The 2024 Presidential Election
By Andrew Meblin
Driving in these United States can offer a close look at the self and soul of America, but you really dive in deep if your route excludes the interstate freeways, and consists of byways of county roads, and state highways of two-lanes.
Yesterday I drove a large (twenty-six foot) box van filled with much of the Meblin family furniture and various other possessions from Chilcoot, California, to our home in the Willamette Valley of Oregon. In doing that I saw plenty of backcountry including the dwellings of people referred to by one presidential candidate as “the deplorables.”
The west coast, branded “The Left Coast” by media and truckers, is known for progressivism, and thus a journey in these states will give the observer a skewed view, but nonetheless, staying off of the freeways reveals more about the rural mindset. One can tell much of the country by seeing the yards of small town homes and farm houses, and besides the cars up on blocks, trucks, trailers, yard art porch furniture and play structures, Americans speak with flags.
In many urban neighborhoods the flags flown will include the original rainbow announcing support for “gay rights,” the newer “queer flag,” a Black Lives Matter banner, or yard signs declaring the occupants of the home to welcome anyone no matter what race, religion, etc, perhaps a blue and yellow Ukrainian flag, and now a flag representing Palestine. Contrasting those indications of political interests, homes in the rural areas are more likely to display flags American flags, the black POW-MIA flag, and of course, Trump flags along with the FJB/Let’s Go Brandon pennant.
And so it was the flag, Trump 2024, that brought a brief conversation about the man who it seems people either hate or love, Donald John. Our “stuff” is stored in a section of a large steel building adjacent to a residence in what can only be described as a compound. Jesse and Cindy rent out space in the building, but this is no typical storage business. The location is the town of Chilcoot, on California Highway 70, a town with a population of 408. One gasoline station, no stoplights. To enter Jesse and Cindy’s place one must physically operate the combination lock joining the links of a heavy chain, and then open a double gate. The only restroom is inside the home.
We had hired two workers described as moving help on the U-Haul website, and Ken and Xavier went to work loading our truck. At one point Ken asked about restroom facilities, and I told him about the presence of the toilet inside the home. Did he, I asked, want me to accompany him to the home to make the event of entering the home of some country dweller less fraught? Perhaps it was that Ken is Black, that he felt the need for me to ensure easy access to the toilet. Sensing urgency, I drove Ken in the car to the house, where we saw the aforementioned Trump 2024 flag waving in the March morning breeze.
“Welcome to Trump Country,” I said, in a way of alerting him to the political leaning. Foolishly, I had presumed that Ken, a Black man from Reno, would be a Democrat. That he might be, but Ken’s response was that he was “all in on Trump.” I replied that though I had benefited from some of Trump’s appointments, and agreed with some of his policies, I thought his character and demeanor made him a flawed executive.
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