Catharsis: Test To See If Writing About It Helps

 

Kristin and I spent the heart of last winter on the Alabama Gulf Coast. We got there about the first of January, and this was at the time when our country was in the midst of the expected winter surge in Covid cases. The “sides” in the “Covid Wars” had drawn clear lines.  We had people who were wearing masks and getting vaccinated.  We had people who were not wearing masks and not getting vaccinated, and not giving a damn who they infected.  Kristin and I were in the former group, and in South Alabama we were part of a very small minority.

It was in this context that my expectations were set.   We were in the land of individual freedom, individual responsibility, “Let’s go Brandon” t-shirts, AR-15 silhouettes in the windows of trucks with “Jesus Saves” bumper stickers.  I figured it would be no-holds-barred, wide-open revelry with unrestrained public tobacco spitting, beer guzzling, and spontaneous outbursts of prayer.  We found something much different; these folks have more rules than they do in Portland, where I’ve heard the expression that "if it’s not mandated, it’s illegal."

Sign, sign

Everywhere a sign

Blocking out the scenery

Breaking my mind

Do this, don’t do that

Can’t you read the sign?

(Five Man Electrical Band)

This is not to single out Fairhope.  Similar signs are in Gulf Shores and Orange Beach.

I don't even know what the thing in the middle is, but it's not allowed.

On our first Sunday in the area, we decided to go check out the beach at Gulf Shores. We ran into a nice couple who told us that since it was Sunday, we would probably be alright, but that during the week when the beach police were more active, we would be fined $500 for having our dog on the beach!  I went and put on my mask, not for fear of Covid, but for the stench of repression.

As we continued on our excursions throughout the Southeast portion of red-state America, we saw reinforcement for what I really suspected all along.  The right leaning citizens of the area are not at all opposed to government overreach, so long as the government doing the overreaching is the government they install by whatever means they can make work.  (More on this in the next installment which will appear in a few days.)

 

This "Wheat Jesus"  billboard is a Kansas I-70 icon.  It is different than the images I discuss below, but the artistry is of the same quality.  It was put up by a family in Colby.

MORE SIGNS

Early in May we needed to be back in Utah, so we chose the I-70 route which would allow us to stop and see friends and family in Western Colorado.  (Colorado leans Democratic on the east side of the mountains.  Western Colorado is so red that it might make Alabama look like a college town in the Northeast.)  I-70 took us right through the middles of Missouri and Kansas.  Missouri has the standard roadside signage touting gun shows, Bible verses, injury lawyers, medical marijuana dispensaries, Super 8s, etc.  Kansas has most of that and more.  When you get to the wide-open expanses past Kansas City and Topeka, you start to see these remarkably well painted displays that consist of a repurposed refer trailer or an abandoned shipping container.  They will show an image of the waving stars and stripes and a big image of a grinning Donald Trump, complete with a decent representation of whatever color you call that hair.  I think some signs even have a badass eagle, and then the inevitable admonition to vote 2024.    

A hundred yards or so down the fence line in the very same field, there will be a smaller, but even more professional depiction of the blond, blue-eyed, Jesus with some wording on the bottom reminding us that the end is near, and we had better shape up, or that redemption is just one conversion away.  Now the sledgehammer incongruity of these two images is striking enough to make the unprepared driver loose concentration and crash. Most of us can agree on a general idea of what Jesus stands for—love, forgiveness, compassion, healing, practicing The Golden Rule, that kind of thing.

Donald Trump on the other hand is a scumbag real estate developer from New York City, a washed-up reality TV personality, a verifiable misogynist, and a wannabe dictator who is absolutely diametrically opposed to Jesus in every way.  If a person has not fallen under whatever spell this demagogue has cast, you wouldn’t allow him within a half mile of the oval office, let alone sitting in it and making critical decisions.

BAD SIGNS

I spent the whole rest of the drive, and a lot of time since, just trying to figure out how this clown captured the loyalty of such a high percentage of the population.  I can’t do it, so I quit trying.  I liken my obsession with Trump to the Republicans’ never-ending fixation on the Clintons, who have been non-entities for years.  The terrifying difference is that Trump is not yet a non-entity.  He is still influencing almost every aspect of our political lives, and the worst part is that even though it is becoming clearer that he will never again be able to hold high public office, he has given succor to a long festering infection in our society that is the biggest threat we have seen since the Civil War.  Trump is becoming irrelevant; Trumpism is real and gaining traction.

[Coming up:   Combating the NatCon Conspiracy]