I took a trip to Trump country. It was more bleak than I could have imagined
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Along with corny fair merch and anime ponchos, every, and I mean every T-shirt stall was draped with Trump flags: “I’m voting for the felon,” “F— Biden” and the relatively anodyne, “I’m With Trump.” While browsing the pet supply shop across from the local Republican Party’s stall, I saw GOP staff greeted with cheers and raised fists — echoing Donald Trump’s triumphant pose after the assassination attempt on him — by numerous fairgoers wearing red caps and “Ultra MAGA” shirts. “Boo, Kambala!” yelled a woman, laughing.
In packed queues for roasted corn, I squeezed past parents balancing their children’s plastic lemonade cups in their arms with “Trump/Vance 2024” lawn signs tucked under their armpits. “Nice sign!” one blonde, elementary school-age girl shouted above the din, with her thumbs up at a woman holding one of them.
One of my cousins saw clusters of young men walking the grounds in floral Hawaiian shirts, which have recently become an unfortunate sartorial symbol of the far-right “boogaloo” movement, a militant group that aims to incite a second Civil War. I asked my cousin if he was sure about this because the idea seemed completely absurd. Maybe it’s just a bunch of dorky kids, I thought. But my cousin grew up there and probably went to school with their parents — he was sure.
I was just trying to have a chill time looking at show rabbits. But I was bombarded by right-wing politics.
FWIW, a few weeks ago I went to a Midwestern county fair. The state went blue in 2020 but this particular county voted 60% Trump, higher than the one in the article (56%).
Before I arrived I braced for the worst.
Nothing. No one sold Trump merch. At most I saw one or two people who brought their Trump hats or t-shirts. There was a monster truck show and the announcer never mentioned politics. I counted a handful of Trump bumper stickers in the parking lot.
Zero Trump yard signs spotted on the road back to where we were staying, even though there were lots and lots of yard signs for various county or municipal candidates. So they weren't completely disengaged politically.
I'm sure many of the people I saw will vote for Trump again this year. But they weren't so willing to advertise that.
Noticed something similar this past memorial weekend. I went boating in a deeply red part of a very blue state and saw significantly less trump flags compared to last year.
People starting to realize how weird all this Trump obsession is. I have people that don't know shit about politics and barely graduated high school cheering for Trump like it's a fucking super bowl game. And these are stupid, stupid people with no education. It's weird for them to even be talking about politics or having political opinions, let alone be mainlining Fox News and talk radio for fucking twelve hours a day.
Ironic you put it that way since a lot of Trump's appeal is to people who are sick of elitists putting them down all the time
Yeah they are stupid. They are making decisions against their own interests because they're too proud to admit they don't know shit and to just butt out. Let the experts run things.
I went to visit family in New York about a month or two ago. I wouldn't say it was a "deep red" part of the state, but definitely pink at the very least.
We passed by a house that the owner had covered in Trump slogans in spray paint. Literally a two story home covered in Trump graffiti. And I've been told that since our trip he's added to it. Hey look, if you want to support Trump, you do you and all that. But I don't care what your political views are.....why the fuck would you destroy the value of your own home like that?
Random guess but that wouldn't happen to be Deep Creek Lake would it?
Negative
It's bad in the south. People wave Trump flags from their homes and cover their cars in garbage. I'm trying to get out of here or at least find a hidden sanctuary amongst the bull shit
Down in Palm Beach county there's still occasionally people who hang out on overpasses over I-95 holding Trump banners on the bridge over rush hour traffic. This was happening in 2023 when we weren't even in election season.
It used to make me angry. Now I just laugh. Allow the fools to show themselves so that I may avoid them
It probably is regional. I live in a heavily conservative area, and for multiple months now, folks who have been rocking big flags or personal billboards have been displaying them, and then they will take them down. After a while, back up, and then eventually back down. Not sure what is happening. Our fair is in a couple weeks...
Awesome... That's the thing with these people. They will never admit they were wrong, but sometimes they will shut the fuck up.