That's My Bix!

We drove through central Wisconsin this weekend on a little teeny “get the fuck out of the house” adventure, and I’m still stymied by the loads of Trump flags. It is mid July. The election happened last year. So much awful has happened since then and yet still, mid-July 2021 and these people are flying flags and sticking his name in giant letters over their back truck windows. There was a flea market by the side of the road that we’ve visited years ago and purchased produce there, but yesterday, a giant MAGA flag flew alongside the Flea Market and Farm Market flags and that’s a big no thank you.

Given his rhetoric about hating losers, I’m flummoxed by their insistence. I assume they are presenting these symbols because they felt seen, they felt validated. I keep thinking about the intense racism and about how at best it wasn’t a dealbreaker for Trump voters, about how worse case scenario, it was in fact a desired feature. I keep thinking about the women who voted for him after the Access Hollywood leak, after the rape accusations, after the asylum seekers in cages and over a thousand children lost in the system (that we KNOW about).

74 MILLION people voted for him in 2020. It’s easy to forget this. It’s been months. But 74 MILLION people feel like they’re being suppressed right now. And let’s be real here, it was white women and white men who put this fucker in the White House. It’s white people who feel like they’re losing something and are eager for anyone who can tell them they can get that something back if they just do this one little thing and cast a ballot. Some of them are flying flags but most of them aren’t — they’re just out there, quiet and walking next to us at the store or in the next cube at work. It’s easy to forget this with our guy Joe in the White House. Midterms are coming and the Dems tend to lose seats in midterms with a Dem President.

I don’t know what the answer is, but I keep feeling like something really bad is brewing. The flags are a reminder that we absolutely cannot rest. And white people, this is on us. You need to own this and you’re likely going to be the only people who might be able to crack those MAGA-truck driving voters. Our work isn’t done even with our guy locked in. We have 74 million cases to make and 74 million hearts to unlock.