How To Avoid Living Behind Enemy Lines, Tale #102: Keeping Liberal Haters Out Of Your Neighborhood

You have done your research. You have found a Red neighborhood in a Red County in a Red State which has two Republican senators, which has not had a Democrat governor for decades, which has a Republican legislature, which has not voted for a Democrat president since the relatively normal Democrat Bill Clinton. More importantly, the house you are looking at is located in a county that voted for one Donald J. Trump three times by wide margins. The cherry on the top of the whip cream is the fact that the county has a Constitutional sheriff to protect you rights.

Before you purchased the home, you visited the neighbors on the entire street, both sides, to chit chat about the neighborhood. Without mentioning politics, you wanted to discern if they leaned Left or leaned Right. Some of the neighbors were easy to “read.” If they were flying a US flag, they were Republicans, or very conservative Democrats. Sadly, Liberals either hate America so much and/or are afraid what their Democrat “friends” will say, they won’t fly the Stars & Stripes. They are certainly not America haters. You know that, if the outside of their homes or their cars boasted Trump flags, yard signs or bumper stickers, you would not have to worry about them.

If you noticed anything that implied the neighbors were pro-illegals, pro-abortion, anti-second amendment, or if they still sport Harris/Walz yard signs, you know they are Liberals. But, you also know that it is too much to expect that a whole street of houses would have NO Liberals. The point is, when Libs are a small minority, they are not as dangerous and they are less likely to express their hatred toward others. It is only when they are the majority or THINK they are the majority that they become bullies, taking over various civic organizations such as the grange, the senior center, the school board, the golf club, etc., and tormenting their neighbors.

Indeed, one can discern a lot about a stranger by his or her demeanor, attire, facial expressions, et al. I have long maintained: Place 10 Liberals on one side of the room, place 10 Conservatives on the other side, don’t tell me which is which, and I can accurately choose between them every time.

BUT, WHEN A NEIGHBOR SELLS, HOW DO YOU KEEP LIBERAL HATERS FROM BUYING?

You are now comfortably settled into your new neighborhood. You attended the block party last summer. You even adopted a rescue dog because you have a large, fenced backyard for the first time. More importantly, you finally have a safe neighborhood to walk her in. Unfortunately, a For Sale sign just went up across the street. What can you do to prevent a Liberal from buying this house?

My husband and I have faced this dilemma three times since escaping our Portland suburb, West Linn (which has deteriorated significantly since we left). A West Linn friend called recently. She is desperate to escape to the home they bought in Laramie, WY in 2020, but cannot abandon her 94-year-old mother. We moved to our beach house in a Purple County in Blue Washington State, Pacific County. We, like too many Conservatives, used to be doormats. No longer! The “live & let live” mentality died a quick death, as Democrats turned on their neighbors in 2016 and have been increasingly abusive ever since.

When the neighbor “next door”^ was getting ready to sell his house in 2022 (to move to Red Montana) it dawned on us that we could possibly wind up with a Democrat, Liberal or Progressive neighbor or, even worse, a Trump Derangement Syndrome patient! Democrats have turned into such crazed haters over the last decade-plus that a sane person doesn’t want them on their street! So, I mentioned this to two of the neighbors and we came up with a simple plan. We put up five or six Trump or GOP yard signs along side the street that every potential buyer would need to drive on to visit the property. They would also notice my huge American flag as they drove by. It apparently worked! Within days of moving in, the new neighbors planted a huge flag pole and hoisted a larger-than-average US flag. I knew they were Conservatives before meeting them!

In 2023, a different neighbor put his house up for sale. I jokingly asked this neighbor, who is a realtor, to vet potential buyers to keep Democrats out. He advised me that his realtor’s license doesn’t allow ANY kind of vetting. Soooooo, the yard signs went back up! It worked again! The buyers were thrilled to move onto a street full of Conservative neighbors because their former neighbors, apparently all Liberals and Democrats, would not speak to them. This, despite the fact (or maybe because of it) that these buyers are “of color.” At least their former neighbors didn’t vandalize their house!

IT WORKED TWICE, WILL IT WORK AGAIN?

Now, the buyers who bought the house “next door” in 2022 have moved and put the house on the market in April 2025. It has not yet sold. They couldn’t stand the politics in Washington State and they were unhappy with their jobs so they moved back to Idaho. Their realtor knew that my three GOP signs would discourage half of his potential buyers, so he stole the Trump sign that was closest to the for-sale house. It was on OUR property. That spurred me on to buy more yard signs that signaled we are Conservatives and a flag that says “This is MAGA Country.” So, our twenty acres now sports SEVEN Trump or GOP signs on the very road a buyer must drive on to view the house which is on the market.

Last fall the seller asked another neighbor to “talk to Diane” about taking down the yards signs on the road. He told that neighbor that two serious potential buyers said they could not buy because there was a Trump supporter next door. VICTORY!!! We are scaring off haters! I wrote a polite email to the seller explaining why we could not have Liberals living next door, telling him that we had to sell, in 2020, the dream home we had built in a burb of Portland because our street had been taken over by haters. He wrote back, saying he understood.

My husband and I were forced to leave our dream house, in part, because the street we lived on, over the years, filled up with Democrats, who became Trump haters, who then became BLM promoters. Spending our retirement years surrounded by hate did not appeal to us so, when I retired from practicing law, we moved to our beach house in a Purple County of Washington State in 2020 and put the dream home we had built on the market. We knew the six beach neighbors on our dead end easement road and liked five of them, who happened to be Conservatives and Trump supporters.

NOT ALL DEMOCRATS SPEW HATRED

When we moved from an area dominated by crazed Woke Democrats, Portland, Oregon, where the Democrat riots continued for five months in 2020, to this more politically balanced area,* we immediately noticed a difference in attitude. Even though there are plenty of Liberals here, they are not as nasty as they are in Blue-run & Blue-ruined cities & states. Perhaps that is because they know they don’t own every part of government like Liberals do in major cities. Perhaps that is also because small town residents are personally acquainted with many of their neighbors and do not want to acquire reputations of being anti-social.

It is a sad commentary that neighbors can no longer discuss politics without risking an argument. Indeed, it seems many Libs view every topic as a political topic. Perhaps I am not observant, but I did not notice any chism between everyday Democrat voters and everyday Republican voters in our Portland burb until Donald J. Trump beat Hillary Clinton in 2016. Then, Clinton voters turned on their friends, co-workers, neighbors, relatives and even strangers who voted for Trump spewing “you’re a racist,” or “you’re a Nazi,” or “you’re stupid,” or “you’re a Fascist,” or my personal favorite, “you should not be allowed to vote!” I thought their hatred would diminish after Biden moved into the White House, but it only grew worse.

Since Trump’s landslide win in November 2024, there is even more displays of hatred, election denial and Trump Derangement Syndrome by Liberals. Indeed, there are far more paid protesters & rioters, and far more street riots than we saw during Trump 45, the 2020 Democrat-funded riots notwithstanding. And, in Blue Washington State, the political oppression of Republicans & Conservatives has accelerated to such an extent that the governor has signed numerous bills to suppress voting rights, to outlaw speech, to name just two.

ADVICE TO LIBERALS: YOU SHOULD USE THIS METHOD, TOO

Trust me when I say no Conservative, Republican or Trumpster wants to live surrounded by Liberal haters. This same method can be used to discourage those from “the Right” from moving into a neighborhood full of Liberals. Liberals would be doing Conservatives, Republicans and Trump supporters a favor if you warned them before they bought the house, that they would be living behind enemy lines.

Follow me on X Diane L. Gruber

^On our rural deadend easement road, where each property owner has 10 or 20 acres, the houses are not close together. However, since the county does not maintain our road, the seven homeowners must cooperate to maintain the road. The five remaining Conservative neighbors did not want a second Liberal to move in because the lone Liberal who lives here is sometimes hard to deal with. Us and another couple investigated in 2022 and abandoned whether to jointly buy this house on 10 acres and make it a vacation rental. All to prevent a Liberal from buying the property adjacent to ours.

*For decades, Pacific County, WA, voted for the Democrat candidate for president. In 2016 Trump beat Clinton 50%-43%. In 2020 Trump beat Biden 49%-48%. Yes, there was massive fraud throughout the state. In 2024 Trump beat Harris 49%-47%.