Apparently for some it is so you can target those with signs you don’t like:
An Ohio sheriff instructed residents to keep a list of homes displaying campaign signs in support of the Democratic presidential nominee, Kamala Harris, and her running mate, Tim Walz, in remarks on social media that caused alarm.
Bruce D Zuchowski, the Republican sheriff of Portage county, posted the remarks on Friday to his personal and professional Facebook pages, warning that undocumented immigrants would arrive if Harris were elected over his party’s nominee, Donald Trump.
Some of the points that have been made in this thread are good ones, but I think the OP may be overestimating human rationality—specifically, the degree to which things like political yard signs are supposed to appeal to people’s conscious, rational minds. Haven’t you noticed how often businesses pay to get their names or logos on signs, uniforms, etc.? The point of exposing people as much as possible to the Nike swoosh or the McDonald’s golden arches, or to the name of a beer company or an insurance agent or a political candidate, isn’t to make a reasonable argument trying to convince people of something, but to subtly and unconsciously influence people: to familiarize and normalize and embed in your consciousness and produce positive associations.
There are two congressional districts in my area. There are streets where one district is on one side and the other district is on the…other. You see signs for both candidates on either side of the street, proving that some of those people have no idea who their congressman is. There have been cases where people show up at their polling place expecting to vote for Ignatius P. Firefly and then get pissed off at the poor poll workers when they are told that Mr. Firefly is not their congressman and is thus not on their ballot.
I don’t know that every trump sign means that. But the giant, “take America back” Trump sign near me sure feels like intimidation.
In my experience they often are free. I paid for a pride flag, but I’ve gotten a lot of yard signs just by expressing interest. Or even by saying, “okay” when someone asks if they can put a sign in my yard. And i often put up yard signs for something local, like a contested primary for an obscure position in my county that i cared about, or “question 2” in the local election. My thought is that some people know me and might be swayed, and others might feel that name looks familiar when they go to vote. Local elections are all about checking in with your more politically aware friends and neighbors. I’m a mid-range person in that pecking order, i seek info from friends who are very politically active, and pass it along to friends who are very politically out-of-it.
I have a friend who has had several “black lives matter” signs stolen, and just lost her “Harris/Walsh” sign. The perp had a friend who covered her security camera while he took the signs. (She’s previously had the police recover her stolen signs and lecture the thief. I suspect this is someone who has been caught previously.) My “black lives matter” sign disappeared, but my downwind neighbor found it in their bushes, and their had been a wind storm, so my guess is it wasn’t vandals.
By the way, the other reason to put up a sign is to make other people feel better/safer. I put up that pride flag after a trans friend told me it made them feel safer walking in a neighborhood where people had pride flags. And the woman who hauls my trash commented on the pride flag, and said she really appreciated seeing it.
I’m probably not going to get a Harris sign, because i think most people locally HAVE made up their minds on that one, and i doubt a sign in my yard will have any impact. But if a friend asks to put one in my yard I’ll say, “yes”.
Kam co-authored a study in 2011 in which yard signs for a fictitious county council candidate — “Ben Griffin” — were planted on lawns on a well-trafficked street near a school. A survey was mailed out a few days later by the school’s Parent Teacher Association asking respondents to list their choices for the county’s at-large council seats. Five real candidates were listed along with the fictitious Ben Griffin and another made-up name.
Incredibly, nearly a quarter of respondents listed the fictional Ben Griffin among their top three picks.
Name recognition can be a pretty powerful thing, and there’s a lot of uninformed people out there. Especially for anything below the Presidential level.
I live on a well-trafficked street near a school. More specifically, a lot of people walk or drive by my house to take their kids to school. That’s why i feel it’s worth posting signs for little local elections.
I don’t think it’s primarily an issue of name recognition (although that is a factor).
I think it’s more a display of group mentality. There are a lot of people who let themselves be guiding by the actions of people around them - either in following those actions or defying those actions.
Some people will see a lot of signs for Smith and think “If all of these people are voting for Smith, then voting for Smith must be the right thing to do. I’ll follow the crowd and vote for Smith.”
Other people will let the crowd guide their actions but in the opposite direction. They think “If all of these people are voting for Smith, then voting for Smith must be the wrong thing to do. I’ll be a rebel and vote for Jones.” (The irony is that this “rebel” is letting other people make their decisions for them, just like the conformist did.)
To be clear, I was not lecturing you or anyone in particular. I just wanted to say all politics is local (which is not a new notion and I am nowhere near the first person to say it). Just something I think dems need to remember because I think reps have this one locked in for them.
For the recent UK general election, I had a yard sign for Labour. I’d recently moved to a traditional Conservative-voting area and I wanted to send a signal to other Labour voters to ‘take heart, you are not alone, your vote in this constituency is not wasted’. So for me it was more of a ‘get out the vote’ than trying to change anyone’s mind.
I also wanted to send a message to the neighbours to not assume I was one of them.
Exactly. When I worked the polls during the primary and I had to ask whether people wanted a Democratic or Republican ballot, a lot of the Dems would whisper their answer. It is dangerous to be a Democrat in parts of America. Yard signs are a way of saying you’re not alone.
How does putting up a Trump yard sign communicate the idea that the owner of the sign may be of a mind to physically attack the kinds of people you listed?
And if it really does do that, then should people who put up Trump yard signs be charged with assault?
In the terminology of law, an assault is the act of causing physical harm or unwanted physical contact to another person, or, in some legal definitions, the threat or attempt to do so.[1] It is both a crime and a tort and, therefore, may result in criminal prosecution, civil liability, or both.
