In the Los Angeles Times, a tale of high roads not taken:  

Oh, heck no. The Trumpites next door to our pandemic getaway, who seem as devoted to the ex-president as you can get without being Q fans, just ploughed our driveway without being asked and did a great job.

The author of the above, Ms Virginia Heffernan, not only has a “pandemic getaway,” which must be nice, but also neighbours sufficiently thoughtful to clear her drive of heavy snow. Inevitably, this induces not gratitude or warm feelings, but fretting and resentment, such that the aforementioned act of kindness is framed, disdainfully, as “aggressive niceness.” Exactly how Ms Heffernan’s neighbours were being aggressive is unclear, but it seems that we, the reader, are expected to dislike them, quite intensely, on account of their being insufficiently leftist.

Of course, on some level, I realise I owe them thanks,

On some level, says she.

I’m not ready to knock on the door with a covered dish yet.

As readers may be a little confused by the air of displeasure, I should point out that no history of neighbourly rancour is offered as an excuse – no disputes over hedges or noisy pets. Nothing of that sort is mentioned at all. Ms Heffernan’s neighbours are, it seems, to be frowned upon, indeed despised, in print, in a newspaper they may well read, simply for failing to vote for Mr Biden.

I also can’t give my neighbours absolution; it’s not mine to give. Free driveway work, as nice as it is, is just not the same currency as justice and truth.

Absolution, indeed. What a grandiose creature she is. And so, instead of the customary thanks, Ms Heffernan extends to her neighbours – via the medium of a newspaper column intended to shame them – an ultimatum of sorts: