granddaughter at a market in Medina, Ohio. Little things they made themselves, some from tree branches, to bring in a little money.

Both are in their sixties. Both are grandmothers raising grandchildren because things had gone wrong in the next generation. Susan Daniels and Bell Swaine are funny, sharp, and direct about their lives. Neither of these Ohio women have much room for error, in their budgets or their small business.

They were also strong Trump supporters. Three elections, three votes.

And, yes—they are disappointed, disillusioned even, about Trump and what he’s done in his second term. Still, neither was sure they were going to vote at all in these midterm election; and neither are likely to vote for Democrats.

Before you judge Susan and Belle—wait. Most people reading this newsletter are on the other side politically from these two grandmas I met selling their wares at the Mill Street Market in Medina. But you almost certainly have something in common with them, and that is the subject of this column.

I asked Susan and Belle about Vivek Ramaswamy’s notorious campaign ad in Ohio against Amy Acton, his Democratic opponent for governor. It featured Acton’s estranged mother attacking her daughter—the same mother Acton says failed to protect her from childhood sexual abuse.

Susan and Belle found Ramaswamy’s attack ad disgusting. More than that; I could see they were shocked and saddened. It was as if a new, previously unimaginable dimension of degradation had entered into our civic life, and they grasped immediately that we are a lesser people because of it, that our country itself is different.

Whatever their politics, whatever they thought of Amy Acton as a candidate, this was wrong, in that basic way we all understand:

I’ve been thinking about them ever since.

For a little while last week, their judgment seemed to be shared across the usual political lines. Republicans joined Democrats in condemning the ad. You could see the Fox anchors turn away, the MAGA politicians scurry for cover. There was something heartening about that reaction: evidence that even now, Americans could still together recognize an act of calculated cruelty, and reject it.

Then Ramaswamy doubled down. Then Trump defended him. The familiar political machinery began turning, converting a question of basic decency into just another test of partisan loyalty.

At the Cleveland Public Auditorium, on Saturday, I listened as Barack Obama put decency itself on the ballot.

Here’s some of what he said:

“There’s a decency that we should expect out of our public officials. (Applause.)

“And I don’t know what’s happened where the standards of behavior have gotten so low that somebody can run an ad like that. There’s got to be something inside you where you just say, no office is worth stooping that low, because you know what? Character matters…

“…what ails us right now, what is throwing our country so out of kilter, it’s not just about prices. It’s not just about economics. Those things are really important, but it’s also about values. (Applause.)

“There is a moral component to the choices we face right now. We are not going to fix the economic system or the political system that’s broken. We’re not going to unrig our economy, so long as we’ve got a culture where anything goes, and where people in the highest offices in the land think it’s okay to lie and cheat and bully, and where money is the only measure of our worth. (Applause.)

“And that’s part of what’s going on right now. We have lost touch with those things that really matter in life, caring for our families, and helping our neighbors, and looking after our children, and laughing with them, and hugging them, and keeping our word, and having integrity, and treating other people with respect — (Applause.) — just basic stuff, stuff that used to be, it wasn’t Democratic or it wasn’t Republican. It was American. It was human. It was how we treat each other, just basic decency! (Cheers/applause.)

“Yeah! That’s what we are missing in our public discourse, just basic decency.”

That’s a big political question—in some ways, I think, the biggest political question before our country.

Susan and Belle of Medina demonstrate that the answer begins with each one of us. Without show or strain, they simply recognized another person’s suffering and refused to employ it, or enjoy it, in that nasty, gleeful way too many of us have become accustomed to enjoying the suffering of people whose politics differ from our own.

I disagree with them about Trump, profoundly. Their response doesn’t resolve those disagreements or erase the consequences of his presidency. But I was grateful for it.

I have long said that the most underrated word in American politics is “decency.” Most of us want to—try to—be good neighbors, good friends, good colleagues, good parents and family members, good citizens. And most of us, most of the time, reach some level of success in that effort. Or at least we do not fail altogther.

Philosophers trace its sources in everything from biology and evolution to upbringing, faith, and experience. They talk about “pro-social behavior” and “biological altruism” and maybe the “categorical imperative.”

But when we encounter goodness, it can take our breath away.

These women I met so briefly were already carrying more than their share. Raising children again. Making ornaments to sell. Stressed about health care. Through all that, their hearts work just fine.

Kitchen-table decency. We know it when we see it. Sometimes, after a week like this one, it can feel like something to marvel at.

This Sunday’s poem is “Small Kindnesses,” by Danusha Laméris, a California poet. This poem has been shared around the world, and translated into several languages.

—Terry

by Danusha Laméris

I’ve been thinking about the way, when you walk
down a crowded aisle, people pull in their legs
to let you by. Or how strangers still say “bless you”
when someone sneezes, a leftover
from the Bubonic plague. “Don’t die,” we are saying.
And sometimes, when you spill lemons
from your grocery bag, someone else will help you
pick them up. Mostly, we don’t want to harm each other.
We want to be handed our cup of coffee hot,
and to say thank you to the person handing it. To smile
at them and for them to smile back. For the waitress
to call us honey when she sets down the bowl of clam chowder,
and for the driver in the red pick-up truck to let us pass.
We have so little of each other, now. So far
from tribe and fire. Only these brief moments of exchange.
What if they are the true dwelling of the holy, these
fleeting temples we make together when we say, “Here,
have my seat,” “Go ahead—you first,” “I like your hat.”