"Weirdly calm" would be the phrase I would reach for, things are the same, but different. I see the headlines and images in the newspaper of riots in LA and other places, but here in Northern VA just outside of DC I've seen the cops quietly harassing people around the neighborhood. I've had the jarring experience while riding my bike on my way to an early morning doctors appointment and seeing half a dozen waitresses lined up sitting on the curb in front of a Spanish restaurant while a couple of law enforcement looking guys were heading into the building. Another time it was the local Fairfax County police talking to a group of guys who usually hang out near the home improvement store. I wondered if I should say something, or stop, but I didn't. Cowardly? I guess if I'm being honest with myself part of me wishes I did something, something more than telling myself that the situations didn't seem tense, some of the waitresses were smiling even, maybe these weren't even immigration related? Later in the week, my wife tells me she's heard kids crying as they walk home from school, picked up by relatives because their parents have been disappeared by the US government.
Around the corner from me there's an old guy, probably in his 80s, I see him puttering around his property occasionally. He looks like a farmer, seemingly a relic from back when there were real farms here, but now he's all that is left. He's always wearing overalls and an old faded red baseball cap, it doesn't say MAGA, but it doesn't have to. Even if I hadn't seen his Trump/Vance sign on his front lawn during the 2024 campaign. After Trump's win he tucked the sign halfway behind a chair on his porch.
Holstered, but still visible.
I want to ask him why he keeps the sign there, knowing that Trump won and can't run again, but I don't have to. It's a threat hanging in the air, like a thug with his hand in his jacket telling you that everything will be fine as long as he and his boys get what they want.
Two democratic lawmakers have already been assassinated and yet...it still feels like we're in the calm before the storm.
Update A few weeks after I first wrote this post that neighbor hung out another sign on his porch, almost as if to answer my unasked question, this one says: "I Vote Pro-Life".