Landmarks

and an upcoming event for Cheri Beasley

We’re home, Frog Troublers! The cats are doing great (if a little miffed we left them), Bea’s plants survived, and later we’re going to check on on the tadpoles Harriet released to a little pond near the river. The sweltering heat has broken—it’s 60 degrees right now, which feels amazing—and we passed a cool new anti-landmark on our way home that I want to tell you about.

I’m partial to local, private landmarks. The boulder painted with a sun-faded peace sign. The twin gnarled oaks in the middle of a field (one toppled in a storm). The lady’s yard crowded with fowl: ducks, chickens, geese, guinea hens. Those little things that tell you you’re home.

Most of the landmarks near our house are welcome sights, but there was one that caused Bea to shake her fist as we drove by: a giant Trump sign left up long after the election was over. Long as in, a year and a half later. We don’t know these neighbors—we don’t know the goose and duck lady either, though we’d like to—so I’m not sure if they were just waiting for Trump to run again, or if they really believed the big lie Trump and so many Republicans have been actively peddling or allowing to circulate for so many months. The big lie that caused the deaths of nine people, including five police officers, in connection to the January 6 insurrection.

Trained on the giant sign, which probably cost a pretty penny (Trumpworld doesn’t give those things away), was a security camera—just in case someone wanted to spray-paint it or take it, which is not really how most people around here roll. Beneath it, a “we believe” sign touting LAW AND ORDER and ALL LIVES MATTER.

Well, the Trump sign disappeared a few weeks ago—notably, this happened in the midst of the January 6 hearings, which exposed as nothing else has the deadly hypocrisy of Trump and his allies, who say they care about law and order, about the lives of police and first responders, even about their own supporters, when they’ll actively foment, encourage as it happens, and refuse to stop a brutal attack on police officers and people in their own party. Little by little, the ugly truth is coming through—maybe some even uglier truths, as we learn more about what the FBI recovered in their search of Mar a Lago last week.

As we made our way home late yesterday, we saw that the sign is still down. Richard thought they might have sent it away for maintenance or something, but it’s really, truly gone. The smaller law and order/second amendment/all lives sign is still up. But I wonder if it’s a weight off that neighbor’s mind, not having to pass a Trump sign every time he gets the mail or goes to the store.

I feel hopeful that we’re making progress, and hugely hopeful about the climate bill, which passed the house on Friday and will be signed into law by President Biden this week. Every Democratic senator voted for this bill, which is why it passed (narrowly), and every Republican voted against it. Every Democratic House member voted for it, and every Republican voted against it. It’s a BFD, as Biden told President Obama when the Affordable Care Act passed—the most significant climate legislation ever passed in this country.

Even as we celebrate, we have to remember how close it was. We’ve got to hold, and strengthen our hold, on the Senate. And we have such good candidates this year. John Fetterman, a down-to-earth dude who started his public service career as a social worker, is well ahead of medical misinformation-spreader Dr. Oz in Pennsylvania. Retired naval combat aviator, NASA astronaut, and incumbent senator Mark Kelly is also pretty comfortably ahead of Blake Masters, a 36-year-old venture capitalist/America firster who earned Trump’s support by supporting the big lie, even claiming that January 6 was set up by the FBI. But incumbent senator Rev. Raphael Warnock, who grew up in public housing and has had a stellar career in public service, is within the margin of error over that crazy football player. Val Demings (a former police chief and veteran police officer) is gaining on Marco Rubio, but it’s a tough fight.

In North Carolina, our own Cheri Beasley—a former Chief Justice of the NC Supreme Court who started her career as a public defender—is in a close race with the execrable Ted Budd, whose claim to fame is that he owns a shooting range and gun store. Cheri is all about protecting the environment, reproductive rights, expanding access to healthcare, growing good jobs, and strengthening our right to vote. We need Cheri in the senate.

I’m really proud to be part of an event that will support her campaign—helping to support canvassers, TV and web ads, and social media outreach that will get the word out about what a huge difference she’ll make in the U.S. Senate. On September 7, I’ll join John Grisham, Jill McCorkle, Jaki Shelton Green, Wiley Cash, and Gabriel Bump at a cocktail reception at the Grisham home and a reading at the Varsity Theater. You can join us (or support Cheri’s campaign) here. I hope you’ll join us or donate—and please, please spread the word with your Grisham fan (and McCorkle fan!) friends (email me for a PDF invite, if you like). It’s gonna be a great time.

We’ll see you later this week with some kid posts about our beach trip, Frog Troublers! Enjoy this beautiful day and please tell us, what’s your favorite extra-local landmark? Mine is probably the bald eagle tree across the river.