This past weekend I was walking down the boardwalk of Seaside Heights, New Jersey – the honky-tonk setting for the dubious reality series “Jersey Shore” – when a young man walked toward me buff enough to have been a member of that cast. That was no big deal. Guys like that have been walking this boardwalk since I was kid. What caught my eye was that he was wearing a “Trump 2020” muscle shirt. I had seen a lot of Trump paraphernalia in this part of the world but never a muscle shirt.
The house next to where we are staying proudly flies a large “Let’s Go Brandon” flag right under the American flag. So does a store on the town’s main street. A lady at church on Sunday carried a Trump tote bag. In 2020, as in 2016, one shop on the boardwalk sold nothing but Trump accoutrements. As I was walking back from church, management announced the opening of the beaches with a stirring rendition of the Star Spangled Banner. All the people I could see stopped, doffed their caps and faced the massive American flag flying over the boardwalk. That’s the kind of place Seaside is.
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