Here I am, in deep blue Oakland, California…walking around my neighborhood while wearing a camo-MAGA-Trump ball cap.  Pepper spray at the ready, just in case I wind up in a “situation.”  Instead, however, I receive mostly sincere compliments.

Just the other day a guy noticed my ball cap and just went rhapsodic over Trump while also thanking me for my effort.  Turns out he’s a Teamster.  Not only that, he’s also a shop steward.  He firmly confirmed that Trump is immensely popular among the rank-and-file.

Then I came upon a city public works crew that was setting up a job site.  After satisfying my curiosity over what they were going to do, I began to walk away…and the fellow I was talking to just blurted out “I really like your hat.”

Meanwhile there are many Harris/Walz yard signs—and zero Trump/Vance signs.  Being conspicuous can lead to slashed tires and/or broken windows…thanks to the alleged tolerance of woke progressives.  Thus, people like me are inclined to keep our opinions to ourselves.  Yet we persist.  This may also explain why Trump has outperformed his polling numbers in his previous campaigns.

And just now, while I was walking along, a guy in a bucket truck, working on the telecom lines, yelled down at me “I like your hat, more people should wear them!”  Then I passed a church where a while ago, on a Sunday afternoon, the minister who told me he was Nigerian, went overboard to say how much he liked Trump.

One lasting effect of the Trump phenomenon is the exposure of willful deceit on the part of the corrupt media.  Recently notable is the erroneous characterization of Trump’s use of the expression “bloodbath” to describe the negative impact a Harris victory would have on domestic automobile manufacturers.  The “news” twisted this into an out-of-context reference to spilling-over violence, à la January 6th, should he lose this year’s election.

Compare this to Kamala Harris.  She is such an empty vessel that she is doomed to continue to wither under the scrutiny that comes with being at the top of a national ticket.  What kind of trick will they pull to offset this damage?  Answer: They’ve already used them all.

In participating in his legal defense, Trump has already put the children of many lawyers through college…or paid off their mortgages…or both.  Thus far, would-be assassins have failed.  That the Ayatollahs have also allegedly put a price on his head can only boost his ratings.

And, as this process continues, defections are starting to pile up.  Some higher-ups at I.C.E. just released shocking figures on the various villains Biden/Harris have let slip across the border—just as Kamala squeezed out a photo-op where Arizona meets Mexico.

I’m expecting that, as Harris continues to shrink and Trump expands, I may no longer be the only MAGA hat wearer wandering the streets of a place the Dems have long taken for granted.  There are, of course, always going to be devoted Kool-Aid drinkers who must cling to obsolete dogma—like the old lefties just down the street who reflexively point to Hoover Dam as proof that government is a force for good.  Kamala Harris is a product of the same mold.  Her ideology is not the result of years of analytical study.  It was just there to fill her empty head.

Image: Johnny Silvercloud, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Flickr, unaltered.