They have gathered every Tuesday afternoon from noon to 1:30 pm for the last 16 months at the intersection of Lincoln and Ludington in the Upper Michigan Peninsula city of Escanaba .
The 10 participants on this mid-October sunny afternoon were all born and raised in this community. No outside paid agitators, here, they assure me.
Two agreed to step away from the line for an off the curb conversation. I want to know their motivation. 
David Adamini is 61 years old. His mother Judy is 82. Both claim the label of political independent “I am an American first. I vote for the best candidate,” states David, a veteran of the first Gulf War and a retired state of Michigan Park Ranger. He is also a licensed firearms instructor. 
Both openly expressed destain for President Donald J Trump. David says the POTUS has the self-control of a spoiled 12-year-old, with constant braggadocio claiming of sole credit for everything he sees as good in his alternate reality universe of entitlement. “I know  I offend many here, this is a conservative town and I am outspoken. Sorry friends, that is just how I see it.”
The President has spent the current month before the mid-terms jetting across the country to speak to one after another crowd of mostly rural white supporters. He is desperate to brace up Republican candidates to prevent a congress flip to blue and an onslaught of congressional investigations into Trump’s behavior.
Make America Great Again, Trump’s trademark political statement, in 2016, resonated with many who until the Trump phenomena felt ignored, unheard and not valued. They saw Trump as a politician who did not talk down to them. His opponent in the 2016 presidential election, Hillary Clinton, famously referred to them as deplorables.

Trump’s critics have longed called him a merchant of bigotry who has concocted a noxious mixture of misinformation, half-truths and right out lies to purposely keep the nation divided. Remarkably, a man who was born a millionaire and has lived a life of vast economic privilege (I doubt he has ever pumped himself a gallon of gas or shopped in a grocery store) convinced the poorest of white America that he is one of them.
Trump’s critics have longed called him a merchant of bigotry who has concocted a noxious mixture of misinformation, half-truths and right out lies to purposely keep the nation divided. Remarkably, a man who was born a millionaire and has lived a life of vast economic privilege (I doubt he has ever pumped himself a gallon of gas or shopped in a grocery store) convinced the poorest of white America that he is one of them.
But times, they are changing. A native-born Michigan man has a better than fighting chance in two weeks to be elected the first Muslim to the United States Senate. His Reputation opponent is the establishment - Mike Rogers. Status quo versus change.
David says, “The reception here for him was outstanding. He’s well spoken. He was sincere, and he comes across as very genuine," he says of the Harvard educated Rhodes Scholar. "Regardless of where and how he practices his faith, he’s a good man, and he would make a fine senator for us.”
El-Sayed has inexplicably found ground in this conservative hot bed- sort of an Arab Pete Buttigieg. David days he not only can win Michigan, he will win Michigan.
“I just want to are the Constitution followed,” Judy declares in a firm and loud voice. If Donald Trump is remembered for anything, she points out, it may be his unintentional generation of public interest in Constitutional law. Through his constant trampling of due process, free speech, separation of powers, and the rule of law, she calls President Trump a real live walking civics lesson.
Judy says she has railed against discrimination since she graduated from high school in 1960. “I went to work,” she says, “because in those days, that’s what women did. I want leave a better world for my granddaughters. No dictator has ever seized power alone, and make no doubt, Trump wants to be a dictator. And dictators, they all have their enablers. Even Hitler. Future historians will judge the Trump era the same way. It’s been a dark time, but I never give up hope. That’s why I’m out here 
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