Throughout Joe Biden's presidency, I would pop in to the Beach White House to see how the people who know him best, people who stand to profit off his existence, thought about the president of the United States. Honestly, no one in Rehoboth Beach really cared. Sure, his so-called “main” residence was in Wilmington, but the president barely ever went there. It was always seaside in Rehoboth, maybe because there are so many ice cream shops there.
Whatever the case, whatever the draw – and maybe it was more convenient to whomever he was meeting with there (the White House always refused to say, so it could have been friends, lobbyists, doctors filling him up with God know what to fight his dementia) or maybe he just always dreams of owning a beach house and he couldn’t take the cash from Hunter until he’d left the vice presidency in 2017 – Joe was seemingly always there. With the president of the United States just down the beach, the best I could ever elicit from a resident there was that it was “neat” to have a president there.
The thing about Joe Biden and Delaware is the novelty had worn off years ago, I was told. Everyone knew him, or at least had met him, during his decades representing the state in the Senate. Even if you were excited the first few times, excitement fades with familiarity…which breeds contempt.
What Joe inspired in the citizens of Rehoboth was not contempt for him personally, everyone I spoke to swears he’s a perfectly nice guy. It’s contempt for his policies.
“In the Senate, he just went along with whatever Democrats were doing,” one business owner told me. “He didn’t do much with the economy, he was more interested in foreign affairs.” But, the man said, as president, he “dove into the economy” and really f***ed it up.
Inflation is the word of the boardwalk in Rehoboth. Everything is up except profits. There is a store with a big sign reading “NOTHING OVER $5.00” except they painted in a “.99” over the zeros. That may not seem like much, but it’s a 20 percent increase.
While this past weekend was obviously off-season, it was nice weather but the crowds were thin.
Joe was there. The parade of Marine One helicopters were making their way to the north end of town where his mansion sits among the mansions of the other mega-rich liberals who make up his neighborhood. It’s not “in” town, per se, it’s the outskirts – geographically far enough away from the heart of the small town that Bruce Springsteen would write a horribly stupid song about “Becky” meeting the boyfriend her parents don’t approve of there before taking off after the factory closed.
“The only thing he brought us was traffic,” said a local name William. In fairness to Joe, they do get traffic in the summer, but it has significantly fewer police blockades.
As far as the election goes, there were more people happy about the results than there were so angry they couldn’t spit out words. A few boutique owners – the fancier, more expensive chocolatiers and clothing stores with progressive flags draped across them – were not interested in talking about the outcome. But the t-shirt shops, the surf shops and arcades were all very happy.
“Did you know Kamala is from a middle-class family?” joked one woman sitting next to me on a bench. “I had heard that, I think she mentioned it once or twice,” I joked back.
The big arcade there, a place called Zelky’s, had two crane machines out of eight on the boardwalk that featured Donald Trump. One would win you a red MAGA hat, the other a life size cardboard standup of the 45th and 47th president. People were trying to win.
In the past, the ratio of Trump shirts to Biden shirts was about 6-to-1 in the windows of the stores. There was really only ever one type of Kamala Harris shirt I saw and the store manager said he couldn’t remember anyone buying one, but couldn’t swear it didn’t happen when he was off.
Now it’s all Trump. Trump raising his fist, Trump/Vance, Trump in a cowboy hat, his mugshot, you name it and they probably have it.
Even one of the candy stores has Donald Trump chocolate bars. They still had Biden vs Trump bars, too, and Biden, Trump and Harris mints. They also had a Harris bar, but it didn’t look like anyone had bought any and I joined them in that.
I doubt Donald Trump won the vote in Rehoboth Beach – it’s a lot more than just the boardwalk and the main avenue – but I bet he won a majority of the business owners.
A lot of people who know him the best like him the least. Except when compared to Kamala Harris, who none of them seemed to care for.
Derek Hunter is the host of a free daily podcast (subscribe!) and author of the book, Outrage, INC., which exposes how liberals use fear and hatred to manipulate the masses, and host of the weekly “Week in F*cking Review” podcast where the news is spoken about the way it deserves to be. Follow him on Twitter at @DerekAHunter.