My brother and I got into long distance road bike cycling. Lots of half-centuries and centuries and whatnot. We even did a couple of those weeklong supported rides where you just ride to your next campsite and Boy Scouts unload your gear from a big truck. I built an electric bike and rode to work on it. I loved bicycles.

My dad died in 2019. He was a huge Trump supporter. He wore the hat. He drove a big dually diesel truck and he thought that coal rolling cyclists and passing by way too close and way too aggressively was the funniest thing imaginable, even when my brother and I both were with him. And then later he'd email us something about a big ride like RAGBRAI and say that looks petty cool.

For a while I used to wonder what he'd think about all this shit that's going on now and hope that he'd be like, nope, this is not it. But I know for sure that he would have loved this news about the government's official position to objectify cyclists as nuisances and bike lanes as libtarded DEI waste. He would have sent me 10 email forwards about it. So I don't wonder about that anymore.

For all the talk about how Trump is losing support among magas for whatever current madness has finally affected them enough to make them feel uncomfortable about something, news like this where people you already don't like will be punished, made to suffer, or forced to carry a greater burden is the kind of primal bridge that will always keep that command channel open to him in their minds and hearts.