David Batlle emails a story by Richard Rushfield at Slate. He goes under cover, so to speak, disguised as a Kerry voter in conservative Southern California cities and a Bush supporter in liberal Los Angeles neighborhoods. Guess where he encounters the most intolerance?

I’m voting for a Republican president for the first time ever this year. I wouldn’t dare wear a “Bush/Cheney” T-shirt around town. I’m even less likely to stick a yard sign in my lawn. Like Rushfield (who actually supports Kerry) I live in solid Blue America – in my case Portland, Oregon. And Blue America is getting twitchy this year.

The mainstream here supports John Kerry for president. If the election were held only in my neighborhood and the votes were tallied only by counting the names on yard signs, Kerry would win in a landslide that would impress Syria’s Bashar Assad. (The Assad dynasty traditionally gets only 99 percent of the “vote.”)

The “alternative” point of view around here isn’t in favor of President Bush. Those who dissent (at least publicly) reject both Bush and Kerry.

My neighborhood is a battleground, not between Democrats and Republicans but between liberals and radical leftists. Homemade political posters are stapled everywhere to telephone polls. Here’s what some of them say.

Uncle Sam wants you to kick his ass! Bush or Kerry we’re still screwed!

[…]

Hit the streets. Paint the streets. Quit paying taxes. Refuse service.

[…]

After the election it’s time to take action…Spend the day in the streets and the night writing on walls. Make a commitment to yourself and others: I’m not going to be well-behaved…Let’s be ungovernable!

That’s the kind of “discussion” my neighborhood has. Conservatives and swing-voters like me are sitting it out. Richard Rushfield’s Slate experiment suggests we are wise to do so.