Defusing the nation’s political climate will take more than a bomb squad
The call came in to Easton Police last Sunday at 9 a.m.: Someone had seen a Trump-Pence sign in the town’s popular and picturesque Idlewild Park with what might be a bomb attached to it. Police responded, confirmed the sighting and summoned the Office of the State Fire Marshal Bomb Squad. Three technicians, one coming from as far away as Laurel, sped to the Middle Eastern Shore town with full tactical gear. Wearing flak jackets, helmets and eye protection, they cautiously approached the device duct-taped to the yard sign and used an X-ray machine to determine its contents.
A bomb? An incendiary device? Worse? After the X-ray determined it contained no explosives or flammable materials, the trio of experts soon figured out it was a battery-operated, theft alarm that reacted when the sign was moved. And not a very impressive one at that.
When activated by the pull of a string, it let out a modest “beep, beep, beep.” As Senior Deputy Fire Marshal Oliver Alkire later observed, “no one would have heard the thing going off anyway. Not over traffic.” Chalk it up as a dud — except the story doesn’t end there.
Later that day, police got a call for a second device on a Trump sign and again, the bomb squad showed up, cautiously approached and determined it was the exact same situation. On Monday, it happened again — three more times. And on each, the squad followed their standard routine. At the end of the day, here were the totals: Five devices recovered, all confiscated (because they were found on public land such as Idlewild, the side of the road or a median trip), 36 hours invested by the bomb technicians and likely many more by local police.
As bombs, the devices have proven inert, but as thermometers of the nation’s political climate, they would seem to have done an exceptional job.
Clearly, some supporter or supporters of President Donald Trump believed the likelihood of their signs being stolen was so high that motion detectors represented a worthwhile investment. And clearly, the residents of Easton thought that small devices taped to a Trump sign were so likely to be nefarious that they called police who clearly agreed and summoned the bomb squad.
Has an election in modern times ever set U.S. voters more on edge than this one? And it’s not just the result of the COVID-19 pandemic and the apocalyptic feel that has accompanied it. The tone and tenor of the political dialogue these days is the main culprit. Those who discuss this election only in the most inflammatory terms have set the climate of mistrust. That includes the president, whose first White House run was built on birtherism and racial paranoia, but it certainly doesn’t end there.
The “democracy in crisis” crowd gets a bit overheated, too. And, of course, social media fires it all up to the boiling point, a volatile 280 keystrokes at a time.
Nobody has yet stepped forward to claim the devices, incidentally. They currently reside at the bomb squad’s headquarters near Thurgood Marshall Baltimore-Washington International Airport. No charges are expected to be filed. There’s no law against using motion detectors. And although it is against the law to install a campaign signs on public property, nobody ever goes to jail over it. It was just a bad choice.
Whether the nation can go back to seeing a yard sign promoting an incumbent president as a benign object is another story.
The politics of the moment are not unlike the recent presidential debate with a lot of interruption, a lot of name-calling and a lot discord, but not much elucidation. There is a price to be paid when the rhetoric descends into a screaming match over claims and counterclaims of persecution: A widespread perception there’s a threat to our personal safety on every corner — and maybe even attached to every sign.