Signs of the times

摘要

TWO MEN chuckle while hammering metal posts beside a road in Cresco, a sleepy town in northern Iowa. These will support the 70th Trump-Pence door-sized "barn sign" they have put up in Howard County in past weeks. Already they have erected ten times more signs and flags than four years ago, says Neil Shaffer, Republican county chairman, as he twists a plastic tag. He was tickled recently by one that derided the Democratic candidate, Joe Biden. Its slogan was "Vote No on Creepy Joe". He laughed so much, he recalls, he had to pull off the road. Mirth is needed, he says, because "the way politics are, it's so mean-spirited now". As a Republican activist since 1986, he sees the current "violent...nastiness" as worse than ever. Some signs have been defaced with orange paint. Many voters, he believes, are scared to admit-including to pollsters-that they back Donald Trump. They fear "bullies from the left, who are very closed-minded". His friend, John Geh-ling, sees "voter hatred; they hate Trump so much". Someone recently fed his dog rat poison, he says. He reckons the attack was to do with the election.