Hey, Where'd All The Trump Signs In Southern Missouri Go?

Uh oh, MAGA. Did something happen to your enthusiasm?

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OK now let me tell you what I saw last weekend when I went on one of my favorite trips I take every summer …

Current River, near Van Buren, Missouri. Pic copyright ME.

AUDIO VERSION HERE!

Every summer, sometimes more than once, my friends and I go floating down the Current River in Van Buren, Missouri, in the southeastern Ozarks. All elective travel is my happy place, but for real, this is my happy place. It’s three hours from where we all live in Memphis, it’s absolutely beautiful, and we spend two solid days on the river not giving a shit about anything besides where our next beer is coming from.

Surprise, it’s in the cooler that’s floating with us! There’s also some vodka gummy bear business in there, because we are classy folks.

We grill out multiple times. We eat at the nicest restaurant in Van Buren, which is one of the only restaurants in Van Buren, which happens to be on site at the lodge where we often stay. (Though these days we are crotchety princesses and prefer to have our own house on the river.) We also eat at the Jolly Cone, which is like a frozen-in-time burger-and-shake joint that’s been there since 1952, I think.

Look it up on the map if you want, but if you know anything about the area, or want to get your bearings for where I’m talking about, Van Buren is two hours east of Springfield, Missouri, and 45 minutes west of Poplar Bluff. It’s close to the Arkansas border, well to the southeast of all that Lake of the Ozarks Jason Bateman shit. (Good show, recommend!)

Van Buren is a red fuckin’ part of a red state, in Missouri’s 8th Congressional District, which is basically the entire southeast quadrant of the state, below St. Louis. The biggest town in the district is Cape Girardeau. You might have gone to or heard of Lambert’s in Sikeston, home of the Throwed Rolls, where you get rolls throwed at your face. This is an experience I highly recommend.

But anyway, it’s red. Its congressman is Jason Smith, a super wingnut Republican, who is kind of the third wheel in the MAGA Republican threesome of committee chairmen who until recently were willing to make fools of themselves daily as they investigated the Ukrainian Chinese whereabouts of Hunter Biden’s penis and tried to use that to impeach Joe. The others are James Comer (Oversight) and Jim Jordan (Judiciary). Smith is the chair of Ways and Means, and whenever he gets to go on TV with Comer and Jordan, he prisses around like a Pomeranian, just thrilled to be invited to the party.

Spoiler, but those guys’ investigations into the whereabouts of Hunter Biden’s penis seem to have entirely disappeared in the wake of Joe Biden’s decision to drop out and pass the torch to Kamala Harris.

So have the Trump signs from Jason Smith’s district, at least the parts of it we saw last weekend.

Signs, Signs, Everywhere Signs

Current River, near Van Buren, Missouri. People floatin’. Copyright STILL ME.

See, here’s the thing about the Van Buren trip. And first, let me be clear: nobody has ever been anything but absolutely lovely to our group, at least on the trips I’ve been on. But in the whole time we’ve been floating the Current (going on a decade) the one drawback for this extended group of liberal gay cityfolk and their best liberal friends, some of whom are not white people, is that the experience is immersively Trumpy.

When I say immersively, I mean the drive up, through northeastern Arkansas and southeastern Missouri, has been full of absurd Trump signs and banners on every other house; there was a gigantic Trump banner hanging at the resort that handles all the float trips for the area, facing the river; and all up and down the river, and on the beaches along the way, it’s been Trump! Trump! Trump Trump Trump!

One of the two bars in town, at least last time we went to it, had a single-tear bald eagle 9/11 print on the wall that said “Jihad this!”

You really got a sense of the cult nature of the MAGA movement on that six-to-eight-hour float. The fuckin’ Trump boats riding up and down the river, the huge groups of people with their trucks pulled up to the banks, blasting both good-ass fun country — “Chattahoochee”! — but also racist country and Kid Rock.

Just about every group flying Trump banners and flags and rocking the t-shirts. Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump. Truuuuuuuuump!

I wish I had documented more of this over the years, but A) usually my phone is in a protective pouch and I’m ignoring it because I’m busy drinking practicing water safety, and B) when a group of gays and women blasting God-Knows-What-Gay-Ass-Shit comes floating through, and some of them are Black and Hispanic, it doesn’t seem prudent to pull out the phone and start snapping pictures or video of the MAGA crowds whose attention we already often had just by existing.

But imagine this one million times, with attendant MAGA river revelers, reveling about the river, Trumpily:

That is my friend also taking a picture of the Trump boat. 2021 maybe? Copyright me.

Now listen closely when I tell you that we just went floating the Current last weekend, and they’re all gone.

Signs, Signs … Nowhere Signs?

The Landing at Current River, where they run the float trips and have the lodge and whatnot. This view out to the river is a bit different now, as there was a huge fire a couple years back, and their main lodge burned to the ground. It’s been rebuilt. Y’all should go there. Picture copyright me!

I don’t mean, “Oh, the Trump signs were not as prevalent as usual this time.” I mean they’re gone.

I mean on the three-hour drive up, which included a detour through an even more rural area of Arkansas west of Pocahontas than we usually traverse, and on the drive back, along the usual route. I mean at the resort where we got our floats and ate dinner one night. And I mean along the entire section of the river we floated, the same section we always float.

There was almost nothing. We saw three to five Trump signs along the drive, max. No banner at the resort. Zero flags and banners on the river and zero Trump boats. There was one sad old guy sitting along the banks with his group, wearing a Trump t-shirt. We saw approximately five times more t-shirts for the Hawk Tuah girl, made to look like election t-shirts. (This kind.)

Oh yeah and for some reason, one gas station in Doniphan, Missouri, is displaying one of Trump’s Playboy covers in the window, as one does.

Copyright me.

So that’s pretty cool.

It’s an election year, y’all. It’s most likely Donald Trump’s last, the one where he has the most to lose, including potentially his freedom. And some of his biggest and bestest fans don’t seem to give a visible damn.

That’s kind of wild, considering how in Carter County, where Van Buren sits, Trump won in 2020 with 84.6 percent of the vote, compared to Biden’s 14.4.

In Missouri’s 8th, Jason Smith (for whom we did see signs) won re-election in 2020 with 76.9 percent of the vote, and 76 percent in 2022. Trump carried 77.1 percent of the vote in 2020, district-wide.

So either southern Missouri had a meeting about hiding the signs this year when they heard the Wokes were driving in from Memphis, or something’s changed.

Signs Don’t Kill People, People Kill People. Wait, That’s Not The Expression.

A couple caveats here:

Many people who have worked on campaigns will emphasize that signs don’t win elections, votes do, and warn people not to draw too many conclusions. That’s fair.

But it is absolutely a fact that, regardless of whether or not signs are effective or predictive, Trump’s cult has embraced them BIGLY. They love wearing that on their sleeve. The man’s never won the popular vote or come close, but in the geographic areas where his people live? They’re gonna let you know it. (Especially if they’re near bodies of water, good Lord.) It’s not about policies or beliefs, it’s about identity and tribalism (and resentment and grievance).

Now, you might be reading this from your own rural area, or maybe you traveled somewhere this summer, and you can confirm that the signs and flags you’re used to seeing are still blasting in everybody’s face in the places you know about. That’s also fair. This is not a scientific survey, and I’ve heard that from a couple people.

However, I’ve heard from enough people who have noticed a significant dearth of Trump signs in areas that a year or two ago had them to know that this isn’t a one-off.

Is this that enthusiasm gap we’ve been hearing about?

Let’s Look At Numbers Like Nerds!

Monmouth reported just this week the results of its new poll that says Kamala Harris and Democratic voters have just blown past Trumpers in the enthusiasm race in the past few weeks.

As of June, about 48 percent of Dems were enthusiastic about the election, while 71 percent of Republicans were. By August — and this is after Trump got shot, and after his convention where he prematurely ejaculated victory all over Milwaukee — he had gained exactly zero enthusiasm points. Meanwhile during that same timeframe, with Biden’s exit and Kamala Harris obtaining the nomination and choosing Tim Walz as her running mate? FUCK. Straight up to 85.

Independents’ enthusiasm has also gone from 34 percent up to 53.

Specifically and significantly, Democrats are now more enthusiastic than Republicans about their own party’s nominee. Harris has massively increased enthusiasm among younger voters, and Monmouth says the percentage of poll respondents who called themselves “double-haters” — i.e. hated both candidates — has been sliced in half.

So that’s one poll.

Also this week, Asawin Suebsaeng reported for Rolling Stone that among Republican insiders who are in-the-know, there is increasing worry about what polls look like in red states like Florida and Ohio. The internals look like shit.

Maggie Haberman reported this week that two private polls in Ohio show Trump maybe not even hitting 50 percent against Harris. (Haha, everybody hates JD Vance so much. Ohio tried to tell them everybody hates him. Trump listened to his idiot sons instead.)

Meanwhile a new public poll of Florida from USA TODAY/Suffolk University/WSVN-TV puts Trump with only a 47-42 lead against Harris among likely voters, which is again decidedly not 50 percent. They note that it’s within the margin of error and that it’s sure as hell a far cry from Ron DeSantis winning re-election by 19.9 percent two years ago.

A Florida Atlantic University poll of likely voters this week got Trump to 50 in the state, but with only a three-point lead over Harris. (I also wrote about a bunch of swing state polls at Wonkette this week if you’re interested.)

Now to be clear, it’s not that anybody currently thinks Trump is going to lose Florida or Ohio (though it’s a long way until November 5). Said one Republican operative, "Donald Trump is not losing Florida or Ohio, but that isn't what's concerning… It's a trend of softening support."

Softening support. Muted. As in maybe the kind that might make a previously die-hard MAGA voter who parties on the Current River say fuck it and decide not to hoist the banners this year? Or just forget to put the signs in the yard for whatever reason?

What if something comes up on November 5, or it’s raining or they feel like crap or one of their favorite re-runs of Maury is on?

Or, like, what if any Maury re-run is on, just in general?

One more thing about Missouri and enthusiasm, but for the other side: did you hear abortion rights are officially on the ballot there in November?

Could be fun, we recommend all decent Missourians get the hell to the polls!

How Does This Tie Into The Moral High Ground?

Ahem, how does it NOT?

What’s the thesis statement of The Moral High Ground again, this newsletter’s reason for existing?

“We are living through a world-historical temper tantrum from white conservative Christians over their loss of control, relevance, and supremacy. This weekly newsletter looks at current events through that lens, glares at it, and usually mocks it.”

As we’ve discussed at length in the short tenure of this newsletter, the MAGA movement isn’t an exact, fully overlapping Venn diagram with those conservative Christian tantrum-havers, but the two circles are pretty close together. This is largely because white conservatives share a lot of the same grievances and victim mentalities, regardless of whether or not they’re religious. (A lot of it has to do with how they’re all fuckin’ racist, surprise!)

The entire reason these folks’ tantrum is getting louder and more hysterical is because they are dwindling in numbers, influence and cultural relevance.

This election really might be their last stand, at least on the presidential level. Don’t worry, it’ll take us decades to get fully free of them politically! But there’s a demographic boulder coming their way. Futurists and political forecasters can fight all day about when exactly it’ll arrive, or whether it has already — no one knows the day or the hour, like Jesus might say! But the day where it blows out into the wide open, where it’s revealed that conservative Republicans simply no longer have the numbers to compete on a national scale — regardless of how hard Beltway journalists try to keep making the horserace look real — is nigh.

(To read all about this, I highly recommend the Substack of Cassidy Steele Dale, a brilliant futurist who writes about this stuff all the dang time. Start anywhere.)

If right now in 2024, some of Trump’s own biggest fans can’t even be bothered to festoon Missouri’s scenic waterways and country front yards with all their Trump shit, that doesn’t strike me as a good sign for him, or for their movement. It sounds to me like a bunch of them are bored with his shit, like the thrill is gone.

Compared to Harris, writes Peter Wehner in The Atlantic, Trump “seems not just old but low-energy, stale, even pathetic.” Wehner says Trump has entered his “Fat Elvis” phase. (Apparently he smells bad too.)

Let’s say all of this is true. Let’s say running against Kamala Harris is really the thing that ruins Trump. Who’s coming behind him to capture the love and adoration of the MAGA conman’s marks?

J.D. Vance? Haha, sit back down on the couch, weirdo.

Josh Hawley? Pfffft, rat-lipped loser.

Ted Cruz? Gross, everybody hates him as much as they hate J.D.

Marjorie Taylor Greene? She doesn’t have the range.

One of the Trump children?

Hahahahahahahahahaha, no.

They all wish, but no. They don’t have a deep bench. We do.

So what do we do with all this intel? We do the work to save the fuckin’ world, we take nothing for granted, and we boldly and enthusiastically fight to make Kamala Harris and Tim Walz the president and vice president of the United States in November. (AND give them a fully Democratic Congress.)

And maybe if we do that, just maybe, then this time, or the time after that … or the time after that … will be the last time we’ll have to worry that our next presidential election could be our last.

That’s some shit worth fighting for.

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-Evan