Our neighbours have a Trump flag in their front garden, close enough to the front door that you probably wouldn’t get away with taking it down, even in the dead of night – everyone’s got a Ring camera around these parts, anyway – but placed, front and centre by their porch, so that everyone who passes by can see it.
I’m not quite sure why it bothers me. For starters, I know that a lot of people, especially in Indiana, support Trump. I suspect that most of our neighbours, in fact, in the suburban housing estate I’m growing to hate, are, at the very least, Republicans, and we know that the majority of Republicans support Trump. So.
There’s the issue of the HOA* rules that govern our very existence here: we’re not allowed to have a fence above a certain height; we can’t have a shed in our back garden; we’re allowed to have an in-ground, but not an above-ground pool (hot tubs are okay because they’re bougie); we can’t display political signs or flags in our gardens or windows (although I’ve just learned, thanks to Google, that during election season the HOA is not legally allowed to prohibit that, so I’ll be stocking up on Biden merch asap).
The fact that they’re breaking HOA rules is not my issue, though – as a general rule, I hate the HOA, hate that we pay them money, hate that we have to obey their stupid rules (not because I want a shed – I don’t, or a taller fence – ditto, or to get a pool of any sort, but because I’d like to have chickens, and the HOA is explicit on the forbidden nature of beaked animals).
The thing is, this is not the first political sign I’ve seen; when I lived in Dublin 1, I’d frequently see signs in people’s windows demonstrating their allegiance to a particular political party, or politician – and, more often than not, it would be at odds with my own views. But it didn’t make me feel the way this sign does.
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