The Snowplow Test | The American Conservative
Los Angeles Times columnist Virginia Heffernan, who lives in Brooklyn Heights but who lives somewhere rurally to escape Covid, recently had a dilemma: her Trump-loving neighbors did something nice for her. She doesn t know what the right thing to do about it is.
Now, stop right there. Normal people don t have this problem. Normal people think, aww, how nice, and start thinking of ways to return the kindness. But normal people are not Harvard-educated New York-based liberal journalists. Hence Heffernan s revealing column. Excerpts:
Oh, heck no. The Trumpites next door to our pandemic getaway, who seem as devoted to the ex-president as you can get without being Q fans, just plowed our driveway without being asked and did a great job.
How am I going to resist demands for unity in the face of this act of aggressive niceness?
Of course, on some level, I realize I owe them thanks and, man, it really looks like the guy back-dragged the driveway like a pro but how much thanks?
These neighbors are staunch partisans of blue lives, and there aren t a lot of anything other than white lives in neighborhood.
This is also kind of weird. Back in the city, people don t sweep other people s walkways for nothing.
It takes a New Yorker to be confronted with someone doing something nice for them, and get suspicious about the angle.