When I flew to Wisconsin last week for a college football game (my beloved Oregon Ducks faced the Wisconsin Badgers in the new Big Ten conference, and won!), I fully expected to have multiple conversations about politics and the results of the presidential election. After all, Wisconsin was a battleground state, where candidates held multiple rallies and the campaigns spent millions of dollars on television and social media ads to convince the few undecided voters left.  If Wisconsin was a battleground state, it sure didn’t look like a battlefield.  I saw only two pickup trucks with Trump stickers, and a few Harris or “Freedom” yard signs in Madison.  Even the Hovde (Eric Hovde, who is reputed to spend most of his time in California, lost his race against Senator Tammy Baldwin) sign near my daughter’s house that I saw on an earlier trip had disappeared.

The Washington metro area is a political bubble, the white-hot center of global politics, not surprising for a national capital.  Elected officials and high-level government employees reside in nearly every local jurisdiction, so political discussions are not uncommon.  During my Wisconsin trip, politics clearly were in the rear-view mirror. Conversations with residents and visitors centered on football, the weather, land use development (some farm fields are growing houses instead of crops) and the curious red and white striped game-day overalls worn by many Wisconsin students. The local television news reports focused on crime, traffic, and the number of arrests made for underage drinking at the game (fewer than 30 in an 80,000-seat stadium).

On one hand, it was refreshing not to have the specter of the next presidential administration agenda and nominations hovering over every conversation.  Perhaps it was campaign exhaustion or shock, not disinterest, that restrained discussion. On the other hand, as president-elect Trump completes his bizarre list of cabinet nominees and begins to implement his 2025 agenda, voters across America must not be silent about attacks on the precious democracy that has sustained this nation for nearly 250 years. There should be outrage from East to West, North to South, as voters, supporters or not, realize just what Trump and his cronies have planned, starting on January 20.  Trump’s inaugural speech in 2017 was dark and dystopian; his 2025 lecture promises to be another train wreck. Will he go off script and ramble on like one of his rallies, and sway with the music for another 39 minutes?  It will be one for historians to analyze for years.

Thanksgiving is celebrated in America this week, so I’d like to end on a positive note.  The sun still rises in the morning, family and friends still gather together, and economists note that both turkey and gasoline prices are lower this year than last.  Leaves are falling and holiday decorations are going up.  It’s a bit early, but a quote from Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” may be appropriate.  As Tiny Tim said, “God bless us, everyone!”