I was motivated to repost an old blog after reading “Let fear be your greatest motivator” by D. Earl Stephens (RawStory) read his article here.

He begins as follows:

The predominant reason we are staring straight down the barrel of a fight for our Democratic survival is that we simply are not a great country.

Frankly, I don’t think we ever were, which in no way makes us exceptional, because I’m not sure any country in history has ever been great. We’ve been very good at times, pretty good at others, and lately, despite trending upward a bit, pretty damn below average.

We’re being honest here, right?

I walk around with a certain degree of fear most of the time — fear, that whether it is good, bad or otherwise, my country is but one election away from being a place that I can openly criticize, to a place I can be jailed for expressing critical opinions like the ones here.

Over the weekend we lucked out as far as the weather went and had sunny skys and temperatures pushing 60 degrees when we went drove to the Pacific Coast to spend a few days at a beachfront hotel.

My impresion is that this popular tourist destination a politically progressive town. I checked here. It leans liberal.

It is has many art galleries, souvenir shops, and restaurants. The beach views are amazing including the well-known Haystacks Rock which you can walk around at low tide (click for more info).

While we were there we had one sunset that even the locals were talking about (from outside our room, click to enlarge).

Of course when interacting with people you can’t always tell what their politics are (see my old blog below) but it was a pleasant surprise to see that when we checked into Land’s End Hotel they had MSNBC on the TV in the from office (see their website here).

Fortunately we didn’t see anyone wearing a MAGA hat (see bottom of page).

One thing that struck me was that in front of the grocery store (main illustration) there were two benches. One was marked Democrats and the other Republicans. There were three people sitting on the latter bench and noone on the former. I looked this up and the benches were there as early as 2006 (reference).

How times have changed? At the time we were at the store I didn’t think that I might write this blog. Now I wish I’d taken a few pictures, or even if I had the courage engaged the people sitting on the Republican bench in conversation.

Below is a blog I published prior to moving my website from Google Blogger to WordPress. I think it shows how times have changed from when people with different poltical views might not want to assault you or worse.

We were sitting next to a “Let’s Go Brandon” Trumper at a small town parade

That’s me above looking goofy in a plastic hat which was handed out by members of the local volunteer fire department. At the time I had no idea what the hat the man next to me was wearing said on the front.

My partner and I went to one of our favorite towns, Aurora, Oregon to watch their summer festival parade and have lunch at our favorite pub. It happens to be  next to a small pot store:

Aurora is a town which is on the National Historic Register and is known for it’s many antique shops all in old homes which are clustered together in the center of town. It’s population is 1,133 in 336 households. Read more here.

Politically the Aurora leans conservative unlike where we live in a decidely liberal Portland suburb so we never bring up politics when we meet people there. (More about politics in Aurora.)

We managed to snag a perfect parking spot on the street along the parade route just before it was closed to traffic. 

Across the street from our car was a shady spot at the end of a driveway where a man and woman were already sitting. We had folding chairs in the car and asked if we could sit with them. They said we could and they moved their own chairs so we’d have more room.

It turned out that this was the end of the driveway to their house. 

I sat next to the man and we chatted throughout the parade. 

He told me that he lived around the country but 10 years ago settled in Aurora. I learned that he was a Vietnam War veteran and grew up on a farm, and had a number of blue colar type jobs through his life. He asked what we did and I told him I’d been a therapist and my partner was a nurse. He said that one of his daughters was also a therapist. It occurred to me afterwards that I could have lied and told him we’d worked in jobs that didn’t label us as being most probably liberal. I eventually did tell him I’d been a reserve police officer for 20 years since this usually gives me some conservative creds.

We engaged in friendly chit-chat throughout the parade. 

Sitting next to the man having already revealed I’d been a therapist I decided I’d throw into the conversation something that wouldn’t lead him to think I was a flaming liberal. I told him that I’d watched many other local parades since I’d helped direct traffic at them when I was a reserve police officer before moving to Oregon.

During the entire conversation I didn’t know for sure what the man’s political view was until we were leaving and I saw his “Let’s Go Brandon” cap (top of page). If you don’t know what this means click here. I consider this hat and flags and banners saying this to be far more objectionable than any of the MAGA hats and pro-Trump flags because people expressing this sentiment are saying f**k Joe Biden. 

Trump enabled the Jan. 6th attack on the Capital. He’s been the poster boy for gutter politics hurling vulgar insults like a schoolyard bully. No wonder people feel comfortable with this slogan.

I couldn’t find the exact cap among the many for sale on Amazon. This is the closest one which I found.

On the same Amazon search I found this:

It’s a good thing wasn’t wearing it. A more ambiguous message is on this cap if “let’s go” is shorthand for the f-word rather than meant to cheer him on.

I could have worn one of these:

Update: Just found this…

This parade really did celebrate traditional small town values and old fashion pre-fascist patriotism from the days when displaying an American flag didn’t suggest you might believe in the MAGA America First agenda. Click images below to enlarge them.

There’s some new MAGA merch more to my liking:

You can find these items on Amazon.

The resort town of Sisters, Oregon is decidely liberal enclave. However even there we saw contrasts on a visit this summer: