Aidan P. Rozema
Grand Rapids Christian High School
“Porches, Politics, and Our ‘Most Priceless Asset’”
The first door I knocked belonged to a small corner house, tight to the street. A cracked concrete step shifted as I approached. Full of anxiety and ready to apologize, I gave the door a hearty knock. My boss always told us to “knock harder than you think you’d have to.” The sound was clear, precise, and determined, just like the woman who answered it. She lived off Social Security and a minimum wage job, yet managed to take care of her aging husband and disabled grandchild. After a near-fatal stroke left her unable to drive, she had to fight for her benefits. Yet she still found patience to care for a toddler, go to physical therapy, and even talk politics with me. Above all, she wanted a simpler federal assistance system, one that would support families like hers.
Another door knock yielded a middle-aged man wearing a grease-stained American flag apron and matching red-white-and-blue socks. He only had a minute to talk before he had to get back to the venison steaks he was grilling in the back (“shot and skinned by yours truly”). In that time, he told me about his concerns about the direction of the country, America’s international reputation, and government transparency. He cared profoundly about democracy, frequently pointing a meaty finger for emphasis.
Then there was the man with a mustache as well-kept as his garden, a true Eden, complete with flora of every type and a flock of pollinators tending to it. He spoke of immigration reform and how he worried for his son’s legal status in the United States: “We need
more people like you to get things done,” he told me as he offered to refill my water bottle.
As a political canvasser during the 2022 midterms, I knocked on the front doors of 4,029 West Michiganders and had thousands of front-porch conversations. With every “successful knock” (when someone actually opens the door) one more voter turned from a list of statistics on my phone—their likelihood to vote, their age, their party support—to someone with a story. By talking to them, I gained an understanding, a fleeting moment of communion with people so-often reduced to one-word labels like “liberal,” “feminist,” or “Trumper.” I was challenged, forced in the moment to consider their perspective, however different it might be from my own, and to engage diplomatically with them.
Our nation is as divided as ever, gripped by polarization. Modern politics seems to be a game of domination, of trying to subjugate the other side and minimize their influence. Today, 90% of Americans see victory by the opposing party as having the potential to bring “lasting
harm to the United States” (Dimock and Wike). 80% say that the other side will “destroy America as we know it” (Kamisar), and 61% believe we are in the leadup to a 2nd Civil War (“Back to Normal”).
The voters of State Senate District 30, like our nation as a whole, are diverse in their socioeconomics, their political beliefs, and their circumstances. Some have driveways so long they qualify as their own roads. Others don’t have them at all. And yet, despite these differences, as real and self-evident as they are, I found people to be united in their commitment, courage, and patience to open their front doors and have an earnest political conversation with me, a teen-aged canvasser. I saw firsthand what President Ford called “decency in the midst of dissent.”
As I prepare to enter a life of public service, I’ll remember the commitment of these West Michigan voters. I hope to work towards unity, “a most priceless asset” in the words of President Ford. Inspired by my front-porch conversations, I am optimistic that we can achieve it.
Works Cited
“Back to Normal 10.1.20 – FINAL.” Engagious, 1 October 2020, https://engagious.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Back-to-Normal-10.1.20-FINAL.pdf. Accessed 26 February 2023.
Dimock, Michael, and Richard Wike. “America Is Exceptional in Its Political Divide.” The Pew Charitable Trusts, 29 March 2021,
https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/trust/archive/winter-2021/america-is-exceptional-in-its-political-divide. Accessed 26 February 2023.
Kamisar, Ben. “220699 NBC News October Poll v3.” DocumentCloud, https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23171526-220699-nbc-news-october-poll-v3. Accessed 26 February 2023.
