Saturday, February 1, 2020

Redneck Regalia

by Pa Rock
Road Warrior

Rosie and I made the 277-mile drive from our home in West Plains, Missouri, to my son's home in Roeland Park, Kansas, yesterday without incident.  I think the last time I made it up this way was the week before Thanksgiving, so, as always, I was alert for any changes that had occurred since my last drive to the Kansas City area.

One observation from the drive was that (gauging from political paraphernalia) there is really only one candidate running for president in southern Missouri.  "Trump 2020" bumper stickers are beginning to blossom in this rural backwater along with a few yard signs - and I even passed one house which had a Trump flag flying from a tall flagpole.  (I saluted appropriately as I drove by!)

Trump will never hold one of his hate rallies in southern Missouri because he doesn't need to.  He owns it.  And absolutely none of the Democratic candidates will stop by either - unless they experience plane trouble hurrying from Iowa to South Carolina and are forced down for an inconvenient stop.  The rural Midwest is the land that time forgot - politically - and Trump can have it.  The national Democratic Party could care less about their country cousins.

It would be nice if every state could occasionally be Iowa or New Hampshire.

Tom Perez, you suck.

Normally by the time we get back into civilization - closer to Kansas City - Democratic yard signs and bumper stickers begin appearing.    But this is Super Bowl weekend, and all of the personal promotions seem to have poured into supporting the Kansas City Chiefs.  Once we reached the city we began seeing lots of car signs, flags, and decals, plenty of yard signs, and even Chiefs' flags flying in front of houses.   Two Chiefs' flags are flapping in the breeze on the very short street where my son and his family live.

Kansas City is fired up - but not over presidential candidates - yet.  That will come after all of the victory celebrations finally subside!

Tim's neighborhood is, according to past yard signs and bumper stickers, fairly Democratic, and in 2018 the local congressional district ousted a GOP incumbent, Kevin Yoder, and replaced him with Sharice Davids - a lesbian, kick-boxing, Native American who seems to have maintained very strong ties to the folks back home.  One of Tim's neighbors, though, had his home featured on the local news in 2016 after festooning it with tons of Trump trash and political propaganda.  The vulgar display was so outrageous that it brought gawkers from miles around.

That neighbor should move to southern Missouri where his flair for yard art would probably be more welcome - though far less controversial.

Home tomorrow.

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