Each year in July, my wife and I head to the Finger Lakes region from our rural Central PA home to go to the Grassroots Festival of Music and Dance. In the last year, Mr. Google has taken us on a less highway-focused route, suggesting a much more winding, bucolic road type of travel. Given the amount of construction on these summer days, I buy into the advice and hit the road.

Basically, it’s going from one rural PA area (my little town west of State College) and driving through another as we wind our way through northcentral Pennsylvania before we pick up US 15 at the NY border and return to highway driving. During this trip, we go through some of the Trumpiest lands in this formerly great nation.

As we passed the Trump signs, some looking rather ragged after years of exposure to the harsh northcentral PA climate, I began to wonder what was going through their heads right at this moment. Given the violent bumper stickers on the pickups you see at any stop along the way, they haven’t lost their deep worship of their personal arsenal and still want to shoot liberals.

However, I kind of wonder what these folks are thinking right now. Not that I am going to do some New York Times winger safari and stop at the closest diner to find out their deepest thoughts and fears, which likely revolve around people they almost never see in their local area doing something like opening a Halal restaurant or dating their daughters.

Two of the houses we drove by, both in some state of disrepair, had many signs on their property. One invited me directly to try to confiscate their guns (it was a big homemade sign that said Dear Liberals, the Guns Inside Come and Get Them). These are the people who fall for the marketing from gun shops that Biden will make selling war weapons illegal, so better come buy some, get a free Kill Libs t-shirt with each purchase. These folks are all in, apparently. I mean, they took the time to put out around 20 signs supporting Trump, a few homemade.

But how do they feel about Trump and Jeffrey Epstein, the scandal that has many of the base riled? Despite the New York Times’ attempts to declare this mostly over, this isn’t going away for Trump.

Despite years of branding rural folks as Common Sense People of the Land, many of them have had their brains pickled by Fox News and various right-wing influencers. These are also people who have an extremely elitist view of themselves, for they are the True Americans and God’s People, folks who won’t admit when they are wrong. In addition, in small places like rural northcentral PA, your community has become all about MAGA. It’s a big part of their churches and life in general. Unless everyone turns their back on Trump, it’s hard to more or less nuke your entire social life by ending your Trump support.

This is a part of Trumpism that I think a lot of urban blue area people don’t get. It’s not just politics, it’s more or less about the entire community. Trust me, while you can find your people if you are a lib/progressive in a red region, to give up MAGA is giving up your community.

So, in the beautiful rolling roads that snake their way through the ridges and hollows of this beautiful part of America, I would be very surprised if Epstein ends Trump. For reasons many might not be aware of.

The last word goes to one of the best acts I saw last week at the festival, the incredible music and harmonies of Lucius.