These days the blessings of being a grandfather continue to present themselves in unanticipated ways, among them spending a lot of time driving around a pretty large swath of New Jersey on a regular basis. 

I live in Monmouth County, have family in Bergen, roots in Morris, a grandson and married daughter in Hunterdon, and a daughter living in Jersey City. So, this time of year I get to observe a lot of political lawn and roadside signs. 

It was on one of these ‘patrols’ listening to NJ 101.5 that I spotted the odd sight of an Anthony Bucco for Assembly sign on a Morris County highway last week which made no reference to the fact that Mr. Bucco is a Republican.  Not only was there no sign of the signature party elephant, it was blue, intimating that he was a Democrat.  

As a former Morris County resident, who at one time was a registered Republican, and an admirer of his late father Senator Anthony Bucco, whose office did great constituent service, I was intrigued. I had to pull over at a nearby gas station, park my Volvo, and trek back to the sign on Route 24 for closer inspection. 

Surely, I thought the required small print on the bottom of the placard would proclaim proudly his affiliation to the Grand Old Party, the party of Lincoln and the hostage of Donald Trump. 

Yet, on close inspection on my knees, all I learned was that the sign had been “paid for by Bucco for Assembly, 17 Condit St., Succasunna, NJ, 07876. Judi Frank, Treasurer. 

Just a few feet away, was a sign for Mr. Bucco’s Democratic opponents Dr. Lisa Bhimani and Darcy Draeger, who are running for the Assembly in the same district as Democrats. Yet, aside from their signs blue color scheme and the union label, there was no reference to the Democratic Party.  

Right there, on the old Route 24 as cars sped by, I had an epiphany of sorts. Was this a clue that in the Age of Trump, as the beltway was in self-consuming convulsions, we were seeing ‘signs’ of the denouement of our two major political parties? 

On the way back to the car I just about skipped with joy, pondering just how liberating that would be if the whole partisan architecture could be swept away. In my lifetime, both political parties have sold out Americans who have to work for a living. After their government service, a small army of our political class of both parties, use their leverage and past security clearances to represent the despots and rogues that preside over kleptocracies around the world.  

Meanwhile, back at home, wages remained stagnate as productivity exploded. Corporations always got their way because they had bought and paid for the political class of both parties to do their bidding as the earth was increasingly polluted and our climate warming. 

As a consequence of this systemic corruption, wealth inequality continued to grow as did the concentration of corporate control of commerce and the news media in a system that requires the big eat the small or perish. 

Once back in my car, I checked my social media stream, and learned that Assemblyman Bucco had been sworn in as a Senator, to assume the remainder of his father’s term.  

Apparently, this is a kind of legal three card monte maneuver which permits Mr. Bucco, if he wins to assume his father’s seat in the Senate, and the Morris County Republican Committee, not voters, to pick who represents all of the people of Morris County in the Assembly. 

Lest you think this kind of corrupt self-dealing is just a Republican power play, remember the Democratic version of it, executed by former Democratic Governor Jim McGreevey.  After his “I am a gay American” soliloquy on August 12, 2004 he hung on in office until Nov. 14, 2004, so as to avoid a special election, permitting Senator Dick Codey to fill out his term.  

That same day, as I drove to visit my grandson, I studied the roadside political signs with a new optimism for my country. With the focus of a drive–by anthropologist, I was on the hunt for signs of the Republican’s elephant or the Democrat’s donkey. 

They were nowhere to be found in 90 minutes of driving through several jurisdictions. There were political signs aplenty, but they were just names of individual people civic minded enough to stand for public office.   

It wasn’t until I was deep in the woods on the winding rural roads of Hunterdon, where the “Don’t Tread on Me” Gadsden flag of Tea Party fame fly, that there was a solitary campaign sign for county office with the trademark GOP pachyderm logo on it. 

As the partisan dinosaurs clash, in our nation’s capital keep an eye on your local highways for signs of their extinction.  You will see it there first.