For most of the 20th century, I have had the misfortune to live in very blue areas where I am surrounded by people who never vote the same way that I do. Just take a look at this rogue’s gallery of people I’ve had “representing” me at one time or another in the United States House of Representatives: Maxine Waters, Henry Waxman, Ted Liu, and the late Raúl Grijalva. Grijalva’s commie daughter Adelita is my current representative.
Cue, “One of These Things (Is Not Like the Others)” now.
To further set the stage for this column, please allow me to describe what’s going on at some of my immediate neighbors’ houses. Right next door to me, here in the Year of Our Lord 2026, my neighbors have one car with a “Bernie 2016” and another with the old “Feel the Bern” classic from a decade ago. Hanging right next to their front door is a large, rather grotesque “Dump Trump” sign.
The anti-ICE offerings all over the ‘hood range from the mundane “ICE Out of Tucson” to the diaper-filling, “STOP THE KIDNAPPINGS!” in several places. There are displays of Trump Derangement Syndrome hysteria everywhere one looks here in my little neighborhood, which is why I’m so weirded out by what’s happening here at the moment.
Pima County (perhaps you’re familiar with the shoddy work of our sheriff) is holding a special election next week. I won’t get too deep into the weeds, but it’s about a 20-year-old boondoggle called the Regional Transportation Authority (RTA). The basics of it are a story as old as bureaucracy: We forced you to give us your money. We misspent the money. Now we want you to give us more money. Lather, fleece the taxpayers, repeat.
I’ve got to hand it to the county: it’s going big here and asking for a new updated 20-year plan that is being called “RTA Next” and has a fancy logo. The people pimping RTA Next are quick to point out that this isn’t a new tax, it’s merely an extension of the one that the good people of Pima County have been paying for two decades.
Here’s the thing, though — that tax is expiring this year, so, yeah, this is still a new tax, bureaucratic sleight-of-hand notwithstanding.
As you might imagine, this was the kind of thing I immediately rejected upon receiving a sample ballot the size of an NFL playbook. There is a lot of money being thrown at this for advertising, too. I mentioned that to my letter carrier, and she said, “That should tell you something right there.” Where this all gets really out there is that a lot of my neighbors have “No on 418 and 419” up in their yards. I’m seeing a lot more of them as the election draws nearer. I was afraid I might be concussed when it first started happening.
Cats and dogs living together!
Or commies and right-wing nutjobs.
These aren’t young lefties around here, either. They’re almost all a bunch of hippies who are older than I am. Maybe they have finally learned that our neighborhood isn’t going to get any of the magic pothole-fixin’ money. Maybe they’re just too stoned to care — there is a rather nice dispensary close by.
Either way, I hope this is enough to make RTA Next die a hideous death.
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