I put my “Not My President” bumper sticker on my car tonight. I designed it and ordered it on November 9th, just got it today. It now joins my “Watch Out for Motorcyclists” , “What if we spent as much money on school budgets as we do the budget of the pentagon?”, and my “Yes We Did”, bumper stickers. “Yes We Did” is the 2008 Obama victory sticker.
My Obama bumper sticker is very faded and frayed but it can still be read from a distance. It has been on my car for 8 years. The arid high mountain desert in Colorado may have something to do with it lasting so long. I rarely get asked why I still keep it on, but sometimes I do get asked, and my husband insists that our mechanics like to call my car the “Obama mobile”.
I have not removed my “Yes We Did” bumper sticker because I made a solemn promise, eight years ago, to a woman, a stranger to me, that I would never remove it, ever. It will have to fade away on its own from wind, from rain, from dirt and sun. I keep it there because eight years ago, when this country elected its first black president, that woman’s brother had been pulled from his car and beaten to near death, by strangers, just because he drove to a gas station with the same victory sticker on his car. I keep it there for him.
I only add bumper stickers if they have significant meaning for me. I will never accept trump as my president and I will never remove my “Not My President” bumper sticker from my car.