Hood

A neighborhood walk last evening emphasized my conviction that Trump will win re-election.  Why so?  There are now 2 houses I pass with signs for Trump 2020, and a third I noticed a guy doing some gardening wearing one of those red MAGA caps.  And how many signs have I seen for Biden 2020?  Absolutely none.  I haven’t seen any signs for Biden anywhere – let alone my neighborhood.  And that is the problem – whereas I think the supporters for Trump are passionate and motivated (and blinkered), I don’t see that for Biden – people are just reluctantly resigned to Biden as the alternative to Trump.  And so I think that apathy could be a real issue come election time.  I also think there are a lot more closet Trump supporters than polls will ever show – people are embarrassed with Trump, but will still vote for him.  The other thing I noticed in my neighborhood was that although I’ve seen quite a few houses with Black Lives Matter signs, I’ve seen a lot more houses with Blue Lives Matter or other pro-police signs.  I have to think that these people don’t support the Black Lives Matter movement (since Black Lives Matter and Blue Lives Matter are mutually exclusive) and will support Trump since he doesn’t support the movement either.  This is actually quite eye-opening – these signs have only popped up over the last few weeks, and just go to show the systemic racism and how reluctant (white) people are to change the status quo and would rather make the country policed even more militaristically (personally I am in favor of police reform, but not police defunding).  It’s an aspect of the American psyche that I will never quite understand – much the same as the aggressively nationalistic actions of things like playing the national anthem at every single sporting event, or the sheer number of homes that fly a huge American flag.