The Mast-Head: A Matter of Belief
A Trump voter told me a joke the other night about how Jesus was in the back office at the Pearly Gates using Hillary Clinton’s “lie clock” as a ceiling fan. It was amusing when he told it, though thinking about it later I figured it would not win any comedy awards.
In this man’s view, what he called Mrs. Clinton’s mendacity was the reason he didn’t like her; he did not care for Donald Trump much either, and said that if there were a viable alternative candidate on the right, he would consider voting for him or her. Then he said some things about Benghazi and Mrs. Clinton’s email server, and I changed the subject.
Politics are in the air even here on the South Fork this August (as the “Connections” column above attests). Mr. Trump was at Woody Johnson’s house on Highway Behind the Pond in the village the other day for a fund-raiser. Mrs. Clinton will be around this weekend for her own round of events. As they say in Manhattan when a dignitary is in town, expect delays.
Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul stopped by the Star office late on Wednesday last week. She was here for an overnight in the area in advance of a clean-energy announcement in Montauk the next day. As I gave her a brief tour of the building, the subject of the election came up.
She said she had known Mrs. Clinton since she was in Congress some years back, and had been struck by the same quality I had noted the one brief time I saw her speak: how authentic she seemed. Bernie Sanders people, as well as the Trump voter with the joke will differ with that observation, but Ms. Hochul’s take mirrored my own, which I wrote about a couple of weeks ago. Mrs. Clinton comes across as someone who knows what she is talking about when one hears her speak. And it seems to come from the heart.
Mr. Trump also seems to believe strongly in what he says, even though only a fraction of it is true, or could even be considered rational. It was odd, listening to the Trump guy after having read in The Times just that morning that Mr. Trump claims his golf courses are valued at more than $50 million each on disclosure forms and in public boasts, but he says they are worth far less in property tax filings. Whose lies one tolerates depends on one’s point of view, that much is clear.