US election 2020: Route 66 highlights what this year’s vote is really about
America’s most famous highway not only highlights what the presidential election is really about, it also shows Donald Trump’s political future.
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It is hard to shake the feeling as you travel the length of Route 66 that Donald Trump will still loom large in American politics, even if he loses the election.
Along the entire 4,000km roadway, no-one raises the name Joe Biden unless prompted. No-one was wearing Biden T-shirts, waving Biden flags or chanting his name, unlike the Donald Trump crew.
“If people aren’t bringing up Biden’s name, that is telling,” says RealClearPolitics Washington correspondent Phillip Wegmann.
A journey along Route 66 confirms that this election is all about Trump, love him or hate him. It’s a referendum on a man and, the Democrats hope, his handling of COVID-19, although his supporters aren’t even talking about “the China virus”.
“He has tough sledding to get re-elected,” one mid-west politician said to me. “He doesn’t make it easy for himself with the way he talks. But this could drag on for weeks or months. I doubt it will be simple, no matter who wins on the night.”
THAT DAMN VIRUS
The impact of COVID on businesses along the Mother Road is obvious and devastating.
Pat Smith runs the Route 66 Museum in Clinton, Oklahoma. She said that in “normal times” – that is, pre-COVID – the museum would receive 4000 overseas visitors a month, including many from Australia.
Now? Four. And that includes me. Four overseas visitors a month.
“It’s very hard right now, with no-one travelling,” she says.
“But we are getting more Americans coming through now and that is a good thing.”
Like so many people along the route, she says she will be voting to re-elect the President, even though she is not 100 per cent happy with the product.
“He should just zip it,” Pat Smith said of the President’s tendency to offend and appal.
“Donald Trump is just a good old boy who can’t stop himself from saying what’s on his mind and that is not always a good thing.
“Still, Joe Biden is how old? A hundred? That’s how old he seems to be, anyway.”
The museum is a wonderful trip through time, telling the story of how an idea became a legendary road. But when I visit, the only other people there are a couple visiting from out of state. Times are very tough along America’s Main Street.
Jerry Ries, who runs a motorcycle museum in Oklahoma, is also a Trump voter who would like to see the President moderate his language.
“He is his own worst enemy,” says Mr Ries, who first assembled his museum ten years ago with his business partner.
“But they are all rum dummies. But Trump, if he just shut his mouth a bit more, he wouldn’t have any trouble beating anyone.”
Even for a non-motorcycle enthusiast, Jerry Ries’s collection of iron horses is hard not to love. It is so Route 66, reeking of another time when the world’s greatest road set the cultural tone for an entire nation. There’s even a bike from the ‘70s which has never been ridden.
But just like the museum in Clinton, this enterprise has been hit hard by the virus.
“We used to get about a thousand international visitors a month,” Ries said. “Now, we get none. We get lots of Aussies coming in usually, but not anymore.”
MAKE URANUS GREAT AGAIN
Route 66 will occasionally make you giggle so much that it’s more like a gasp.
Like the billboard signs declaring “Get great fudge from Uranus! 100 miles!”.
So, of course, I had to see Uranus, which turns out to be a novelty town with gift shops and a big carpark. In better days, there was a pub and restaurant too, but sadly, like so many businesses along the Mother Road, they are dark and empty now.
The self-declared Mayor of Uranus is Louie Keen who says in an interview on his website: “I want to make Uranus great again!”. Turns out, it is a retail venture he owns based on anal jokes. In the middle of the Bible Belt. And people were spending cash on Uranus souvenirs like it was going out of business.
And there wasn’t a mask to be seen.
Mark and Keri Whitaker are travelling Route 66 in their muscle car on a journey from Florida to LA to see their daughter.
The colourful couple – they are hard to miss, Mark with his purple goatee and Keri with her self-made quilted coats – are very much in love, lots of hugging, kissing and public displays of affection.
Yet they cannot stand each other’s politics, although it’s all put out there with a smile.
“I’m for Trump, she’s for the other guy,” says Mark. “We try not to take it too seriously. For both of us, it’s more about the party than the candidate. We’re not crazy about either of them.”
“Just as long as we get rid of Trump, I don’t care who’s running for the Democrats,” admits Keri. “We just need to start again.”
Asked whether politics ever came between them as a couple, they both laugh and hug even tighter.
“No, it’s just politics. That’s not going to divide us,” says Mark.
Just as Australians love to say “Only in America”, things can get a bit odd out on Route 66, too. I visited a rundown hotel with about 60 rooms in Albuquerque made famous in the TV series Breaking Bad. The carpark was empty. All of the drapes were drawn.
I approached the office and a woman eyed me with great suspicion.
“What do you want?” she hissed.
“Um, I was just going to see if I could get a room?”
“What?” she shrieked. “No! We’re full!” I looked over my shoulder at the empty carpark and said: “Are you closed at the moment because of the virus?”
“No! I just don’t have a room for you!”
It was probably a good outcome for both of us.
DETOUR TO VEGAS
The purists don’t approve, but Route 66 also offers the opportunity to take little detours to places like Las Vegas.
As it happens, the President’s daughter and special political adviser Ivanka Trump is in town and she’s passing out the Kool Aid.
“He’s kept more promises than he’s made,” she tells an adoring crowd at the Christian Legends Ranch.
“Washington hasn’t changed my father, he has changed Washington and that is an extraordinary and remarkable feat.
“He does what’s right because it’s right. He’s tackled issues that no one else would ever take on.”
“Big Dan” Rodimer, a former pro-wrestler now standing for Congress for the Republicans, is hard to miss in the crowd as his six foot seven-inch (over two metres) frame towers over the attendees.
Wearing a bright blue suit, cowboy boots and a giant belt buckle, Big Dan couldn’t shy away from the limelight if he tried.
“I’m unlike any other candidate you have ever seen,” he tells me without bothering to pretend to be modest.
“I’m not a politician, I consider myself a patriot. You’re gonna see me up there every day when I get to Washington.
“I love the President. I met him and he said to me, Big Dan, you win CD3 (Nevada’s third Congressional District), then I win Nevada (a critical swing state). You lose CD3, I lose Nevada! No pressure there.
“We have knocked on over a million doors and made over 2.5 million phone calls, as well as over 3 million text messages. The Democrats are not knocking on doors and that’s what we’re doing.
“We’re killing it in the polls. We are gonna make Nevada red again!”
THE END OF THE ROAD AND THE DONALD TRUMP ROCK FESTIVAL
LA. The sun, the beaches, Hollywood. The homeless, the garbage, crime-ridden South Los Angeles. There are two sides to every story.
But this is where the great road ends, with at least two “official” places where it finishes. One is a depressing highway intersection, the other is vibrant Santa Monica pier. Down on the beach, hundreds of tents housing the homeless dominate the vista.
“Route 66 has updated over time so there are certain sections, like in north-eastern LA, from Pasadena to downtown LA, there are five different alignments (routes),” says Ian Bowen, who runs a Route 66 kiosk on Santa Monica pier.
“All of them have different things to see. The history of the road is quite complicated. On 66, it’s actually hard to have polarisation with someone when you can sit down and have a cup of coffee and understand what they’re dealing with.
“It’s amazing to me with this election that there is so much polarisation when we all actually have so much in common.
“There are certain things I think have been lost because we have become so used to things being faster, cheaper, easier and I think it’s important for us to get out of that mindset and do things where it’s better, even if it’s slower and more expensive.”
Tellingly, the trip finishes as a Donald Trump motorcade roars through Newport Beach, about an hour south of the Route 66 end point in Santa Monica.
Thousands of people line the streets for three kilometres chanting USA and Four More Years, although others are more enthusiastic and demand Four More Terms.
About 100 pro-Biden supporters struggle to counter the wave of enthusiasm by responding: “Two more weeks!”
WHAT’S AT THE END OF THE ROAD?
It’s going to be the end of the road for Trump or Biden next month, although the President is likely to continue to loom large in US politics one way or the other as Ivanka and Donald Trump Jr seek to keep the family name up in lights in DC.
“He has become a cultural figure,” says RealClearPolitics Washington reporter Phillip Wegmann.
“People have a visceral reaction to Trump, I’m sure you saw that out on the road. People like him in a way people haven’t liked a politician in this country for a very long time. And they equally dislike him as well. He’s obviously behind by quite a bit in the polls, but he’s close enough to give us pause.
“You could see an outbreak of violence around the country no matter who wins, it is so polarised. Are we tip toeing towards Armageddon? If there is not a clear decision one way or the other, who knows.”
Maybe it’s time to hit the road and get your kicks on Route 66.