Can a Divided Country, or a Neighborhood Divided Reconcile?
What is the media’s role?
By Katy Grimes, May 26, 2025 2:55 am
The signs of political, personal and emotional distress are all around us. Acrid bumper stickers on Subarus and Priuses, yard signs declaring “Good People Don’t Support Nazis,” are still prominently posted in neighbor’s yards.
#Resist is alive in my downtown Sacramento neighborhood.
Hyperbolic “news” articles claim “Trump’s Alarming Escalation in Rhetoric Against the Judiciary,” and “As Trumps Monetize Presidency, Profits Outstrip Protests,” and “The Trump administration’s literally toxic agenda exposes ‘MAHA’ as a ruse.”
The anti-Trump “Respect the Rule of Law” yard sign is posted in many yards.
Media knowingly foment further division and polarization through selective reporting, intentionally omitting or including specious information, misleading headlines, fueling political divisions and outrage. And people glom onto these soundbites and plaster them on their cars, and post them in their front yards.
“Today, DEI, the Green New Deal, and the “critical theories”—legal, race, and monetary—in the university start with deductive reasoning and then warp evidence to support such faith-based dogmas,” Victor Davis Hanson explains in The Decivilizing of America. If any of the current violent pro-Hamas and anti-Semitic campus protests were instead directed at reducing abortion, ensuring that biological men do not compete in women’s sports, or banning racial preferences, the protestors would have long ago been arrested, expelled, or deported.
As Victor Davis Hanson addresses, “what we suffered from 2021 to 2025 was unprecedented. It was an intentional administration effort to de-civilize the nation by destroying its borders—as if to return to the premodern era, when there were no clearly defined or secure borders, and nomadic peoples migrated as they pleased.”
Who wants to walk up to a neighbor’s house for a friendly chat with a handmade yard sign declaring “Boycott the Billionaires?”
Or your neighbor’s big red Tesla that declares “I bought it before we knew how awful he is.”
or “Shut up Elon.”
There are plenty of Harris/Walz signs still on display, reminding neighbors of the virtue of the inhabitants:
and “Harris for President” signs are still posted:
This sign is pretty catchy… and foul. Imagine if that is your neighbor.
Of course “Kamala Harris is for the people” is still on several cars.
High schoolers (or teachers) staged a walk-out after the election and inauguration:
This remained posted for months.
And then there is the totally bizarre “Gender Affirming Car” bumper sticker on a Subaru:
This all is to say that people are so sick and tired of the racial divisiveness; people are sick and tired of having DEI nonsense rubbed in their faces; people are tired of mainstream media lying. CNN, CBS, MSNBC, ABS, PBS, NPR all conspired with the White House, despite the garbage in CNN Anchor Jake Tapper’s supposed tell-all book in which he tries to claim he just now realizes that President Joe Biden was seriously cognitively declining. The cover up by the White House and Biden appointees could not have happened had the media been truthful. Instead, they were so concerned about their “access” being threatened, they went along with the charade, never questioning who was really running the country.
And the virtue signaling with yard signs and bumper stickers is disrespectful and insulting, continuing to put forth lies, cover ups, divisiveness.
Grown ups move on. It’s the petulant children masquerading as adults who seem incapable of moving on, and their tantrums are on display for everyone to witness.
Californians are treated daily to one of the nation’s most petulant toddlers experiencing Trump Derangement Syndrome in Gov. Gavin Newsom, who thinks he deserves to be President.
“Gavin Newsom isn’t going to let all the mass shootings, follow home invasions, murders, robberies, stolen vehicles, and general feloniousness stop him from trying to convince you that crime is down in California,” Kevin Dalton posted to X Friday.
“This is Gov. Gavin Newsom gaslighting (a form of psychological abuse that makes someone question their sanity, memories, or reality). California has the cleanest air in the country. His 2035 ban on gasoline vehicles is about control, not clean air. Gavin’s lips are moving which means he must be lying,” I posted to X last week, as Gavin Newsom lied that California would suffer “More smog. More asthma. More pollution in our kids’ lungs,” because the U.S. Senate overturned his electric vehicle mandate to outlaw gas-powered cars by 2035.
Then he vowed yet another lawsuit against the Trump administration, claiming the Senate vote was “unconstitutional.”
It’s rather obvious that Gavin Newsom doesn’t really care about the environment as he continues to allow disease-ridden homeless encampments filled with drug-addicted, mentally-ill vagrants throughout the state destroy city sidewalks, downtowns, residential neighborhoods, public parks, rivers and lakes.
Notably, today’s cars have the cleanest burning gasoline engines ever. Newsom’s electric car mandate is a “Let Them Eat Cake” policy, forcing people out of cars they can afford into $60,000 – $80,000 electric vehicles, just as Marie-Antoinette’s cake reply was, when told that her starving subjects had no bread.
As VDH said:
“One of the great hallmarks of Roman civilization and subsequent Western civilization was its ability to create large cities by importing clean water, removing waste through sewers, and collecting garbage from the streets. Even in the age before microbiology, ancient and premodern city planners knew the connection between cleanliness and epidemics and how to lessen disease through sanitation.
But in the last two decades, our major cities have been de-civilizing. Citizens are told not to flush non-biodegradable plastics down their toilets, both to preserve the environment and to ensure municipal septic systems work properly. They are reminded to pick up their pets’ excrement on sidewalks and in parks. For purposes of collective health, they are taught not to urinate, spit, or defecate in public areas.
Is all that for naught? After all, our mayors and city councils in our biggest and most iconic cities simply destroyed centuries of such health protocols and allowed tens of thousands of homeless people with impunity to inject, urinate, defecate, and fornicate in or on storefronts, streets, gutters, parks, and sidewalks. The stench, flotsam, and jetsam have utterly transformed American inner cities. Central Seattle, Los Angeles, parts of San Francisco, Portland, and Washington, DC, now resemble medieval London or Paris—as if a millennium-long knowledge of basic public health was simply ignored or mocked. In truth, the centers of America’s big cities are spaces where public health protocols are no longer enforced, where all the ancient and hard-won rules of civilization no longer apply. It would likely be safer to walk through Dickensian London of 1850 than to take a nocturnal ride on the New York subway.”
For a more nuanced discussion than mine, enjoy this interview excerpt with Victor Davis Hanson, who reminds us daily how a rational adult behaves. It will be the most rewarding 20 minutes you have spent in a long time:
I forgot to include this obvious bumper sticker…
A California native and Navy mom, Katy lives in Sacramento, CA.
- Gavin Newsom is the First Governor to Make Homelessness a Way of Life - December 8, 2025
- Byrna Files Lawsuit Against CA for Blocking Ammunition Sales of Less-Lethal Weapons - December 8, 2025
- Hypocrite Alert: Gov. Newsom Blames Trump For Abandoning LA Fire Survivors - December 5, 2025
Yes, KG, my guess is that very few of those people with Harris/Walz campaign regalia still showing, will have an American flag displayed on Memorial Day. Starting with the educational system, it will take a generation or two before America is unified and great again. History books will say that President Trump was the one who started us on this journey back. We are in a culture war……In It to Win It.
The very first photo stating “Good people don’t support Nazi’s” complete with its obligatory rainbow lettering makes me shake my head. My father was in the Dutch Royal Navy and was captured early in World War II. He spent three and a half years in a German prisoner of war camp. His experience prompted me to better understand Germany and the Nazis. Average people today don’t have a clue about the Nazis or Hitler. They also know nothing about Mussolini or the Fascists in Italy. Just ask yourself who in the last ten years in the United States militarized censorship, promoted foreign wars, demanded groupthink at every level of education and weaponized the court systems to suppress and incarcerate political opposition. All these things were standard operating procedure for the Nazis. Well guess what, Democrats.
Today, as we honor the many who sacrificed their lives to give us liberty and pursue the American dream, I cannot ignore how far we have fallen as a country. Very few people fly the American flag on their homes these days. A flag that should unite each and every one of us.
People can fly their freak flags, just do not come after those who disagree in a caustic, violent manner, cloaked in compassion.
Adults have grown accustomed to their self centered lifestyle and ascribe to false narratives to fill a huge void. They have a need to shout it from the mountain tops! Sound familiar
So what exactly is a gender affirming car? A clown car perhaps!
I think most of these people are self loathing, they are miserable and need something to latch onto and someone to blame! They are detached from God, and misdirect their inherent need for goodness and righteous. Most folks who look to a higher power find joy and a better understanding in the world. The liberal left instead look to false Gods that fill that void, i.e. Climate Change, Equity and yes Gender affirmation.
There is a sickness when those who claim they hate, hate, Nazis and billionaires but worship the likes of a killer Luigi Mangione and the latest killer, Elias Rodriguez who murdered two Jewish embassy staffers. THEY WORSHIP KILLERS! What is lacking in their lives?
And what exactly is a gender affirming car? A clown car perhaps!😂
It is my dearest hope for this nation we win this culture war with reminding these poor souls there is something greater than their debased feelings. A revival is needed in this country. An appeal to heaven. Our founders knew the importance of God in their lives that guided them to create a country that would uphold the liberty born within each and every one of us.
God Bless the USA.
Cali Girl, my sense of gender affirming care is that money is a key component. Joseph Mengele-type doctors can make a killing mutilating adolescents and then double down when the mutilated patients decide to reverse the tragedy. Additionally, championing the less-than-one-percent of the population gender dysphoric/tranny mentally ill group creates a new class of victims. These days you can’t be an American unless you are some kind of victim.
So true @ Fed Up. Money is to be made.
Victimhood sadly is becoming cultish.
Katy Grimes’ neighborhood of humorless and passive-aggressive finger-wagging misfits seems to be a twin of mine. Over many years in my neighborhood, the sensible people who were trying to raise normal children departed, one by one, and now — with few exceptions — the people who have been enriched by govt jobs and so-called non-profits are fully ensconced. They live on their very generous pensions and other govt spoils nowadays. They are pathetic, disappointed people — mostly single women — who bought into the feminism and or their Marxist college education and saw, over time, that it gave them nothing, ZERO. Their bitterness and resentment is on full display and they swallow, or rather, enthusiastically EMBRACE, whatever is the latest bumper sticker meme or lawn poster or nasty media headline against big bad DJT or “the billionaires” because it allows them to express their vile and obnoxious insides that are clawing to get out; sort of like a twisted exorcism that never works.
The goal is to irritate reasonable people with these ridiculous displays. Bonus points for showing identity cards as members of the Nasty Brigade in Do-Gooder Clothing. But without the security of their Next-Door-empty-virtue-signaling network, who as a group act like Mean Girls (and Boys) against common-sense neighbors (see Covid), they are limp, useless, powerless, tax-money inhalers in human bodies. Ironically, they always seem to live in VERY nice (taxpayer-funded) suburban homes with lush landscaping in quiet, relatively crime-free neighborhoods. It’s like Invasion of the Body Snatchers in real life.
YES ——— definitely sick and tired of being surrounded and by these dead shark-eyed people and their nasty hostile cowardice and twisted world view oddly expressed by way of their pricey identity cars and expensive homes in the suburbs. If they all left town tomorrow in search of their new Utopia in another, cheaper state, these otherwise lovely neighborhoods would become paradises overnight.
Well said, @ShowandTell.
But can they leave the rest of us out their self imposed suffering? 😅
No kidding, Cali Girl. Now wouldn’t THAT be a nice change.
The #Resist radicals are obnoxiously active in our East Sacramento neighborhood as well. Someone named Becky Santos posts on Nextdoor every month about resist protests being held at the State Capitol. Nextdoor does nothing about her political posts. If anyone dares to post on Nextdoor about Gavin Newsom, Sacramento Mayor Kevin McCarty or any other Democrat politician, their posts would immediately taken down by Nextdoor.
Yesterday Becky Santos posted on Nextdoor that a nationwide protest “NO KINGS DAY” is planned for Saturday June 14 at the Sacramento Capitol from 10 am to 1 pm. The link she included with her post leads to a website called Indivisible which is connected with Mobilize America. The following verbiage was on the Indivisible website about the planned protest: “Join INDIVISIBLE Sacramento and all who value democracy as we gather to defy the authoritarian aspirations of Donald Trump. NO KINGS is a nationwide day of defiance. We are taking action to reject authoritarianism—and to show the world what democracy really looks like.”
While Becky Santos and other Democrat resist radicals in Sacramento attack President Trump non-stop, Sacramento has major problems like out of control crime, homelessness, streets full of potholes and cracks, closed businesses, etc. thanks to Mayor Kevin McCarty and Democrats who completely control Sacramento. It’s ridiculous how myopic they are.
The Indivisible activist group is funded by none other than George Soros. They will deny this but he launders his funding through progressive foundations that get paid to recruit the brown shirts to disrupt Town Halls in Rural and Suburban areas.
Becky most likely is an SEIU member paid to make those posts on social media all the while the officials look the other way.
Thanks Cali Girl for confirming what I suspected. I did some further research and according to Influence Watch, Indivisible has received over $8 million from George Soros’s Open Society Foundations and its sister organizations. Indivisible has also received more than $3 million from the Tides Nexus. LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman, had pledged to provide an undisclosed amount of funding to Indivisible in support of its “Truth Brigade” project, a project designed to “monitor” alleged right-wing “disinformation.”
My pleasure Samantha. Thank you for sharing what you discovered.
Yes it seems that all roads lead to George Soros and his evil spawn, little, dead eyed, Alex Soros.
Soros is doing this all over the world and we must not forget he crashed the Bank of London.
It is not lost on me that lunatics like Becky Santos are the minions of Billionaires who they claim to despise.
Guess what Becky Santos my billionaire, DJT is better than your billionaire!
So nuts!
It’s pathetic that Becky Santos and other #Resist Democrat lunatics in Sacramento refuse to admit that Gov. Gavin “Hair-gel Hitler” Newsom acts exactly like an authoritarian king? They blindly overlook the multitude of authoritarian things Newsom has done such as locking down healthy Californians while he and Weinstein trollop wife Jennifer extravagantly dined at the exclusive French Laundry restaurant with their elitist Democrat cronies, how he mandated untested and toxic mRNA covid shots for Californian health-workers and school employees, and how he spent $1.4 Billion of taxpayers funds on masks from the CCP connected company BYD that were mostly never delivered.
Maybe these #Resist Democrat lunatics need to go take some more mRNA covid booster shots?
Samantha, I am in Land Park. Our Nextdoor was just as horrid. And I got kicked off because someone posted one of my articles – I didn’t! So they kicked me off. Actually, it was a relief. The regulars are the most vile, partisan trolls.
And Indivisible is a really dubious group funded by billionaire oligarchs like Soros.
Great article. Also great posts by those posting comments here. Reconciliation? Who knows. Unfortunately.
“Respect the Rule of Law” signs. Posted in the yards of Leftists that have no clue about the Lawfare that has been brought down on the heads of Donald J. Trump and his family over the last ten years. That’s rich.
Pathetic MSNBC viewers all.
Come down to the 805 and take a picture of my red “Fire Newsom” car magnet that I bought on Amazon…
I get lots of thumbs up in Reagan Country….we enjoy our bubble….
We are experiencing an issue of self-selection in the state. Those vocal Californians, who seldom/never experience any intellectual push back on their political rantings, mistakenly (or not) believe that their opinions are universally accepted by their peers. This is partially due to the fact that most conservatives understand that honest debate on political issues is unproductive at best or counter-productive (due to people believing that conservatism = fascism warranting public/private vendettas against the offending individual), they just don’t engage. From personal experiences, I see my friends and acquaintances being surprised when I remind them that their last “opinion” doesn’t represent a universal truth for a majority of the US residents.
The internet has stolen the last chance for sanity. If you take all of the positions in the flags and banners in aggregate, you have an example of a dead culture. Nothing moves.
I can’t wait to see how smug they are when the third refinery shuts down. They are waiting to see who wins 2026 Guv. Two refineries are already beginning the wind down, a third is waiting.
Hating on Musk because of his proving and implementing practical electric cars is trumped by his efforts in cutting government grift and theft of tax money. Musk installed his own chargers on his dime, California grifters want taxpayers to pay for theirs. Who’s the jerk here? Look in the mirror.
California has turned into a laughing stock. When I travel out of California I put up my car window sticker “I am only Visiting”.
California has turned into an unserious mess run by lousy non-skill based middle and upper appointed management. If California stays democrat, it will actually crumble like our local roads.
answer 100% YES.
There is an attempt to implement a world wide control system over all of us but they have to keep us in “forever enemies” mode, the people with the yard signs are their biggest target audience.
As one by one people learn about the behind the scenes motives being played against all of us 24/7-the UN’s agenda 21/30 of control- disguised in every form of fake environmental concern or fairness for all people and animals bs, and the decades long psyops and campaigns to make us each other’s enemies, that we fund….then yes they will stop being played by these outside forces-America’s real enemy -once people are no longer controlled they people will naturally reconcile with their fellow Americans, its definetly not too late especially for CA.
Look around, ask around, people are increasing in the know about what this agenda really is the awareness is going in one direction.
As Michael Yon** and Rima Laibow*** have been saying-and Chip Roy* is attempting to do-We have to delete the UN and all its tentacles
*Rep. Roy Re-Introduces Legislation to Defund the United Nations
**https://rumble.com/v6t6mel-the-path-forward-with-michael-yon.html
***https://preventgenocide2030.org/
Today on the Nextdoor app someone named Wayne from the Tahoe Park area in Sacramento posted about his frustrating encounter with an “unhoused” man who is living in his vehicle with expired license tags who has been defecating and urinating in Tahoe Park for months. Wayne said that he was sick of him doing it so he told the guy to use the park restrooms instead which are open 24 hours. The guy then became enraged and threatened Wayne along with someone else who was nearby in the park. Wayne indicated that the the police were called a couple of times but they didn’t show up until much later after they had left the park. Wayne was upset that this has been going on for months and that city has done nothing to remove him. The park ranger patrol that the City Council promised last year for Tahoe Park has never materialized. Wayne wondered what the City of Sacramento is doing with all the taxes that are being collected and he stated that the current group of politicians are useless. (Note that Mayor Kevin McCarty and the city council members are all Democrats).
Wayne received some support for his post but there were some negative responses as well.
Yans Q. from Maple Street/The Avenues in Sacramento angrily posted: “This guy should have been moved a long time ago’? To where the f***? These are human beings who have and DO pay taxes also. We need to provide housing. I want my tax dollars to stop being used for war and start being used for housing the poor, the unhoused and feeding those in need. This mentality you exhibit is cruel.”
Katherine Beckham from South Land Park blamed Sacramento’s chronic homeless problems on Ronald Reagan posting that “Decades ago a politician closed the facilities to house mentally ill people” never mind the fact that he was governor decades ago. Katherine Q. from Tahoe Park chimed in posting “Gee, what politician could that have been? Still waiting for my trickle down check…” adding that it was “Reagan who started the homeless epidemic.”
Ceclia Synhorst from Tahoe Park posted “We have been dealing with an uprise in the homeless going on since Reagan closed down the mental hospitals, and it just keeps getting worse as time goes by.”
It sad that so many Sacramento residents are so brainwashed that they’ll never blame Democrats for the homeless and crime problems in the city despite Democrats being in control for decades.
I saw this satirical take on the “We Believe” yard signs on the American Thinker blog four years ago:
“We believe that a society in decline prioritizes virtue signaling and shallow talking points over concrete solutions and cold hard facts.”
Hi Katy, I’m suggesting some humor. This video channel I’m recommending is not exactly a remedy but can make you laugh at the world we’re living in if only a few seconds.
Joeybtoonz’s This Is Why I Stay #3
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8exskQCbUM
“This Is Why I Stay Home #3”
That is hilarious Roberta!!! Thank you – I needed that. – Katy
You are most welcome!! Glad I checked back.
Can a divided army win a battle or war?
It was our survival that was on the block!
Just have one or two like this in my immediate neighborhood, and I ignore them. Unsubscribed from NextDoor. Wear my Trump “Missed me” hat when going to Costco.
Frankly don’t consider people who have these signs, flags, etc. as fellow Americans. They are Californians. I’m an American who happens to live in California.