Threats to tarnish or steal Trump campaign signs, both real and fictional, have come to occupy a deep place in the right-wing imagination this election cycle.
For some, the go-to solution to protect the signs from thieves has been booby-traps. A city worker in Michigan, for example, cut his hand open after he tried to move an illegally placed Trump sign that had been secretly fitted with razor blades. This month, a bomb squad in Maryland was called out to check on wires attached to a Trump sign. The wires turned to be a kind of makeshift alarm meant to deter thieves.
But for a locally notorious group of Facebook livestreamers in Arizona, the solution to fighting thieves has been crouching for hours at a time in bushes, hoping to catch a sign bandit in action. The plan has worked perfectly—if they don’t end up in jail for their own separate offenses first.