Prior to the election, I wrote a piece for Chronicles about political yard signs. I neglected then to comment on something respecting that topic that is perhaps worthy of comment now that the election is past.

The climate of the country at present—especially exaggerated in the cities, but palpable even in places like Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, where I live—is such that a person may post anything at all in his yard if it is oriented toward the anti-Trump, anti-populist left and expect no tangible negative repercussions.

The people who put Harris-Walz signs in their yards, or even those who put signs up that compare Trump to STDs or vermin know with near certainty that no one will do anything more confrontational than chuckle in disgust while shaking their heads silently as they walk by. These people know that no one will even dare to ask them why they feel compelled to display these sentiments in their yards. Indeed, in spite of their purported belief that Donald Trump and his supporters are monstrous lunatics and Nazis, they are remarkably confident that none of those Trump voters are likely to vandalize their homes, cars, or in any way react criminally to these outward expressions of their political opinions. Again, this is the case even when those expressions include such vile stuff as Trump being akin to a species of tick or a sexually transmitted disease.

Here is a proposed test going forward: Let’s watch to see whether those on the left who screamed about how terribly, terribly dangerous it would be for people like them if Trump won—because of the coming camps, naturally—now act  in a way that is consistent with real belief in their claims. That is, let’s see if in mortal fear they go totally silent now, which is what you’d expect if they really believed the Trump political police are waiting to beat down their doors in the middle of the night and haul them off for antifascist thought crimes.

Does anyone believe that will happen, or do we expect they will continue spewing their hatred of everything Trump at top volume? I think you can guess what my prediction is.

People on the right, by contrast, know very well the risks of posting the wrong sign on their lawns. They know how unscrupulous and unhinged many on the TDS left can be. They know that the wrong sign on their lawn is read instantly by some sizable portion of the left as a target.

They know that some of them will react to such a sign with “Let’s key their car” or “Let’s rip their sign down and keep ripping it down as long as they keep putting it back up.”

Others will refrain from such criminal reactions, but they will note the fact very carefully and start thinking of ways to cause problems for the people who have posted the wrong sign. Pro-Trump sign posters can often expect ostracism, at the low end of the spectrum and efforts to harm their professional lives, at the higher end.

I would never dream of putting any political signage on my lawn for exactly these reasons. I work in academia, so I know with great precision just how crazy some of the crazies are.

It appears many other American voters understand the situation in the same way. I also have no doubt that political polls in this age are corrupted by this fact. I would never tell a phone pollster who I was voting for. Never. Ever. I am sure I am not in the minority on this.

While I am heartened by the results of last week’s election, my enthusiasm is tempered by the fact that there is so much evidence of the woke left’s poisoning of the broader civic culture of our country. To the extent that respectable American voters on the right are afraid to let others in their own neighborhoods know too much about what they think politically, we are still not living in a free country.