Idaho couple caught on video displaying deplorable behavior over politics | Opinion
A video circulating on YouTube and Instagram of an Idaho couple harassing an Uber driver over his reticence to discuss politics is a gross example of the worst kind of entitlement and deplorable behavior.
In the video, posted Thursday by @ThatDaneshGuy, the female passenger asks the Uber driver if he’s voting for Biden. (I’m not sure what politics has to do with an Uber driver’s ability to get you from Point A to B, but have you ever noticed how eager people like this are to talk about politics?)
“I don’t talk about this,” the driver says in the video. But the couple continues to push him.
“People want to know, am I riding with a conservative or am I riding with a liberal,” the male passenger says.
“Why does that matter?” the Uber driver asks.
“Because we’re in f—ing Idaho,” the woman practically screams.
“We’re a very conservative state,” the man says.
“Go back to your home state,” the woman says.
The Uber driver then pulls over and lets them know “the ride’s over” and they can get another ride.
The couple then says “f— you” and calls him “a dick.”
The male passenger tells the driver that if he doesn’t take them home, he’s going to give him a one-star rating.
“Yeah, we’re very popular in this area,” the woman says. “Your name’s going to be shame because we’re very popular in this area.”
The driver remains calm and polite and tells the couple, “The ride’s over. Hope you have a good night.”
The male passenger calls him an “a–hole” and the female passenger says she hopes he gets carjacked.
The video was posted by @ThatDaneshGuy, who has 124,000 followers on YouTube and another 267,000 followers on Instagram. By Friday, the video had 15,000 views on YouTube and 12,000 likes on Instagram. He specializes in posting videos like this and identifying the people misbehaving, primarily saying racist things.
I know, people are going to try to say, “That’s not Idaho.”
Sadly, it is. This type of attitude seems to be getting more prevalent in Idaho: If you don’t agree with me, get the hell out. Go live in Portland or Seattle or California.
That’s not how America works.
First of all, if someone doesn’t want to reveal their politics, they don’t have to. It’s none of your business.
If conservative ideals include bullying, harassing and trying to chase someone out of your state because of their political beliefs, I want no part of that.
And this notion that somehow Idaho belongs to these people and everyone else has to leave is scary.
It suggests a kind of ideological cleansing. Idaho is a conservative state, so anyone with liberal or progressive ideas who aren’t in lockstep with so-called “conservative ideals” needs to be chased out of the state.
In the movie “Hannah and Her Sisters,” the character Frederick, played by Max von Sydow, delivers a poignant line about the Holocaust.
“The question is not ‘Why did it happen?’ The question is ‘Why doesn’t it happen more often?’ given what people are.”
I’m not sure whether these people felt that they’d somehow persuade the driver of their political views, but I’m pretty sure intimidation and harassment aren’t the best ways to go about it.
That’s probably why the only remaining recourse for them is to tell the guy to leave Idaho and call him names.
That’s all they have left, try to form a homogenous political state in Idaho, where there’s no dissension, no opposing views and everyone toeing the party line.
The scary thing is that these people apparently feel entitled and empowered to talk this way to another human being. They seem to have lost all their humanity and humility.
Imagine what would have happened if the Uber driver had told them that he was indeed voting for Biden, that he thought health care was a basic human right and we should have Medicare for all.
No one should have to live in fear of people like this. The Uber driver did the right thing, stayed calm and did what his passengers failed to do: acted like an adult.
Rather than the driver going back to his home state, I would suggest instead that this deplorable couple go back and crawl under their rock.
This story was originally published September 7, 2024 at 4:00 AM.
