Tarun and I recently did a 3,000 mile road trip through the northeast into Canada and back to Virginia. We spent quality time with our kids and grandkid and had a blast at a family wedding.
On the way home, we drove through the back of beyond in Pennsylvania. As we meandered through red country, we saw signs that made us laugh and gave us pause.
Somewhere near Bradford PA, a billboard advertised a bank where Taylor Swift’s great-grandfather banked. I have great admiration for Swift’s music and business acumen. To see that her great-grandpa is spurring an ad made me chuckle.
US-219 took us through towns called Ellicottville, Salamanca, Lantz Corner and Ridgeway. We saw Trump signs of all shapes and sizes. From 2020 and for 2024. The most stunning sign went across a large porch with humungous font proclaiming “ULTRA MAGA” residents live there.
It took me a second to process the sign and then my thought immediately went to our tires.
Yes, tires.
We have this weird innovation in our car. It’s called run-flat tire. The tires never deflate, not even when road hazards penetrate. Cool, right?
Very cool until a tire meets a nail. Then you have to…hold…change the tire! Not put the spare on and take the flat tire to a store and plug rubber into the hole. I mean you have to permanently replace the run flat tire within 50 miles.
The “ULTRA MAGA” sign meant if our tires kissed a nail we would be two brown people in a foreign car on the side of the road waiting for a run flat tire to be delivered from miles away, surrounded by people with guns.
I started to mutter. Please, dear God, no nails, no nails. I said that nonstop until a car with a Biden bumper sticker went by.
Which brought me to Biden.
In a country of more than 300 million people our choice is him and the MAGA messiah. That just makes my head hurt.
The billboards and the yard signs drove home two points. First, this part of Pennsylvania is untouched by globalization, biotech and artificial intelligence. Growth is limited, healthcare is sparse, retail is non-existent and tons of people cut through these towns without spending a dime on the local economy. Second, these guys are entrenched in their thinking because exposure to any other way of living is simply not present. Add right wing media pummeling them with a doomsday ideology where immigrants are ruining the DNA of America and you have the necessary ingredients of a political catastrophe.
As we reached the urban areas near our home, my emotion shifted from darkness to hope. Hope that the young will turn out in massive numbers in the next election. Hope that the Democrats will deliver policies to benefit the residents of the towns on 219. Hope that sanity will return to the media. Hope that polarization in politics will abate.
Just then I saw a “Don’t Tread on Me” license plate and speedily rewound to first base.
That night I went to bed thinking we should have Taylor Swift run for President. She creates economic boom wherever she goes and her ancestors are connected to rural Pennsylvania. Plus, she will keep us entertained like nobody else. A totally winning combo.
Until that happens, the signs in this rural stretch of Pennsylvania truly reflect the current dilemma: there is no way for us donkeys and elephants to live happily ever after; we live in the same plane but see two entirely different realities.
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