Sometimes Political Rage Is Just A Mask For Something Else Entirely

Vic Napier
Metacognition
Published in
6 min readOct 16, 2021

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Photo by Amber Kipp at Unsplash

I was chatting with a friend who owns an auto repair shop the on a recent Friday afternoon when a customer came in to pick up a car.

“Don’t say a word about politics or Trump in front of this guy”, my friend warned. “He talked himself into a rage over Trump last week in the middle of a conversion about his carburetor.”

The customer walked into the shop and he and my friend started talking about the issues his car was having. He was an older man, thin, with a grey ponytail halfway down his back. He seemed like a nice enough person, much like any other customer that came into the shop.

But then, during a pause in the conversation his head dropped, shoulders sagged and he stared at the ground in front of him.

His face went blank and sad. No animation at all.

“This has been such a terrible week…,” he said. His voice sounded like he was trying to hold back a flood. I thought maybe he was about to reveal a personal tragedy.

But no…

“…with all this stuff happening in the news right now…” His voice was becoming louder and the words came faster.

“…how can they even think…”

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Vic Napier
Metacognition

Vic Napier loves living in historic and beautiful Tucson Arizona teaching Business, Psychology and Statistics. Visit his blog at www.VicNapier.com