The Chalk War Renewed

The Trump Chalkster is back!

I thought he had finally left, discouraged by the decision of President Joe Biden not to run for re-election (why keep scrawling “FJB”?) and by the ascent of Vice President Kamala Harris. For months he had gone silent.

A little history: I first noticed his nasty sidewalk messages about three years ago during my daily runs on the much-traveled Whitney Avenue near the New Haven-Hamden boundary. Looking down, I saw this: “Arrest Biden.” “Trump Won.” “FJB.” (At least he never spelled the “F”).

As I noted in an earlier Substack essay, I wasn’t going to let this offensive nonsense go unanswered. I began carrying colored chalk with me on my runs and periodically knelt to cross out or respond to the angry rants.

For instance, I crossed out the “Trump” in “Trump Won” and replaced it with “Biden.” Or I wrote “Lost” under “Trump” and X-ed out “Won.”

After a few weeks of this back-and-forth I noticed I had gained an ally. Somebody was crossing out the “F” in “FSB.”

And then the Chalkster mysteriously vanished. Had he left town? Gotten demoralized by the growing rebuttals to his messages?

But Trumpsters never really go away, do they? In April of last year he resurfaced. I went back to carrying chalk on my runs.

This year there was another lull in the action. Bur after Harris named Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate, I saw this new one on the sidewalk: “Hurray for Tampon Tim.” This is what Trump and his supporters are calling Walz because he helped enact a state law requiring that public schools provide no-cost period supplies to all menstruating students in grades 4-12.

I crossed out “Tampon” many times and wrote “V.P.” over it. After a few days of this I was heartened to read a new message: “Tampons for all who need them.”

My allies also wrote “JOY” on multiple sections of the sidewalk. Plus: “Reproductive Rights” and “Read Project 2525 and Weep.” They drew pictures of cats and wrote “Cat Lady Says Joy.”

He hasn’t left. Some of his messages mock “Libtards.” But we’re all over him, cancelling him out.

Is this chalk war a symbol of the political divisiveness in America? Hell yes. But it’s ironic to see this playing out in my progressive East Rock neighborhood of New Haven and in liberal Hamden. Well, there you go; the Trumpsters are everywhere. Sometimes they’re not so visible.

In case you’re wondering, we are not defacing the sidewalks, because neither side uses paint. All of the chalk messages, whatever they say, are washed away by periodic rain. And then it starts up all over again, initiated by the Trumpster.

Of course cancelling Trump chalk messages is not enough. This certainly is not what Michelle Obama had in mind when she urged at the Democratic National Convention: “Do something!” As I wrote in my essay last week, my wife and I and our neighbors are sending postcards and letters to targeted swing state voters, urging them to vote and to tell their friends to do the same.

One of the messages by an ally on the sidewalk this week simply stated: “49 Days.” Yes, and every day counts.