Bottom Line Up Front (BLUF):
-Report from blue neighborhood in mid-size blue city in blue region of blue state
-Much quieter than expected… unsettlingly quiet
-No preps, contingency plans, or daily routine changes ended up being needed
-Suspect private planning happening for future event(s)
-Suspect collective action actors may be drawn to larger cities, for now
I’m going to keep details vague for privacy, but will give you enough to sketch out some context. Even though both my spouse and I have been SB readers for over a decade, we live in a blue neighborhood in a blue city in a blue region of a blue state. Our city is in the top 7 for population in our state. Our neighborhood has historically been considered an alternative lifestyle neighborhood, to be euphemistic. Briefly, we’re living here because my spouse has a minor child from a previous marriage, that former spouse lives in this city, the minor child (MC) spends time with both parents, and my spouse is committed to being part of MC’s life. This neighborhood was cheap (cost of living is insane in our area) and close to the other household, so for MC’s best interest we have to be here for the next few years. I might, in a future article, detail how we’re surviving what is likely your nightmare scenario. Although we’re making it work pretty well for now, we are very much counting down the years until we can get out of here and into a rural area in a friendlier state.
Here’s my report on the last ~72 hours in our area, with speculative conclusions. I’ll be your man on the inside so you don’t have to be here.
Leading up to Tuesday 11/5:
We’d put out an invitation to fellow firearms enthusiast to do a watch party Tuesday evening. He’s a big guy so we knew it wouldn’t just be my spouse and I if something went down. MC was at the other parent’s house, which is in a neighborhood less likely to be affected by unrest.
I charged power tool batteries and staged the pet carrier, and my spouse had checked water storage.
We’d already prestaged gear (food, water, camping stuff, weapons, etc) a few weeks ago with likeminded farming friends who live a day’s walk from the city center. We also have some gear stashed with friends a few miles up the road from us, still in the city but with easier defense and exit. Additionally, because of my involvement with a workplace safety group, I have a duffel bag of medical and PPE gear (including a full face respirator) at work, in addition to essentially another BOB of gear (food, EDC stuff, full change of clothing plus extra leather hiking shoes).
The weekend before, we’d visited family out of town. They live in the largest city in our state, and it’s even more deep blue than our city. Surprisingly, I saw one truck fully decked out with Trump gear driving around and apparently not being harassed. Other than that, there were plenty of Harris yard signs, no Trump yard signs, and (at least in the areas we visited) no overt signs yet of organization, protest, riot, or other mass action.
One of our neighbors pulled their camper into the driveway and seemed to be working on it and loading it. No other neighbors showed signs of preparative activity.
Tuesday 11/5:
I rode public transportation (a combination of bicycle and bus) to my job that is >5 miles from home. I work a manufacturing shift, so the early morning crowd was just other commuters, all of whom were familiar faces. Nothing seemed unusual or out of the ordinary. There was some movement of homeless encampments to new locations, but again, nothing unusual.
There was no real discussion or complaint at my workplace (a large corporation with some DEI-type initiatives, but not the most extreme positions) about late polls, early results, hating Trump, or other political topics. People just weren’t talking about the election, and I don’t know if it was because of fear or uncertainty about a Dem loss or not. Probably ~75% of my coworkers lean left.
Riding public transportation back home that afternoon, there may have been a few more kitted out offroad vehicles driving around, but not many. I saw no vehicles with candidate paraphernalia. I didn’t hear any talk on the bus about planned protests.
I checked the Reddit forum for our city and didn’t see any posts about meeting up to protest, rallying for justice, marching to the courthouse, or anything similar. Most political posts were “where are the Dems doing their [election returns] watch party?”, and that was actually helpful. I learned of two locations where the Dems planned to gather. One was likely for the average Dems so I wasn’t worried about that one; plus, it was far from our home. The other was, based on location, likely for the hard left and radical Dems. That location was about 5 blocks from our home, which was concerning, but if any kind of group formed there and went on the move, the most probable path would be towards downtown and away from our home.
There was nothing that useful on mainstream local news in terms of advance notice of planned unrest.
I had a class at night downtown and while I was prepared to cancel if necessary, I felt that I had enough info to go for it. I had my CCW, it was in a locked building, my spouse knew where I was and when I should be back, and I’d asked my spouse to text me periodically with any safety updates.
Driving to and from class, I saw maybe a few more EMS vehicles than usual, but nothing crazy, and they were ambulances and fire trucks, not police vehicles.
I avoided the Dem meetup locations on my drive back and knew a large bypass route I could take if things got wild. I chose to try my usual route home first and it was successful. I did not see any groups outdoors. I drove by a few lefty bars and most persons appeared very subdued, even though it was late evening by that point. I saw single persons or groups of two walking around, nothing bigger.
Back at home, my spouse and I tuned in to the Daily Wire watch party until it was pretty clear that it was a lock for Trump. Our friend had gone home.
A large city in our region did have riots start Tuesday night, but far enough away from us that we had no personal safety concerns. I think at this point both my spouse and I were surprised that there wasn’t more local social unrest, and so we suspected that the rioting would at some point trickle down from the larger cities to the smaller cities. We also suspected a repeat of 2016 in terms of the left being caught totally unaware of the election result, and so temporarily in shock with that shock inhibiting their ability to pivot and reorganize quickly.
Wednesday 11/6:
I’d already applied for and received time off for this day, due to my suspicions that most of the neighbors would not be happy with any likely election outcome. My spouse did not have enough time off to remain at home, so we thought it best that at least one of us stay to keep an eye on things. I could easily picture some of the neighbors massing and/or rioting at the drop of a hat.
Our front window looks out on a busy road, so I watched from inside for a while to get a feel for what was going on (in addition, of course, to keeping an eye on local social media). Truck, car, train, bus, EMS vehicle, pedestrian, and bicycle activity all looked normal, so I decided to proceed with my errands.
I biked from our neighborhood to downtown and visited the post office, library, bus station, and a grocery store. Obviously, I still had my concealed carry weapon with me!
The post office was relaxed and not busy. The postal worker did not seem stressed out and chatted with me about non-political topics.
There were no political activists at the library and no large groups of people.
I didn’t notice any extra activity at the bus stop; again, no large crowds, no black bloc, no political activists, and no more security than usual.
There was an older woman in line at the grocery store who by her coiffure and demeanor appeared to be a lesbian. I did overhear her say: “I need whiskey!” to the clerk. Other than that, the grocery store seemed relaxed. This grocery store did board up its windows back around the 2020 riots, I think, but they didn’t board up for the election.
I looked at as many telephone poles as I could as I biked around. Typically, our neighborhood is not at a loss for putting up really shocking and offensive posters, and publicly announcing mass meetups. Back in 2020 my spouse and I actually pulled some down that graphically depicted a bullet going through Trump’s head. So, I would have expected locals to have no qualms about quickly making and putting up posters calling for resistance, marching, protesting, and the like. The only one I saw was for a November mass meeting, but it was on the 5th, predating election results.
I checked our city’s Reddit forum again at home. Most posts were about giving people space, talking about crying or grieving or drinking, people being in shock, etc. One post did talk about fighting back at midterm elections, and some posts hinted at resistance, but overall I didn’t see what I was specifically looking for, which was date/time info for local mass gatherings or unrest.
Our city’s Craigslist politics page was so unhinged I didn’t see anything useful, just a lot of namecalling. There could be useful info in there but I somehow doubt any mass organizing is going on.
My spouse picked up MC from school and we didn’t hear anything too wild from MC (no threats at the school and no mass activity around the school, for example). I drove through downtown to take MC
Thursday 11/7:
I drove to work instead of using public transportation. Once again, there were signs of any kind of uprising; no unusual traffic, EMS vehicles, or groups of people.
There was no talk at my workplace about election results. It was possible that I missed most of the complaining on Wednesday, though I don’t really have anyone I can ask about it without outing myself too much. One lefty coworker and I talked about his pasta recipe. He didn’t seem to be too upset, though maybe he’s still in shock.
I think I saw one vehicle with two small American flags on it as I was driving around. There are no Trump yard signs in our area. I think the Harris signs are still up.
My spouse has X (Twitter) and that’s how we learned that rioting had begun in a city closer to us. This seems to support our theory that the mass action will trickle down to the smaller cities as time goes on.
I also read online that there may be more action around December 17th, when the electoral college meets, and obviously January 6th and 25th next year.
No new info on reddit about action in our city.
Friday 11/8:
I was back to public transportation for the work commute this morning, and there was nothing unusual.
One coworker and I did discuss why Harris and the left lost. I think this coworker may be likeminded, but we were talking in a public area so I kept it neutral. I’m still pretty wary of outing myself politically here.
It’s possible that because it’s the weekend and it will be dry at the start of the weekend, our city might start to see some action tonight and tomorrow. We’ll be monitoring X and Reddit for news.
We might turn on the Baofengs to the local EMS channel if we hear of something going down. I do check our city’s EMS call log online if I hear sirens. While the police dispatch log is on a two hour delay before it’s publicly posted, ambulance and fire activity is posted real time. So, I sometimes use EMS activity as a proxy for guessing where police activity is happening.
Our plan for tonight is to spend time with MC; then, later, to review info sources to decide how to approach the weekend.
Conclusions:
Despite all my underwhelming observations, don’t think that I believe everything will remain peaceful here! The level of calm was so unusual as to be shocking to me, and I don’t for one second think it’s because radicals have been so chastened and humbled as to give up their desire for chaos and power. I think the election outcome did come out of the blue and was unexpected for many on the left, hardcore activists included, despite the learning opportunity that they all had in 2016. Hardcore leftists may have lagged on planning mass activity due to their wishful belief that Trump could not possibly win in 2024. Otherwise, I can’t make sense of why most large cities did not see rioting or unrest on during the late evening of the election.
I thought that hard leftists in our neighborhood would use any election outcome (Harris victory included) as flimsy justification for rioting, so I was surprised that the larger trigger of a Trump victory didn’t seem to ignite any kind of local action. The lack of local action may also indicate, though, that local actors already planned to participate in larger actions in larger cities, instead of anything on a smaller scale here.
I didn’t get any sense of attempts at local action that then just fizzled away — there were no posts on social media indicating gathering times, and there were no posters on telephone poles urging marches or rallies. It wasn’t like people tried for mass action that then failed, it’s that no gathering of any kind seemed to be attempted or advertised.
That makes me suspect that the hard left may be husbanding its strength for more targeted and more intense actions in the near future. The hard left may also be pivoting away from publicly announcing its intentions and towards more private and/or more secure communications (Telegram, Discord) to hide its planning.
We did an okay amount of prepping for potential unrest (food, water, firearms, and medical gear were ample and well staged at multiple locations). It is amazing to me that we made it through the last 72 hours without needing to use any preps or to adjust any daily routines, and I am grateful to God for the respite.
However, I think we could have improved in the following areas:
-better communication ahead of time with family members. We didn’t touch base with MC about what we’d do if things went south, and we didn’t check in with some family members living in town about our plans, either. To be fair, both MC and the family members aren’t fully likeminded, and they also all live in safer neighborhoods. However, it would have been better to connect ahead of time, even if just to tell everyone that we planned to stay with our farm friends if things in our neighborhood became unsafe.
-more home hardening supplies. We assumed we’d just use whatever lumber and fasteners we had lying around the garage for boarding up windows and doors. It would have been better to purchase purpose-built hardening instead of hoping that under stress, we’d find the perfect 2×4 or plywood sheet.
-better travel planning. While I ended up being perfectly safe driving to and from downtown, it might have been a better idea for my spouse to come with me, as my spouse could’ve kept monitoring election news and social media even from my class location. It’s a tossup, though, as it was also important to make sure someone stayed at home.
Ultimately, while we are grateful for the breathing room of the last few days, and are hopeful for what the next four years will bring (we pray for safety for Trump, vindication for Israel, and a good enough economy that we can save to move out of the state), my conclusion about the events (or non-events) of the last 72 hours is that evil never sleeps and there will be more unrest, even though it didn’t happen in the manner or at the time that we suspected.