The Window Seat: We Shouldn’t Just Care About Politics but About how we Discuss Politics

It was late afternoon, I was standing in my McDonald’s drive-thru window staring at a sky filled with peach, rose, and coral: cotton candy clouds dashed across the color. I owed her about two dollars and a small pile of pennies, but when she failed to hold out her hand to receive them, I refocused my attention on a distracted and frantic woman staring at her phone.

“Our democracy is dead.”

I was used to strange statements by customers, but the intensity in which she stared at her phone—was enough to shift the monotonous drawl of my routine into an uneasy sense that the world outside had changed without my noticing.

She told me Biden had dropped out of the presidential race. Trump was sure to win, she said.

I knew his second term would have greater implications than his first. The year before, the Supreme Court case Trump v. The United States had, ironically, strengthened his rhetoric about the “deep state” and expanded his executive power. Still, I wondered: did that woman have enough evidence to react as she had?

I didn’t know. What I did know was that the numbers for my drive-thru time would soon turn red, and someone would come back asking why. I extended my hand a little farther. She realized she still needed her change. She collected it, wished me luck, and finally drove away. There was no car behind her, so I stood there, staring at the empty parking lot, wondering about the significance of that small exchange—our brief discussion on the state of the union while she ordered her fries.

Shortly after that McDonalds customer drove off, my coworker came aggressively running back yelling, “Did you hear Biden isn’t running anymore?”

I told him I had.

He told me he couldn’t wait to drive when gas prices went down.

I told him to shut the fuck up.

I think about that exchange often. How he repeated a shallow, meaningless talking point politicians use to win easy votes, and how I responded to shutting him down instead of actually talking.

My drive-thru, while it feels insurmountably small, is a perfect representation of the culmination of American discourse: fast food being a literal and figurative window into how we engage with one another.

I’ve always been unsure if my opinion matters.

Our democracy says it does; the constitution defends it. But the more I read and learn about politics, the less I feel I know. Who am I to speak on national issues when the only job experience I can put on a resume is in fast food?

Still, I’m learning that’s the point. We should all care about the rhetoric of our politics, no matter how little we think our opinion matters. We shouldn’t stop considering how and when to engage in discourse. The method matters. The framing matters. Understanding our modern public sphere and the rhetoric that defines it matters.

How we discuss politics matters, and the way we do it is under attack as polarization stretches the distance between our beliefs and deepens their intensity.

While I still hesitate to write opinions, a method of sharing that feels so final and unchangeable, it comforts me that I value changing my opinions so much. I hope this column will be more of a record of what I believe and how I’ve changed my mind.

If we truly live in a democracy, it is the people’s voices that matter, including the McDonald’s worker who doesn’t have the fanciest resume.

The coworker I’d told to fuck off came back a few moments later, ice cream balanced between two warm cookies. It wasn’t an apology. We hadn’t truly been angry with each other, but it was an act that, to me, pointed to something harder and more lasting than agreement: the reminder that closeness doesn’t always come from agreement. A reminder that even in fractured moments, people still find ways to coexist, and to offer something instead of nothing.

When my shift had ended that summer day, I went home and read the news. I’ve been reading the news ever since. As I continue navigating a drive-thru window, I watch people steadily roll through despite the worsening climate of polarization and mistrust.

Sometimes I wonder if I should rant with my customers, or just appreciate the ice-cream sandwiches. I think the importance of the question is that we strive to do both. We have to care enough to speak and care just as much about how our politicians speak as well, and to not just keep the window open, but to make what passes through is worth hearing.