Political signs. You see them EVERYWHERE. It's one thing when it's in your yard. But does it make sense to have a political sign, no matter which ideology you fancy, displayed loud and proud in front of your business?
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Donovan Adkisson
Host / Producer
email: podcast@goodtalkamerica.com
This show is produced by Tifton Media Works, LLC
Let's talk America.
Speaker:All this week, the few instances where I needed to actually go somewhere, something that has
Speaker:been somewhat striking to me, and it actually somewhat came up in a group that I, a Facebook
Speaker:group that I'm the admin of, and I created, Tifton Talks.
Speaker:But what I started seeing earlier this week made me stop and take a moment.
Speaker:This has to do with political science.
Speaker:You know the ones I'm talking about, the ones that are either going to say Trump vance or
Speaker:Harris walls, depending on which way you lean, who has your support, who you want to run
Speaker:the country for the next four years.
Speaker:And I get it.
Speaker:I get it.
Speaker:If you want to demonstrate, for whatever reason, that that is your political leaning, your
Speaker:political bias, then by all means, if your covenants or ordinances or what have you that
Speaker:governs signs for your home allow it, then you do you.
Speaker:Let your freak flag fly, as they say.
Speaker:I don't really care.
Speaker:I know personally, I've thought about it, and I have never put a political sign in my
Speaker:yard.
Speaker:Not when I lived in Fitzgerald, which back then I really wasn't that political, but I've
Speaker:never put one here.
Speaker:Now that I live in Tifton, I can say in my neighborhood down, we have two roads that
Speaker:come into our neighborhood down the main road, the one I call the main road because I live
Speaker:at the end of it about midway down exiting the subdivision on the left hand side.
Speaker:There is a homeowner that has a Trump vance sign.
Speaker:Honestly, it does not surprise me.
Speaker:I do not know this individual personally, but I've seen him around and he's an older
Speaker:gentleman, nice enough, and I cannot begin to understand what's going through his head
Speaker:other than what I think is typical of most older people when it comes to supporting Trump.
Speaker:And for the sake of the topic that I actually want to discuss in this particular episode,
Speaker:I'm not going to go down that rabbit hole.
Speaker:But the thing about the signs has struck me because earlier this week, down the road,
Speaker:probably about I'm going to estimate two miles, one and a half mile, two miles, maybe three.
Speaker:I haven't actually clocked it that I can recall recently.
Speaker:There is a convenience store.
Speaker:I'm not going to name the convenience store, but flanking their multiple entry points in
Speaker:to their facility, their driveways, because they're sitting at the corner of two roads.
Speaker:There's at least four different ways to get into this place.
Speaker:And flanking pretty much all of those driveways are Trump-Vance political signs.
Speaker:Now, I suppose that if you are a Trump supporter, that's probably right up your alley.
Speaker:You probably look at that and you're like, hey, I'm going to support that business because,
Speaker:well, they apparently their values align with my values and my values align with their values
Speaker:because we're both Trump supporters.
Speaker:But then you have someone like me who wouldn't piss on the motherfucker if he was on fire.
Speaker:And I see those signs and not that I did much business with this place anyway, especially
Speaker:since I don't I don't drink anymore.
Speaker:It used to be a place where I'd stop off and grab a six pack or 12 pack, whatever beer
Speaker:years ago, maybe a few times would get gas.
Speaker:But they're outdated.
Speaker:Their pumps are busted most of the time when it comes to credit cards.
Speaker:And as a side note, if I've got to walk in and pay for my gas, I'm not going to get gas
Speaker:from your establishment.
Speaker:Call me an elitist if you want to.
Speaker:I don't give a shit.
Speaker:But it is solidified the fact that I will not do business with this establishment.
Speaker:And I've started noticing that in various places around town and unfortunately, some
Speaker:of these are clients of mine.
Speaker:They have political signs prominently in front of their places of business.
Speaker:And that disturbs me.
Speaker:It disturbs me on two fronts.
Speaker:One, it lets me know who they support.
Speaker:And these are people that I wouldn't necessarily have thought that they would support someone
Speaker:like him.
Speaker:But OK, now I know I've already cut ties with one of my other clients because they were
Speaker:a staunch, hardcore Trump supporter back when he ran in 2016.
Speaker:I don't have anything to do with that client anymore.
Speaker:But here's the thing.
Speaker:I would I think I would feel the same way if they had a Harris-Walz political sign in
Speaker:front of their business.
Speaker:I personally don't think that it is in your business's best interest to advertise your
Speaker:political leaning.
Speaker:I just don't think it's good for business.
Speaker:Because think about it.
Speaker:When you are when you are a business, when you are in business, when you this is your
Speaker:livelihood, you are catering to everyone.
Speaker:You may not like everyone.
Speaker:You may not agree with everyone.
Speaker:But the point is, you want to provide a product.
Speaker:You want to provide a service to everyone.
Speaker:And when you put your political ideology on display, I think that's bad for business because
Speaker:OK, so not maybe everyone will feel like I do.
Speaker:But again, I'm not saying this necessarily because I can't stand Trump and Vance.
Speaker:But again, if they had put a Democratic sign on there, you know, even back when it was
Speaker:Biden-Harris and now it's Harris-Walz, I don't think that's a good idea.
Speaker:If I had an office in town, I would not put a political sign there because my business
Speaker:is not political.
Speaker:My business is to provide a product or a service, the best quality product, the best quality
Speaker:service that I can to my customers so that they appreciate what it is I have to offer.
Speaker:They pay me and they'll come back and solicit my services or buy my products again.
Speaker:We can have differences of opinions when it comes to political ideology.
Speaker:And if we decide that at some point that we're friendly enough that we might want to have
Speaker:a cordial conversation about that, that's fine.
Speaker:But to just blatantly display I'm for this side of the ticket or I'm for that side of
Speaker:the ticket is bad for business.
Speaker:Now, granted, I know that living down here in the South, I'm going to see predominantly
Speaker:Trump-Vance signs.
Speaker:It's just the nature of the beast.
Speaker:We happen to be a part of the group that are a little bit more oddball.
Speaker:We're not religious.
Speaker:We're centrist leaning a little to the left, not Republicans.
Speaker:We believe in a woman's right to choose.
Speaker:We believe that it should be easier to vote and not harder.
Speaker:That's a completely different story that I might get into or topic that I might get into
Speaker:later with all the bullshit and shenanigans that are going on here in Georgia with them
Speaker:trying to make it even harder for people to vote, because when it comes right down to
Speaker:it, and I'm going to slide off in a ditch a little bit here, the only way Republicans
Speaker:can win nowadays is if they do the one thing, the one thing that they keep blaming and saying
Speaker:that Democrats are doing, but it's projection because the only way Republicans can win is
Speaker:to cheat.
Speaker:That's it.
Speaker:When it comes down to the real issues, they fall flat on their faces.
Speaker:But back to the political signs.
Speaker:Again, to iterate my point and to wrap this up, I don't think it's in your best interest
Speaker:to display your political ideology in front of your business, because if you lean left
Speaker:and you put a Democratic sign up, you're probably going to piss off some people that are Republicans
Speaker:and support Trump.
Speaker:They don't want to do business with you anymore.
Speaker:And then you're going to wind up with people like me that I see the Trump Vance signs.
Speaker:And now I'm having to rethink who I'm going to do business with.
Speaker:And it's even worse, like I said, when these signs are in front of one of my own clients'
Speaker:place of business.
Speaker:It's a sticky situation.
Speaker:What do you think?
Speaker:What what's your thought on political signs in general?
Speaker:Do you want to have them in your yard?
Speaker:I think it's a safety issue, especially here in the South.
Speaker:And if you're if you're not not with the crowd, especially like I say down here, if you're
Speaker:not with the crowd, Trump Vance, then it's probably a safety issue not to put this Harris
Speaker:Walls sign in your yard, even though that is the right thing to do and that is the right
Speaker:ticket to vote for.
Speaker:But more to the point, political signs in front of a place of business.
Speaker:What do you think about that?
Speaker:Let me know.
Speaker:Email me.
Speaker:Podcast at GoodTalkAmerica.com.
Speaker:Again, that is podcast at GoodTalkAmerica.com.
Speaker:Thanks for listening and good talk, America.