It's a stench that once released never goes away

Highmore, South Dakota, had a parade to celebrate Old Settlers Weekend, and what received the most attention was the float described in the Facebook post above.  The float was made by a person named Jeff Damer.  It portrays Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama locked up in a cage with Donald Trump outside being president.  And, of course, it had a large flag for Trump in 2020  and small American flags fluttering below it, to demonstrate that Trump has defeated America.  An endorsement of Trump is an open announcement that the endorser rejects the principles of liberty, equality, justice, and decency that the founders tried to create a nation to serve.  The portrayal of locking up political opponents is a straightforward expression of neo-Naziism.  

Many residents of Highmore and other observers protest that the float does not represent the values  of most of the people of the town.  It does not characterize the place.  It is just one malicious person expressing his First Amendment right.

Unfortunately, that is not how such a portrayal works.  I found out how such expressions work on a town some years ago.

About 15 years ago, some politicians from North and South Dakota proposed creating a think tank that would deal with issues facing the northern plains.  It was conceived partly in response to the study that claimed that human culture on the Great Plains was not sustainable and proposed returning them to a Buffalo Commons.  The idea of a think tank to study the issues on the Great Plains and define solutions to the problems gained considerable support.  Money was made available for a feasibility study and to arrange the actual ground work.  As the originators of the proposal were from the Dakotas, a market research organization was hired to detail all the considerations required by such a think tank and to recommend a location in the Dakotas.  The research firm came up with a list of university towns in the Dakotas where the think tank could ally itself with the resources of a higher education facility, one of the major considerations, and do its research.  Aberdeen was on the list.

A research team came to Aberdeen, as it did other towns, and made an intensive survey of the town's possibilities for supporting such a research enterprise.  At the time, my spouse and I were working for organizations that had offices in the same building.  We were also connected with advocates of the think tank proposal and were asked to help find a place with office equipment where the research team could conduct its survey of Aberdeen.  We were able to provide office space and telephone and computer services.  I was able to look over the shoulders of the research team to see how such a survey was conducted.

During that time, the local newspaper sponsored an internet chat board where people could comment and discuss affairs of the community.  As such comment sections do, it attracted trolls who posted scurrilous, vicious, and defamatory comments.  The research team took what I thought  was an inordinate interest in such comments.  I said that such comments did not represent or characterize the vast majority of the people of Aberdeen.

The team members said that was not the point of consideration.  When looking for a place for a client to build, whether a building or an organization, the environment is crucial.  A team member pointed out that a consultant would never recommend situating a client on a site contaminated with radiation, near a livestock confinement operation with noise and the reek of manure, near a town dump, or factory exuding noxious fumes, or any other source of despoliation.  The same applies to the intellectual and moral environment.  A community may largely be composed of upstanding and reasonably intelligent people, but a few malicious, abusive people contaminate the mental environment in ways that nullify the work of people of good will and good effort.  Intellectually benign and productive people find that the malignant atmosphere around people of ill-will is not one in which they wish to live and work, and such a negative influence can nullify their positive efforts.

Aberdeen was not selected as the site for the think tank.  In fact, the consulting team concluded that no place in the Dakotas had the necessary qualities and intellectual environment in which a think tank could successfully operate.  The project was abandoned.

The malicious float in the Highmore parade put an ugly, indelible stain on the community.  It is one the people must live with, even though it detracts from their efforts to lead good and productive lives.  All the apologies and denials the good people make will not remove the blemish from their town.  Some will move away and others will refuse to move there.

The perpetrators of malice will insist that they were simply exercising their First Amendment right.  They do not seem to understand that people have a concomitant right to reject and condemn their speech and to avoid the people who are the source of such malice.  

Many old settlers came to the frontier to escape the oppression and offenses in established communities.  A reverse of that migration is that people now move to large population centers where they join in counteractive groups that reduce the effects of malice.  But there is a national problem.  Donald Trump is a malicious and dishonest person who has odiously stained the whole nation.  Rather than reject his constant lying and his defamatory abuse, he has followers, such as the float-builder in Highmore, who revel in his malice.  Learned people contend that Trump does not offer a political choice, but that he and his followers are systematically destroying democracy.  Trump is the failure of the great American experiment.

Many people I know are seriously looking for places they can move to that retain the American qualities of liberty, equality, justice, and decency.  The other alternative is a violent revolt.

Highmore is a place most of us would avoid, but as goes Highmore, so goes the U.S.