BILLINGS — Political signs have filled front yards for months as an easy way to show support for political candidates and causes. But a neighborhood in Billings now features campaign signs of a feline nature:
“The political climate is rising, and it's gone beyond spirited debate,” Sue Fachini said while holding her 10-year-old black cat, Diesel.
Diesel's face is on a sign that reads "Diesel 2024 Vote for senate 2024" in Fachini's front yard.
“I'm voting for Jade. Jade 2024, Diesel for governor. Now, that's going to conflict with my neighbor over there who's got Nell for governor,” Fachini said.
While the signs bring smiles to many people's faces who walk down Locust Street, and Fachini's neighbors proudly display their cat signs, Fachini also hopes the signs hold a reminder during the election cycle.
“Be passionate, be spirited, support the candidate of your choice, the ballot initiatives of your choice, but please keep it civil because when it's all over with the day after the election we still have to be neighbors, we still have to be co-workers, and we still have to be friends,” she said. “I want to encourage people to take part in the political process. That's part of being American. That's one of the rights we have. So, do it, but just understand that in 2024 I think we've reached a boiling point and based on history, you don't want to see that pot boil over.”
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Growing up as a first-generation American in Portland, Oregon, with her parents coming from Italy after World War II, she’s heard the horror stories from her family and fears for the future.
"My mother and father came out of Benito, Mussolini's Italy after World War II, so growing up as a child I heard the stories from the Italian community in Portland, Oregon, about what it means to be a fascist and live under a fascist government. It's not nice. My mother suffered greatly at the hands of the war. She was born in 1927, so 1938, 1940, she was a young woman. The trauma that she endured was lifelong," Fachini said. "I don't want to see certain things that they talked about occurring here with violence, people turning each other in. It got to the point where family members were really not free to talk because you didn't know where it was going to go. And so those are those are part of the historical facts that I think a lot of us now living here don't understand."
So she’s put a few signs here and there around her block, bringing humor to an intense time - something many of her neighbors can appreciate as they feel nervous as the election approaches.
“Very anxious like most people, I think. Anxious for the results and very anxious to get it over with,” neighbor Ed Kemmick said. “It's fun that somebody's having a little fun with the political season because there isn't much else of it this year.”
