Scores of Trump signs and flags permeate the landscape of rural northwest Ohio — almost six months after Donald Trump’s loss to Joe Biden. Nearly seven out of ten local voters voted for Trump in the 2016 and 2020 elections. President Biden is hated despite handing out thousands of stimulus dollars to local families and millions of welfare dollars to farmers. In the minds of most locals, socialists, commies, atheists, “illegals,” AOC, the Squad, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Nancy Pelosi, and Chuck Schumer are pawns of Satan, evil people who must be repelled at all costs.
Ten or so miles north of where we live, a Trump worshiper planted the following signs on Highway 15:
Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
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Welcome back, Bruce. This godless liberal trans woman has your back !
Bob and I just drove past that dude’s yard several days ago. Bob said that there were even more signs up before Biden was inaugurated. Well, at least there’s no reference to “The Storm” or Q. We really keep thinking of other options for where to live in retirement. Lack of diversity, provincialism, plus the certainty that their god is on their side, and he’s Republican Jesus. GACK.
On the east side of the Sierra Nevada mountain range (Eastern California/Western Nevada), my husband and I are building a house and will eventually retire. (We’re located in lowland California right now, in a pretty liberal area.) I was up there last in September; he’s been up there a lot, but the sitch doesn’t accommodate my lack of mobility very well right now. Back in September, the Trump banners, flags, and whatnot were so thick you could barely see the trees. (Okay, there’s a little bit of hyperbole, but not much.) I keep my mouth shut about politics there while we’re not there to defend our property, but you can bet I’ll be joining the local Democratic Club eventually.
On the drive to the nearest big town for groceries, I pass a house that’s up on a little hill, with a tall flagpole. The owner flies the Confederate battle flag below the U.S flag on their flagpole, tall, proud, and impossible to miss. Every time I drive past, I want to detour up their driveway and remind them that in the presence of the US flag, the appropriate Confederate flag is the white flag of surrender. I’ll never do that, of course. I don’t need my person rearranged violently.
GODS! We have that shit going on here, too. There is no reasoning.
It’s the same in rural North Carolina, but with Confederate flags; lots of stored-up resentment out there.
and they are all probably the morons who didn’t know how to not give a recurring donation to the former occupant. what complete morons. And I’m sure they go to church insisting that it is perfectly okay to follow a liar, cheat and serial adulterer.
Still some of that bull feces in northeastern NJ, just a stone’s throw from NYC. I don’t get it, but it’s further evidence of just how anti-intellectual and radical the GOP has become.
Pastor husband, who was also a high school teacher used to say all communications from churches should be filtered through teenagers to check for double entendres before being published. His first church had two deacons, one called Joy and our small daughter had to be told to ‘shush’ when, at one of his first services, he announced the next hymn was ‘You shall go out with Joy’ and he censored one week’s bible reading which had the verse in it ‘Joy cometh in the morning!’
The Civil War never ended for lots of folks. Just a regrouping and re-arming. They’ve been biding their time for generations until “the South will rise again.” It’s all they have, but they think it gives their lives some meaning and purpose. This just happens to be their latest best battle whoop, when for a while even the leader in Washington D.C. was on their side. Throw in some old-time religious fervor, an arsenal of weapons, poverty in all forms, including education, untold numbers of groupies and wannabes with nothing else going on in their lives, and a desire for a contemporary brand of a Final Solution, and light a match. The country burns and they take over. That is their dream. Trump and his minions almost pulled it off. They’ll keep trying. Praise God and pass the ammunition.
We should get a Twitter thing going with Trump displays … Bruce, mine is gaudier than yours (heh-heh) …
Trump worshiper here in rural Alabama just put up a “Trump 2024” flag on vacant property he owns next to a well-traveled highway. Looks like rural Alabama and rural Ohio have a lot in common. Bruce, I know you are happy to be in such esteemed company!
You will not be surprised to learn that it’s the same here in Texas. Trump signs, bumper stickers, etc. still the topic of conversations in public. It wears me out to be honest. But no one in my family wants to move so here I am. These same idiots are benefitting from Bidens stimulus checks and other government programs though. So tired of hearing how any democratic socialism will ruin our lives. far from it. Go Joe and Kamala! Looking forward to the changes coming if we can get the religious right in Congress out of the way.
I just passed a house in the small town here in L.A. County, and at first it looked like a Pro- Biden flag . Then I saw the letters in reverse : Impeach Biden. The town is a Trump town for sure. I didn’t see that flag a couple days ago. I’ve read about Dominianism. That type of theoracy won’t go away, since they had that taste of power, I have no problem believing that Trump and this time Tom Cotton of Arkansas will run in 2024. Cotton is way scarier than Mike Pence ever was.
“Trumpland” is a syndrome affecting the entire rural Midwest. The rural-urban divide has become very pronounced in recent years. It is also prudent to not “tit for tat” and put up your own banner and signs, lest you become a victim of vandalism. I’m hopeful that Trump will soon face charges for his election meddling in Georgia, not conceding and his behavior to undermine the constitution he swore an oath to protect and defend should not go unpunished.
Last week, I saw a “Trump 2024” banner on a house in East Elmhurst, Queens–less than a stone’s throw from LaGuardia Airport, and three and a half miles from my apartment!
Just south of Mount Vernon, Ohio, I saw a yard with several Trump flags, a Confederate flag, and a sign that said, ‘Biden will never be my President’. But the winner is a huge flag on the front of a house in Frazeysburg, Ohio, that said in big letters, ‘Fk Biden’, and underneath in smaller letters said,’ And fk you for voting for him.’
How caustic.
An average Joe would get thrown out of most evangelical churches if they said or did a fraction of the things Donald Trump has said or did. Instead of even attempting to distance themselves from Trump, instead they excused everything about him by calling him a ‘baby Christian.’
What’s to be said about this double standard for Trump? They are clearly disregarding the Biblical command of not making a footstool out of the poor and giving a special seat to the wealthy and powerful (James 2:1-3)
Evangelical Christians have it seems like to have sold their principles down the river for a shot of power. What’s to be left of a Christian if he is one without principles? Then the testimony is no better than anyone else’s, perhaps even worse… and do they even care or understand? Perhaps their own Bible would say that their Pastors have become brutish (not manly) (Jeremiah 10:21).
Evangelicals who like hard preaching, do you really? 🙂