Washington D.C. was full to the brim of people with conflicting opinions of Donald Trump. Plenty of his supporters were in town, even if there weren’t nearly as many as projected, and hundreds of thousands of protestors showed up the next day for the Women’s March.

With all of these differing viewpoints focused in one place, one would expect to mostly hear stories about them coming to blows. But a Trump supporter from Texas extended an olive branch that many hope can be the first of many. 

Jason White walked into a restaurant called Busboys and Poets on Monday Morning with two friends and fellow Trump supporters. After scanning the room, they realized they were probably in the minority in the liberal-leaning restaurant and one of his friends took off his bright red “Make America Great Again” hat, according to The Washington Post.

They were greeted by their waitress, a 25-year-old Rosalynd Harris, and sat down for a meal that cost $72.60. After they got done and left, Harris came back to the table and saw White not only wrote her a message on the receipt, but left a tip of $450.

“We may come from different cultures and may disagree on certain issues, but if everyone would share their smile and kindness like your beautiful smile, our country will come together as one people,” the note read. “Not race. Not gender. Just American. God Bless!”

Harris, who is a professional dancer, says that they surprise came at a perfect time as she just signed up for extra shifts so that she could afford to move to a new apartment.

“You automatically assume if someone supports Trump that they have ideas about you,” said Harris, “but [the customer was] more embracing than even some of my more liberal friends, and there was a real authenticity in our exchange.”

“This definitely reshaped my perspective. Republican, Democrat, liberal are all subcategories to what we are experiencing,” she said. “It instills a lot of hope.”

White, a dentist and a devout Christian who claims he doesn’t agree with all of Trump’s policies, said he was inspired to extend the kind act after viewing the weekend foster discussions on both sides of political thought – which he feels is a part of America’s true identity.

“As I sat there I thought about the entire weekend and I thought I don’t know her, she doesn’t know me, but if most Americans have a preconceived perception about people then we’re never going to get better,” he said.

America is as polarized as it ever was today. Conceivably, half of the country thinks the POTUS is in far over his head, plans to uproot everything that works and is flirting with the idea of a dictatorship. The other half thinks that he’s something new and different and are willing to wait and see what he does.

Moments like the one White shared with Harris play as much of a role in laying the foundation of our country’s future as the rest. But, is this singular act of kindness ever going to be enough?

Photo Courtesy: Wiki Commons