Mooring Fever

The View From Ford Country

A Wildly Unscientific Election Year Observation

By an Admitted Outsider

My observation is this: in Holland, Michigan, the Lake Michigan beach town where I live six months every year, there are almost no front-yard presidential campaign signs. I find this remarkable.

Why? Because usually at this time in an election year, signs would have popped up like the town’s famous tulips, and a majority would be for Republican candidates. Holland is in the heart of uber-Republican southwestern Michigan. Nearby Grand Rapids was the hometown of 38th president Gerald R. Ford, who actually spent summer holidays about five miles down the road from me in a modest beach community. It’s the base that sent him to the House of Representatives in 1948, and the home of his presidential library.

Holland, 30 miles to the southwest, was settled in 1847 by a band of Dutch Calvinist immigrants, whose piety was too severe for the liking of their counterparts in The Netherlands. Here in their New World settlement, they could escape the poverty of the old country and enjoy the freedom to practice religion the way they wanted. At some point a schism occurred, spawning a reformed Reformed congregation, the Protestant Reformed Church. I’m told that newcomers to Holland, down to this day, are routinely asked upon first meeting: “What church do you go to?” although this has never happened to me.

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"Where are the signs ?"          __________________________     

Holland remained an ethnocentric enclave until the mid-twentieth century, when Mexican migrant workers here to pick summer blueberries began staying over and putting down roots.  Later they were followed by a significant Vietnamese population. The groups intermingle at work, in schools and political office; it’s a common thing these days to meet a Brian Gutierrez or a Rosario Vandenberg. Yet despite the deepening skin tones of Holland, Michigan, its overall ethic remains: church, family, very hard work, tight with a penny. Fierce independence: no government aid, thank you, we’ll fund this ourselves.

    This is an area that in 2014 sent tea-partier Cindy Gamrat to the Michigan state house. (If you’re in need of diversion some day, Google her name to see how that worked out.)

   In Holland’s Park Township, where I live, eight candidates filed for seven open positions on the board of trustees. Of these, all but one were Republicans. Their campaign signs were all over the place. So where are the signs now? Specifically, the Trump signs? Where is the easy public political jawing, pre-Republican convention, that we heard routinely at the retired folks’ gym we frequent? Now, nada. Everyone’s lips are zipped.

  To date, I’ve seen eight Hillary signs in the areas of Holland I frequent--one less than a block from my house--and none for Trump.

   That’s the view from this corner of Ford country. I take no position on the implications, though I find them a distinct curiosity.  The journalist in me loves curiosities and loves even more to pass them along. So, this is what election year 2016 looks like in one formerly predictable corner of the nation. What it actually means...we’ll have to wait for election returns to find out .

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How about your vicinity? Behaving predictably or otherwise? If you’d like to share some observations, please record them here in the Comments section, and please include your location(I know that some readers have had difficulty with comments. It has to do with a quirk of Blogger, my host. I’m sorry.) BTW, I’m more interested in the behavior of your local constituency than in your political views. But, free speech and all that, you know.

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COMMENTS

A friend from Holland: Trump supporters may not be posting signs because of fear caused by violence during Trump rallies.

Another friend from Holland: My in-laws are very Republican and they have been pretty quiet about the whole thing! (My kids were big Bernie fans.) I haven't seen any presidential signs. I think too early, but also a lot less this year. I don't think people want to put their neck (reputation) out for Trump like they would for a non-controversial Republican.

BAJ, St. Louis neighbor: We are not seeing many, if any, signs yet around here.

ODB, formerly of Ann Arbor, now Seattle: My belief is that (a) people who vote will largely be voting against someone rather than for someone and (b) many stalwart supporters of Clinton or Trump would prefer not to be identified with the candidate (i.e., to preserve deniability) so they are not posting yard signs. Total speculation on my part, but consistent with my disenchantment with what our political system has been able to put forward by way of individuals with stature and integrity.  Politicians and voters alike are not looking much beyond the next 6-12 months.  They see the train-wreck a'comin' and they are focused on self-preservation. That sort of focus precludes any useful thought about solving persistent economic and social problems.  

  Just watched an interesting 1995 movie about Jesse James and his brother, Frank, in post-Civil War Missouri.  Jesse was taken-out by a Pinkerton hireling (named "Ford" incidentally) and Frank was captured, put on trial for murder, and acquitted by juries three times. Perhaps we have found our way back to the Wild West.  No yard signs for Robin Hood, but a lot of sentiment for radical change.  Yet another "most critical election of our lifetime."

CJC of Louisville: Louisville is mostly Democrat, the rest of Kentucky is Red State all the way.