I have a friend I really don’t like very much.
My husband argued this with me for years, telling me that my friend — who we shall call Jennifer because it’s the most ubiquitous 1980s girl name — was not my friend. If I didn’t like her, how could I call her that?
I, on the other hand, viewed that as a rather narrow worldview. I don’t dislike Jennifer. But we had history that went far beyond an acquaintance. I might not help her bury a body, but I did, on more than one occasion, go to bat for her at a party or in a ladies room. I have held her hair and guarded her drinks. She is my friend. I just don’t like her that much.
Two things can be true at the same time, even if they seem diametrically opposed.
I think about that when I see GoFundMe campaigns for medical bills. I am overwhelmed by the emotion of so many people reaching into their own meager pockets to pitch in a few bucks toward someone’s heart surgery or a liver transplant. I am also utterly disgusted that in a society with so much, we cannot just let people get the medical care they need without debasing themselves with online begging.
Another example came Monday, when the White House highlighted the much-ballyhooed campaign promise of “no tax on tips” with a DoorDash delivery of McDonald’s to the Oval Office. President Donald Trump accepted it himself from a woman in a red “DoorDash Grandma” shirt. He tipped her $100 — which, presumably, she won’t pay tax on.
The dasher was Sharon Simmons, 58, an Arkansas grandmother and a Trump supporter who has made other appearances in support of the policy.
She gets to do that. She gets to vote for whom she wants and advocate for them at the top of her lungs. More power to her.
At the same time, the orchestrated appearance underscores systemic problems. The most notable? Simmons is one of those people with a GoFundMe for medical bills. Her husband has cancer. Her DoorDash gig is helping make ends meet.
“The financial strain has been overwhelming on both of them,” the campaign page states. She has raised just over $2,000 toward a $6,500 goal for medical bills and living expenses.
It has been dismissed as a stunt. It has been framed as a setup. Both can be true — and that still misses the point.
The point is that a woman can stand in the Oval Office, celebrated as the face of a policy meant to help workers like her, and still be struggling to pay medical bills at home.
We argue about whether it is a stunt or a setup because it is easier than sitting with that contradiction. It is easier to pick a side than to admit that both things can exist at once — that a gesture can be kind and still insufficient, that a policy can help and still fall short, that a moment can feel good and still point to something broken.
DoorDash Grandma delivering bags of burgers to the president can be the intersection of political theater and corporate branding. That doesn’t change the fact that Simmons and people like her are struggling to balance the health care they need to survive with the work to cover the bills, all of it blanketed in politics.
And much like Jennifer, we don’t have to like it for it to be reality.
