It’s that time of year again, when political yard signs sprout like an invasive species from the planet Partisanship.
You have, of course, every right to put a sign in your yard that says you like blue or red or even kale, just as you can put a bumper sticker on your car that boasts your child is an honor student or that your child can beat up the honor student. We are not here to speak of rights.
One of the saving graces of bumper stickers is that for each of us, they usually appear once and then they’re gone. This is still frustrating, however, because so many have to see it except for the person who put it there.
One of the problematic things about political yard signs is that anyone who drives or walks down your street is informed that you support a politician who likely aggravates close to half the population. It’s like seeing the inflatable reindeer that you and everyone else bought at Walmart for all of December, but worse.
The real offense is when we’re still seeing that half-deflated reindeer in March.
There was a time when Durango mandated that political signs had to come down after an election. This was sensible, but alas, unconstitutional. Durango has ingeniously solved the problem by drafting a new code that says any sign can stay up forever. It sometimes seems that the flaw in the American spirit is believing that if something is good, more of it must be better. This has a corollary: believing that if you can do something, you should.
But this is not so. We hear sometimes about virtue-signaling, a process by which one proclaims to the world that they are not racist, or a fan of Hillary Clinton, or the Paleo diet. With furious political rhetoric, memes and fake news already occupying much of social media, a political yard sign seems like vice-signaling.
Why do we need more conflict in our yards? It’s like driving around Colorado with a “Go Raiders!” bumper sticker. The best you can hope is that you antagonize someone.
And chances are your party affiliation is the least interesting thing about you. Surely, it’s the least distinguishing.
A Democrat recently told us her yard sign says she doesn’t support fascists. Republicans say virtually the same thing. Fascists seem to be in vogue right now. Here’s hoping that does not spill over to Halloween costumes, although we do expect to see a bunch of little Trumps.
We do not mean to suppress voter participation or enthusiasm. But we do hope we might think twice about this venerable yard-sign custom that may have outlived the use it once had, when Democrats and Republicans could tolerate one another.
We don’t think a plea for more modesty in these troubled times, when the president repeatedly proclaims himself a genius, is amiss. And should you keep the sign, we do not think it is too much to ask, city code or no, that you at least take down your faded reindeer before spring arrives.
In the bad old days, we had curtains on voting booths for a reason. Coloradans now have mail ballots and can vote in the privacy of their homes. Privacy solves so many things.
