A few weeks ago I drove by a street fair in Bellmore, a community on the south shore of Long Island, and saw a truck festooned with “F*** BIDEN” flags in full view of hundreds of little kids and families.
Today I went to early-vote in a neighboring community, Merrick, and was waiting in line with maybe 20 or 25 people. At one point I was chatting with a couple of folks behind me about early voting; I said something about how glad I was that we have it in New York, and one of them said something about how the outcome of this election will affect whether and how people will be able to vote in the future, without mentioning the name of any party, candidate, or politician. This person then mentioned what we had apparently both seen in Bellmore a few weeks back, and attempted to name the hate group that had set up a booth at that street fair. At some point I smiled and said, good-naturedly and half-kiddingly, “No electioneering within 100 feet of a polling place!” The person, just as good-naturedly, said they were an “activist” and understood the rules. At no point did either of us mention the name of any party, candidate, or politician.
A few moments later, I heard another person in line behind me mumble, just loud enough to hear:
“I hope we can get rid of all these Democrats once and for all.”
Not wanting to start a whole thing I didn’t respond; I just turned around and started literally whistling a happy tune as I waited to get into the voting room. And it’s a good thing I did, because I was thinking of saying, half-sarcastically, “Yes! Once and for all! You might even call it the … final solution!”
It would have been very, very bad if I had said that.
See, the polling place was a synagogue.