'In This House, We Believe'

"In This House, We Believe"

This article relates to One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This

In One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This, Omar El Akkad levels several critiques against Western liberalism and its contradictions. One of the most damning is this: "It's difficult to live in this country in this moment and not come to the conclusion that the principal concern of the modern American liberal is, at all times, not what one does or believes or supports or opposes, but what one is seen to be...Saying the right slogans supersedes whatever it is those slogans are supposed to oblige." One of the most visible sets of slogans about progressive beliefs, nearly ubiquitous in some residential neighborhoods in so-called blue states, has become the subject of both inspiration and ridicule: the "In this house, we believe" lawn sign.

The classic version—perhaps you've seen it—has the following statements printed in rainbow type on a black background: "In This House, We Believe: Black Lives Matter / Women's Rights Are Human Rights / No Human Is Illegal / Science Is Real / Love Is Love / Kindness Is Everything." Like the pussy hat and the Women's March, the "In this house" sign cropped up in the wake of Donald Trump's first election to the presidency. Although she didn't come up with any of the original slogans (the sources are as varied as Black activists on social media, a Hillary Clinton speech, and the band They Might Be Giants), the first person to put them all together in this form was a white youth services librarian from Madison, Wisconsin. The day after Trump's win in 2016, Kristin Garvey pulled out a piece of posterboard and a black marker while her children were napping, scrawled the slogans, and planted the sign in her yard. "I don't really know why I decided on a sign," she said. "Maybe it shows my age more than anything."

The sign quickly went viral after a passerby posted a photo to Facebook, where a local activist (Jennifer Rosen Heinz) caught sight of it and recruited a graphic designer (Kristin Joiner) to style it with fonts and colors. Garvey, Heinz, and Joiner decided to join forces to print, sell, and distribute the signs, with proceeds going to the ACLU. But after they couldn't keep up with demand, they sold the rights to a local nonprofit, the Wisconsin Alliance for Women's Health, that could manage fulfillment—and benefit from some windfall revenue to support their programs.

Demand for the original sign has waxed and waned in the years since its first appearance, with an initial peak soon after distribution that went widespread in early 2017, as well as additional interest during Black Lives Matter protests in the summer of 2020 and the 2020 presidential election. But of course, anything this popular is also the subject of potential backlash from all angles, and the sign is no exception. Conservatives have developed their own versions ("We Believe: God Created Man and Woman...") and others have posted or printed versions that mock the earnest platitudes of the original or just try to make people laugh. There have also been fights both to display and remove versions of the sign in public school classrooms and on facades.

In one anecdote, a gay couple decided it was safe to purchase a home in a suburban neighborhood after seeing an "In This House, We Believe" sign on a nearby lawn. Meanwhile, later in his book, El Akkad writes, "Far enough gone, the systemic murder of a people will become safe enough to fit on a lawn sign. There's always room on a liberal's lawn." He urges Western progressives to do the difficult work of grappling with whether and how the actions they take and the conversations they conduct truly reinforce the slogans they proudly display. Whether the "In this house" signs can be inspiring symbols of solidarity or represent the worst, most vapid manifestations of virtue signaling, they have earned their place in history: Garvey's original sign is now in the archives of the National Women's Party Museum in Washington, DC.

Filed under Society and Politics

This article relates to One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This. It first ran in the February 26, 2025 issue of BookBrowse Recommends.