"F*** Em' Both 2024"
"F*** Em' Both 2024"
How one Tennessee yard sign sums up the mood of a nation
I believe in signs. Some are figurative: a pigeon landing next to me telling me to text my friend “Pigeon.”
Some , though, are literal: the sign at Pal’s, a burger chain here in East Tennessee which always has an inspiring message on the marquee, or the campaign yard sign in West Tennessee which read simply, if controversially, “F*** Em’ Both 2024.”
Julia Pereira of Lakeland, just outside Memphis, was awarded more than $31,000 after a federal judge found the city had violated her constitutional rights by fining her for the sign. That’s the right decision, but I am baffled that it ever came to this – not because the violation of Ms. Pereira’s First Amendment rights is so blatant. Rather, I find it baffling because who could possibly disagree with her?
I am a journalist, but a small-time one. I’ve been fortunate to be published in national and international outlets in the past, but I have always resided in the heartland. My career began in Chicago, but I grew up in Ohio and Kentucky and for the past six years have lived in North Carolina and Tennessee. Not the tony parts, either, but a military town on the coast and deep in the heart of the Appalachian Mountains.
I mention my life’s journey not to establish flyover credibility, but to make a point: I am surrounded by regular Americans every day. I am not George Clooney. I am not Liz Cheney. I am nobody, yet I am increasingly convinced I am also everybody.
Americans are not as divided as the media would have us believe. Most of us, based on conversations I’ve had from Lake Michigan to the Gulf of Mexico, are united on at least this: We’re tired.
Tired of every day feeling like a crisis.
Tired of the hate.
Tired of the division.
Tired of the extremity of the Republican Party and the delusions of the Democratic Party.
Tired of the cable news anchors and talking heads who breathlessly stoke the flames of national division and tired of being offered the same stale choices over and over again.
Ronald Reagan may have ushered in morning in America, but that was before I was born. It’s twilight now, and we are so very tired.
Poll after poll after poll shows that Americans are unhappy with our choice this November. The latest polling shows the majority of Americans disapprove of Biden's job performance. Yet the majority of Americans also have an unfavorable view of Trump.
Increasingly, I hear friends, family, neighbors, and anyone who finds out I write about politics (there aren’t a lot of political journalists here in Johnson City) saying the same thing: “This? Again?”
For much longer, though, I’ve heard a sort of resigned sigh from virtually everyone, left, right, and center. There was no changing this rematch, the reasoning went, because Trump’s grip on the GOP is too strong and Biden’s incumbency made any primary a formality, at best.
Ordinary Americans did not feel any real control over this election. The feeling – rightly or wrongly, and I think it’s a mix of both if I’m being frank – was that the decision of who to nominate was foregone.
In a nation crying out for change, our betters told us our option was more of the same or more of what we didn’t want four years ago. We had no chance to be heard, no choice for a future that wasn’t more of the past.
Until now.
I am a journalist, as I said. But I am not anyone you’ll have ever heard of. I live in an old mill with a small dog. My neighbors are not powerful Beltway insiders. They are nursing assistants, mechanics, police officers, teachers, and a pastor. I write this not as a journalist, but as one of them.
America is tired. We need a change.
The Democratic Party has a chance to offer that change.
This isn’t just about Joe Biden and whether he is fit to serve a second term, though it ‘s not not about that. This is about a country in crisis. A people in pain. A moment in history calling out for a leader, for a profile in courage. That is something neither of the two men on offer can provide.
I understand how profoundly unfair and even ridiculous it is to call for Biden to step aside without calling for a 34-time convicted felon who tried to overthrow the government to step aside. But Donald Trump is morally bankrupt and will never relinquish power willingly. I know this because I watched January 6 happen just like the rest of the country. Talk about asking us to disbelieve our lying eyes – Trump has done plenty of that.
But I hope that Joe Biden is not morally bankrupt. I hope that his professed love of country will win out over his personal or political ambitions. I hope for change – the kind of generational bridge Biden promised us four years ago.
Will a new Democratic nominee magically heal the deep wounds a decade of division have inflicted upon our body politic? No. They can offer a way forward, though – a way out of the muck and mire of our current squalid era where policy is replaced by mudslinging and a nice lady is so fed up with the state of things that she goes to court just to be able to say “f*** em.”
Because that is where we, the people are at. “F*** em’.”
I mean no disrespect to either Mr. Trump or Mr. Biden, but we are tired of you both. Neither one of you has earned the right to a second term because neither one of you are trustworthy. You both think you’re entitled to this nomination. To the presidency. But you’re not.
We are. We, the people.
The American people demand a leader who will unite us and who we can trust. We want someone with a vision for the future. It’s time for change. We didn’t think we could have it, but now we do. We can see it.
I believe in signs. I hope Mr. Biden takes this as one. Because when a woman feels so angry at her choices that she goes to court just to be able to say “f***” the only two people on offer to hold the most respected office in our land, something has gone profoundly wrong.