SEARCHING FOR SIGNS

From Wisconsin to North Carolina: What I saw while traveling from one battleground state to the other ...

As this piece publishes, I will have started on the 1,200-mile trail home that bends hard to the northwest and connects the Battleground State of North Carolina to the Battleground State of Wisconsin.

Such are the highly charged political times we live in …

I am remembering a similar journey almost eight years ago to the day, when my wife and I made the drive to South Carolina and back. Those were less ominous days when I lived in a place inside my head that arrogantly ignored all the warnings, and was incapable of even considering the looming attack.

All along the route that cut through rural Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina and finally South Carolina, there were thousands of signs cautioning of the impending storm that was coming.

They littered yards, highways, and strip malls … They were in front of building and along byways …

Those blasted blue, white and red signs stood planted in the ground one after another defiantly daring people not to stare at the them.

Trump/Pence … Trump/Pence … Trump/Pence …

They were in every predominantly white community we breezed through during our whirlwind ride, but we paid them no mind, because what on God’s green Earth did these people have to be so damn angry about, and what could possibly recommend such an obviously vile old man?

The economy had returned to what passes for normal in America after the terrible crash eight years earlier. We were finally the hell out of Iraq, and the United Kingdom was proving they were the misguided country by voting for something that was preposterously stupid, self-defeating, and racist called “Brexit.”

I mean, what kind of country is stupid enough to vote against its own interests …?

Besides, Hillary was going to win no matter what all these ridiculous signs said, because the alternative was just too impossible to even contemplate. I remember telling a variation of this, replete with a haughty shrug, to anybody who was foolish enough to listen to me.

We never did see even one Clinton/Kaine sign during the 1,150-mile drive.

Not one.

Then came the horrific blast on the evening of November 8, 2016, that rocked the world, and sent me spiraling. At four in the morning the next day, I sat alone in the darkness of my den, slugging from a celebratory bottle of booze that had now turned elixir for my pain. I called my daughters, but only got through to my youngest: “I’m sorry,” I said when she picked up. “I really didn’t think we had this in us …”

I’m guessing you’ll have your own story.

Never forget …

For the past 28 days I have been on the windy Outer Banks of North Carolina pacing the beaches, and working feverishly to spread the good word about the accomplished woman, who simply must be the one who finally smashes the glass ceiling and claims the top prize.

Once again I’m telling people that the alternative is just too impossible to even contemplate. Only now I am saying it with an urgency that worries even me when I really get to thinking about it — which is pretty much all the time.

The warning signs are everywhere. The madman is once again on the loose. The guardrails that are supposed to keep such evil in check have been smashed to smithereens. There have been catastrophic failures by our Justice Department and the woeful press.

Trump’s very own chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is telling us Donald Trump is the most dangerous man in America, and it is barely getting a shrug from people who should damn well know better.

I came to North Carolina searching for perspective, and to draw strength for this endless presidential campaign’s finishing kick. I’m not sure I found all that, or have even an inkling of what the majority of the good people in that state will do with their votes on November 5th.

But there are signs of hope …

The state has the look and feel of a classic toss-up, where the littlest thing could make an enormous amount of difference. The governor’s race is on the ballot, and though it seems impossible, the revolting Republican candidate, Mark Robinson, could actually be a drag on the bottom-feeding Trump, who has endorsed Robinson and all his hate and ugliness.

The Democrat Josh Stein will win that race, or I will eat every hat in my closet November 6th. The race for the presidency could well come down to how many Republicans split their votes, and somehow tap both Stein and the despicable Trump.

Signs are Robinson is only hurting the ghastly Trump, though.

I’m a big fan of the state’s Democratic Party Chair Anderson Clayton, and believe she is a generational talent who has her finger on the pulse of the voters in Carolina. She knows that turning out those voters will be the key to the kingdom. Too many people who should don’t vote in the Tar Heel State, and in the past that has spelled Big D Doom for the Little D Democrats.

This certainly isn’t specific to North Carolina, but in a state that is on the political knife’s edge, just a few votes here or there can end up making a clear-cut difference.

I departed the state just as early-voting was starting, and with the high hopes that buoyed my arrival: If not this year North Carolina, when?

There are more good signs that Carolinians are turning out and voting like never before. Experts in the state will point you to Mecklenburg County, the home of Charlotte, as Ground Zero for a real opportunity for Democrats to find thousands of new voters. For example, fewer than 19 percent of registered Mecklenburg County voters cast ballots in the 2024 primary in March, compared to 24 percent statewide. This disparity has played out in just about every election in recent memory.

Voting lines were long in Charlotte on Thursday, and Clayton and her lieutenants have made sure there are salaried boots on the ground in the city for the first time ever to keep driving this crucial Democratic turnout.

These voters have unique super powers because of their proximity to the front lines of this epic battle between good and evil. They have influence many of us don’t. If you’ve got some spare change jangling around in your pockets, or some time on your hands, the hard-working Democrats in Mecklenburg County could put it to good use ...

Now I have unpinned myself from the Atlantic Coast. I am once again working my way north/northwest, keeping my eye on the road, but always looking for the signs.

I am a far different man than the one who made this similar journey eight years ago. I am weary … less trusting. I know what my country is capable of now, both the good: “We must take that beach no matter the cost to beat back the Nazis …” And the bad: "We got a lot of bad genes in our country. They're eating the dogs, the people that came in, they're eating the cats …"

We have it in us to do literally anything, but I once again have chosen to expect the best. Sure, I will give the worst its due because it has proven itself a devilish adversary, but I will not fear it, because I have far better things to do with what little time we have left in this election.

On Tuesday, Barack Obama will be coming to my town with the man Kamala Harris tapped to be her Vice President, Tim Walz.

I plan to be there with gusto.

I will be shoulder to shoulder in Madison, Wisconsin, with thousands of others who have done nothing but meet the moment the past eight years.

We have worked tirelessly and swapped out a bought-off Republican governor, Scott Walker, for a two-term, popular Democratic one named Tony Evers. We have put in the time to win a handful of huge elections that turned our State Supreme Court from hard Right to a steady Left. We have finally thrown out the most gerrymandered maps in the nation, and replaced them with fair maps that favor only the better candidates — Blue or Red.

We have beaten the traitor, Trump, and damn sure will again.

Wisconsin has done what North Carolina most certainly has it in it to do, and I bring news that there are signs everywhere that they will.

(D. Earl Stephens is the author of “Toxic Tales: A Caustic Collection of Donald J. Trump’s Very Important Letters” and finished up a 30-year career in journalism as the Managing Editor of Stars and Stripes. You can find all his work here.)