Midterms. With only a handful of weeks until flyover folks head to the polls, political signs are popping up in Main Street windows, lining neighborhood sidewalks, and dotting the countryside. They are mostly red.

In between discussing final harvest dates, the local high school team’s football record, and bragging about whose kids are coming home for the holidays, talk inevitably turns to politics.

And Heartlanders are hopping mad at the circus unfolding in the Senate as Democrats employ theatrics to debase the 229-year old process in which a Supreme Court Justice is installed. George Washington would not have allowed this nonsense.

And neither would Indiana crop farmer, Brad, 44, who with great frustration exclaimed:

“I have three sons. I am beyond disgusted with the Democrats. And I am a Democrat.  Now I am afraid to death to send my oldest son, who is a senior, to college with the anti-conservative bias in our University system. Come November, I’m voting red. First generation in my family to do so, and I’m bringing the rest with me.”

It’s the Economy, Stupid

Dirt and livestock farmers huddled at a diner in Covington, Indiana, were heatedly discussing Trump’s laundry list of accomplishments since taking office. Charlie, 95 and on his 5^th wife, ticked off the economy, his own stock portfolio, and the fact that economists are saying America is at “full employment,” meaning if you want a job, you can have a job.

“I’m going to have to live forever to spend the money Mr. Trump has made me,” Charlie bragged to Joe, a cattle farmer in business with his children.

“Then you are buying lunch,” Joe, 76, replied in a matter of fact, you-stepped-in-it, way. Joe also laid credit at Trump’s feet because 2017 was the best year he’d had in a decade: “Can’t fight those bottom-line numbers.”

Finally, as first shift factory workers wandered into the local pub, Bad Habits, in Benton County, the jabber focused on whether or not the Republicans would remain in power of both houses of Congress.

Corey, 26, shouted down an ad on the plasma television over the bar, hawking Indiana’s Senator Joe Donnelly (D) and his pandering bid for reelection:

“How can that guy, talking out both sides of his mouth, say he supports our president on one thing, but votes against him? How can he be against gay marriage, and then ‘poof’ after the stupid homophobic comments come out, he says he’s all for it?”

Midterms and the Red Wave

The bartender, and owner, gave the factory workers another round on the house. As she took their burger orders, she said, “Hell, business is so good, people have jobs, and they come in here to blow off steam. Trump did this. I’m voting red in November.”

And then Corey held up his Budweiser and yelled, “red wave, blue grave.” And Bad Habits erupted in cheers for everything conservative.