How Two Montana Democrats Wish They Hadn't Spent Election Day

Late afternoon on Election Day, before the dismal returns began coming in, I was copied on an email from a friend of a friend, a guy I’ve never met in person, but who has been a reader of this blog for several years.

John’s story was terrifying when I first read it, but as that unhappy evening wore on, it grew into a sort of metaphor for what was happening to the rest of us.

Trust me, John’s night was worse than ours. He and his wife Julie spent it in fear for their lives.

They had been living their dream retirement in the wilderness of Western Montana, on a mountainous property four miles from town, but two miles from their own mailbox. To them, this was an idyllic lifestyle, a home in the woods, exactly what they wanted. But in recent months, it had all turned dark, and the blame is entirely Trump’s.

As long as a year ago, John had written privately to several friends, including me, about the extreme Trumpy-ness of his adopted region. There was trepidation, bordering on dread, even then.

Somehow, their accents, their education, and their general worldliness touched off a nerve in their new community, and branded them as what? Elite? Liberal? Intelligent? Whatever it was, they attracted an unexpected animosity that brought real anxiety into their everyday lives.

One night in late August, a neighbor — whom they’d never met — fired four rounds from a shotgun, the last one into their deck. The pellets narrowly missed their three terrified cats and came alarmingly close to John in his pajamas and slippers.

When John confronted this neighbor, he was greeted with three blows to the face, one resulting in possible eye damage. He was called a “liberal faggot,” and told that “the guns come out in November,” presumably referring to the election. This was followed by the bizarre claim that "I talk to Donald Trump every day, and he supports me," as if that explained everything. And perhaps it does.

In this particular part of the country, legal recourse for such behavior is largely unavailable. The law enforcement community does not respond to reports of gunshots — if they did, they’d be backlogged into the next decade. Besides, as one deputy put it, “You moved to Montana without a gun? Are you crazy?”

By now it was clear John and Julie needed to rethink their retirement. In October, they put their home up for sale.

For the first open house showing, the neighbor festooned the property line with huge Trump signs, flags reading “Fuck Biden,” a t-shirt depicting assault weapons, and a sign saying “Deport them all.”

The placement of these items was strategic, intended to discourage potential buyers. The open house, unsurprisingly, was a bust.

A week later, John opened his mailbox to find a hangman’s noose, a fresh animal turd, and a cardboard sign reading “J+J Your dead 54,” but no mail.

The “J+J” came from the sign in front of their property. Apparently, “54” is cop-speak for a dead body. When Julie noted that the sender couldn’t spell, the deputy at the scene asked her what was misspelled.

Meanwhile, with the election approaching, Trump’s campaign was ramping the violent rhetoric up to eleven. The atmosphere in many parts of the state, including theirs, became charged with menace. As John put it:

…[T]here's no talking to Trumpers unless you glorify Trump by the time you utter your second sentence. If you emit the slightest liberal funk, Republicans will steer the subject to violence against your person. And it isn't generic, like "I hope you die." It's specific — descriptions of the guns, knives, ammunition, and so forth. You will be lucky to get back in your car or into your home because a punch to the face is milliseconds away. A conversation with a Republican will last ten seconds, max, and if you haven't declared your loyalty to Trump by then, you will be greeted with violence.

They managed to get several restraining orders against the neighbor, the first of them begrudgingly issued by a judge who’s an open Trump supporter. The neighbor’s guns were to be temporarily confiscated, though it was never confirmed that the order was carried out. Meanwhile, they hurriedly installed spotlights and motion detectors on their property.

On election night, John was sufficiently edgy that he wrote out the basic story I’m repeating here, and sent it to some friends, alarming all of us. He was wondering, quite explicitly, if he and Julie would survive the night.

I’m happy to report that the night was uneventful, though they heard at least eighteen gunshots, presumably in celebration. Still, they were relieved, even as they understood that a reasonably decent democracy might soon be on life support.

Their situation remains fraught until they can sell and leave. Lawyers are now engaged. John now owns a gun for the first time in his life. This is who we are now.

Metaphors are rarely perfect, but given the electoral spasms of that night, this neighbor from hell seems an archetype for what much of our population has become, almost without our knowing.

Who knew we were living among tens of millions of ignorant, racist, misogynist dupes? Yes, we knew they were there, but we had no idea there were so many, or how brainwashed they actually were. Vast swathes of the electorate have been steeped so long in blatant lies and malicious propaganda, they fail to even perceive their own interests, let alone vote with them in mind.

John and Julie understand this better than most. They spent election night actually living out the terror that the rest of us were just starting to imagine.

Our imaginations are quickly catching up with them.