It’s not just the rhetoric that’s intensified. A slogan from the 1950s, such as “I Like Ike,” or “All the Way with Adlai” scans as positively quaint next to a car bumper that roars “Trump the Bitch.” The president’s iconic 2008 affirmation, “Yes We Can,” has found a malignant echo in the anti-Trump “Yes, We Klan.” These days, they’re a gauge of our escalating political rancor. Bumper stickers used to be a cheap and humble means of announcing public support for a candidate. My immediate response was a rant roughly as mature as my kids’ nursery rhyme. ![]() Drawing closer, we saw that the sticker on the window didn’t read “Hillary for President.” It read “Hillary for Prison.” We speculated that the vehicle belonged to a couple with opposing loyalties. Its rear bumper touted Trump, while the message on its cab window heralded Hillary. Outside Derry, my wife noticed a truck on our right. My children squealed each time they spotted one and began to chant, “Donald Trump! Donald Trump! Donald Trump has a big fat rump!” - a practice upon which I frown, often while smirking. ![]() Pickup trucks rule the rural routes of my swing state neighbor, and several of their bumpers featured Donald J. I fared better on a recent trip to New Hampshire. Unfortunately, in the midst of an election season rich in gawking, there haven’t been many bumper stickers to gawk at in my reliably blue neighborhood outside Boston. If that’s not an apt description of the zeitgeist, I don’t know what is. ![]() They are blunt, dogmatic, occasionally witty and often provocative. There is something quintessentially American about political bumper stickers.
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