{"id":2446683,"date":"2019-07-23T22:56:00","date_gmt":"2019-07-24T04:56:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/news\/meredith-c-carroll-whats-wrong-with-me-dont-ask-but-im-trying-to-listen\/"},"modified":"2019-07-23T22:56:00","modified_gmt":"2019-07-24T04:56:00","slug":"meredith-c-carroll-whats-wrong-with-me-dont-ask-but-im-trying-to-listen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/meredith-c-carroll-whats-wrong-with-me-dont-ask-but-im-trying-to-listen\/","title":{"rendered":"Meredith C. Carroll: What\u2019s wrong with me? Don\u2019t ask, but I\u2019m trying to listen"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Mesa County Republican Party board Chairman Kevin McCarney would like you to know that I am what is wrong with America.<\/p>\n

I called him after the group posted a cartoon on its Facebook page over the weekend showing the Nike swoosh and \u201cJust do it\u201d slogan underneath pen-and-ink drawings of United States congresswomen Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y.; Ilhan Omar, D-Minn.; Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass.; and Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., and the text: \u201cIf you hate America, leave. The border is open. Don\u2019t forget your Nikes.\u201d<\/p>\n

If I\u2019ve seen one xenophobic, misogynistic meme, I\u2019ve seen them all. In fact, it\u2019s possible I saw them all on the Mesa County Republican Party page. It may no longer be noteworthy when the president of the United States lets his white hood peek out from under his suit jacket (or Twitter feed). But it\u2019s been a long \u2014 and unproductive \u2014 few years projecting rancor on everyone not named Donald Trump who happens to be affiliated with the Republican Party. So instead of assuming the worst, I asked McCarney about the purpose of the page.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo elect Republicans into office. That\u2019s my entire job,\u201d he said. \u201cThere\u2019s not an election going on right now, but we feel it necessary to keep people up on what\u2019s happening across the country.\u201d<\/p>\n

If he ever decides to switch careers, McCarney might consider hosting a morning zoo radio program. He maintains the volume and pitch in his voice so expertly, and pours so much emotion into each sentence that he could easily move from the Republican Party to a color-commentator position for cable-TV broadcasts of Division III football games. Yet he\u2019s singularly dedicated to the cause.<\/p>\n

He accused me of deliberately ignoring the malicious posts by the Mesa County Democrats on their Facebook page. (Aside from a video clip of a meet-and-greet at a bagel shop, a Town Hall event invitation, and a heart emoji with a link to a story about how Michelle Obama has surpassed Angelina Jolie as the world\u2019s most admired woman, there wasn\u2019t much else there. To be fair, I also didn\u2019t find any offensive memes \u2014 or any memes at all \u2014 on the other Colorado county Republican party Facebook pages I searched, or any of the Democrat pages, either.)<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s your opinion,\u201d he told me in his deep baritone of the meme-less Mesa Democrats\u2019 page. \u201cThe cartoon on our page is humorous. If you can\u2019t find the humor in that, I\u2019m sorry. The point is to awaken our constituents to what\u2019s going on in this country. Just go ahead and print whatever you want.\u201d<\/p>\n

McCarney\u2019s hostility shouldn\u2019t have surprised me. After living in Aspen long enough, you grow accustomed to the eye rolls, the extraordinary \u2014 and imaginary \u2014 wealth cast on you by others, and automatically getting painted in the radical-left corner of each room you enter.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t suppose my phone call threw him for a loop, either. When Donald Trump Jr. spoke in Denver earlier this month at the Western Conservative Summit, he urged Republicans to keep fighting against media bias, which is a topic of obvious distress to McCarney. If he\u2019d let me get in a word after the first question, he would have heard I also share some of those concerns. But an Aspen writer asking a Grand Junction Republican about a racist trope probably seemed like a trick question.<\/p>\n

Except it really wasn\u2019t. I don\u2019t live in Mesa County, where my politics are in the minority (64% of voters supported Trump in 2016, compared with 24% here). But unlike when the name-calling comes directly from the Beltway (or Oval Office), Mesa County isn\u2019t far enough away for the stings to feel abstract.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s far too easy to hurl insults electronically; even President Trump won\u2019t call you a name to your face (contrary to popular lore, he also doesn\u2019t fire anyone in person \u2014 he has others do it for him). I wasn\u2019t waiting for an invite from McCarney to hold his hand and sip tea, although I also didn\u2019t expect to be hung for the crimes of everyone who has ever written for a newspaper, especially since he never even tried (or read) me.<\/p>\n

Anna Zane, chairwoman of the Pitkin County Republican Party, also dislikes extreme rhetoric and unkindness \u2014 on either side.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt doesn\u2019t help with public discourse. It only deepens the divide,\u201d she said. \u201cIf we work together on a micro level, we can accomplish things. It\u2019s so much more productive for communities to have conversations than arguments.\u201d<\/p>\n

Being a better listener and trying to broaden my perspective past my own background and experiences isn\u2019t a farce or an experiment. I\u2019m sure McCarney is correct and that a lot is wrong with me, but if picking up the phone to seek a deeper understanding is among my problems, then I\u2019m fresh out of solutions.<\/p>\n

Follow Meredith Carroll on Twitter @MCCarroll. More at MeredithCarroll.com.<\/p>\n

via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mesa County Republican Party board Chairman Kevin McCarney would like you to know that I am what is wrong with America. I called him after the group posted a cartoon on its Facebook page over the weekend showing the Nike swoosh and \u201cJust do it\u201d slogan underneath pen-and-ink drawings of United States congresswomen Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2446683","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-21 20:56:05","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2446683","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2446683"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2446683\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2446683"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2446683"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2446683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}