My wife and I visited her family in Montana over the Independence Day holiday (and beyond). I was interested in contrasting conditions and sentiments here with those back in South Dakota. My home state never shut down because of the ChiCom virus, thanks to a wise governor, Kristi Noem (R), who understood that the Bill of Rights trumps authoritarian mandates that infringe on those rights. And most South Dakotans (except for those Minnesota ex-patriots who bailed out of their People’s Republic to escape the Democrat-Farm-Labor Party’s draconian malarkey) sensibly took responsibility for their own health and welfare and acted accordingly, as should be the case for all Americans.

As a result, life was minimally impacted for most South Dakotans although there were some local mask mandates, as well as those in the national chain stores like Walmart and Costco with which we had to deal. One silver lining about masks is that the people who still wear them outside and/or in their personal vehicles are easily marked for the fools that they are. I feel particularly sorry for those who continue to force their kids to wear masks, including outside, as there is plenty of evidence that masks are harmful to children in particular.

But what about Montana? Things are getting back to normal, as the new Republican Governor Greg Gianforte lifted the mask mandate and signed a “virus liability shield” back in February. This was common sense relief long sought by most Montanans and delivered by a Republican: no masks in stores, none in restaurants, and no constraints on family or other gatherings. My in-laws assure me that one of the reasons why incumbent Democrat governor Steve Bullock was defeated last November was because of his arbitrary authoritarianism in responding to the virus – not to mention the “Trump effect.”

If you think the latter is nonsense, then you should take a driving tour through a few small towns in Montana and check out the pro-Trump banners, flags, and signs that still decorate a LOT of houses and fence lines. I can assure you that a number of those signs are not leftover from the election campaign and are VERY up-to-date (and definitely NOT complimentary to The Hologram – many “f-words”). A lot of people are adamant that the election was stolen; they can even explain why (e.g., the pause, the election irregularities reported in the news, the statistical improbability of Biden’s “comeback” in the middle of the night, Trump winning the bell-weather counties, etc.). I’ve never quite seen anything like it: the virulent emotions expressed by some of the locals expressed in those signs and in passing conversations in support of a defeated candidate over 8 months after an election! The Democrat-media complex and many RINOs are clueless about the bond that President Trump maintains with his supporters to this very day. [As an aside, those are the same sentiments in South Dakota – possibly even more so.]

My in-laws (my wife has hundreds of relatives here) assured me that “everyone they knew” voted for Trump and are furious at what they perceive to have been a “stolen election.” Okay, this may be written off by the average legacy media hack as meaningless, but I’ll take the anecdotal evidence from real people to the lies conveyed by the average Democrat-run media poll any day of the week.

One reason for our visit was to attend the wedding of one of my wife’s second cousins. This was an outdoor wedding out in the backcountry of a large ranch, with perhaps 400 people in attendance. I saw one kid wearing a mask. The rest of the people in attendance were shaking hands, hugging, back-slapping, and visiting in close quarters “in the shed” during the large buffet-banquet after the wedding (wonderful shrimp, chicken, beef tips, and all the fixings cooked on-site by one of my wife’s caterer relatives, of course). Lots of side conversations about politics, the election (after all this time!), and life in general making me wonder how many other states (especially those run by authoritarian Democrats) would not allow such gatherings these days – or were prevented over the past year. The execrable Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI) and the MSNBC media hacks would have screamed that that wedding was a “super-spreader event” as part of their fear-mongering campaign. How laughable – and infuriating – does that seem in retrospect? One thing for sure: there wasn’t anyone at that wedding that I could tell who was worried about catching the virus! It was great to observe normality after the endless Democrat-media-ChiCom fear-mongering about the virus over the past 18 months.

On Tuesday, I wore my red t-shirt with the logo, “Proud Member of the Basket of Deplorables,” in order to see what kind of reactions it would elicit, if any, from the locals. Stopping at a Subway for lunch, we ran into a short, stocky, and tattooed red-haired woman in line who immediately gave a thumbs-up and started talking about the foolishness of wearing masks as we pointed to an unfortunate family of five ahead of us, all of whom were masked. Turns out, the woman was a physician’s assistant who was in the process of becoming certified as a doctor, and she waxed eloquently about masks, Trump, and the election. Before we left, several other people gave me the thumbs-up, too.

In past years, I doubt if most of these people (including my in-laws) would have responded to similar political t-shirts (I wear such shirts-with-messages routinely, and in past years, most are silent). People seem to be more open about their political positions these days. How could they not after having observed with some shock the devastation being wrought by The Hologram’s “America Last” policies since Inauguration Day? They are aghast at the assault on traditional American values (“the NFL is ‘gay’”), law enforcement, and their Judeo-Christian beliefs. They are astounded that 400+ Americans are being held in pre-trial confinement for what amounts to criminal trespassing charges for most of them while they see BLM and Antifa types get off scot-free for their criminal actions in the streets of America’s Democrat-run cities. And many of them instinctively believe that the election was stolen because they don’t know anybody who would have voted for this malarkey. They shake their heads at the illogic that a man who didn’t even campaign for the job and couldn’t draw more than a couple of hundred attendees (paid?) for his handful of rallies could somehow receive the most popular votes – by a lot! – in the history of US presidential elections. And they know that the pause and surge of “Biden ballots” afterward on Election Day night smell to high Heaven.

Americans are sensible people, by and large. Yes, there are a large number of sheep who have been brainwashed and corrupted by incessant Democrat-media agitprop over the past couple of decades. And many are afraid to leave their safe cocoons – some by lifelong habit, others for emotional reasons (including the Stockholm syndrome). But there is a large core who are law-abiding citizens, who pay their taxes, who practice civic courtesy in their daily lives, who are God-fearing people, and who understand that it is their personal responsibility to help thwart the cultural Marxism running rampant in the country. These people are called patriots, and they know what is expected, despite the denigration of leftists and attempts by the Democrats to paint all Trump supporters as “domestic terrorists.”

And I can assure you that a LOT of people in Montana, South Dakota, and other states are patriots to the core. We’re faithful to our several oaths and are not going to cede the futures of our kids and grandkids to the likes of San Fran Nan, The Squad, and the rest of the loco weeds.

The end.