I took this picture of the back of my car today. No one can say I’m hiding my opinions! Politics has become more than a little confrontational these days, and there are times when I wonder if I’m provoking people around me by having these things on my car. Particularly when I drive through rural Virginia to visit family members who live in other parts of the state, I feel a little – shall we say, exposed – when I stop at a traffic signal or buy gas at the nearby Sheetz.
So far my car has not been rear-ended, keyed, or otherwise vandalized. The only negative comment I’ve heard was from two high-school age boys who stopped behind my car while I was sitting in it, eating a burger or something. I saw them (they didn’t see me right away) and when I got out of the car I asked them casually, “so, you like my bumper stickers?” They responded, “Not exactly, no.” I told them that was fine and we all went on about our business.
I have received a few positive comments – the most notable being in a Target parking lot. I was walking to my car when two women who were standing and looking at my bumper stickers spoke up as I approached: “Is this your car?” I said that it was, and they immediately started telling me how much they liked the array, and how in Texas, where they were from, they don’t see things like this. They walked away, waved back at me, and told me to keep up the fight.
I don’t plan to tell you about all of these bumper stickers today, but I want to talk about two of them.
First off – I feel this sentiment in my bones. I have nothing but contempt for the “Lock Her Up,” “But her emails!,” “Crooked Hillary” crowd. If this includes anyone reading this newsletter (I don’t imagine that it does) I’m sorry that you feel that way but I’m not sorry that I feel this way. I’m old enough to remember this bumper sticker as the Watergate conspiracy broke in 1973-74, but the phrase then was “Don’t Blame Me – I Voted for McGovern.” Which I had, by the way. President Trump and his gang of ghouls tried their best to break America, and it’s still an open question as to whether they were successful. It wasn’t enough to just vote for Hillary, but if enough people had voted for Hillary we wouldn’t be in the situation we’re in now.
Like I said – it wasn’t enough just to vote for Hillary. I was in Washington, DC, with ½ million of my closest friends on the Saturday following that bleak inauguration day in January 2017. I had contacted my friend Ruth, who lived in Fairfax County, to ask her if I could stay with her overnight before the march on Saturday. She began connecting with her friends, and by the time the day of this march arrived, Ruth had offered room for six of us to stay with her, and she had connected with a group that was sponsoring a bus to take us all down to the Mall. So that’s how we got there, and the day was fabulous.
Our bus let us off about two blocks east of the Capitol, on Independence Avenue SE, and the bus driver told us he would pick us up at 4:00 on Farragut Square in NW DC. This map shows generally the three-mile course of our march.
We heard various speakers along the way, sang, chanted, and generally tried to provide an uplifting counterpart to what former President George H. W. Bush labelled “some weird shit” presented by the newly inaugurated President the previous day.
I’m glad I went. I’m also glad I’ve stayed involved in politics at my local, state, and national level in the years since 2017. The Republic isn’t going to save itself, you know.
Too true. And right on!