It’s All Over Now, Goodnight
Reality star turned ex-President Donald Trump makes his last stand at the RNC in Milwaukee
Jeff Weiss & Meaghan Garvey
Reality star turned ex-President Donald Trump makes his last stand at the RNC in Milwaukee
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Scott Olson/Getty Images
It’s gonna be a shit show. You can feel it in the air,” said the cop from San Jose. He and his partner had been trying to act all hard-boiled, demurring when I asked what exactly brought them here. But here we were at Wolski’s, the 116-year-old tavern aglow in brothel red and hung with only slightly more American flags than normal, with shots of Jager before us. It was the fellows’ last night off before a week of 16-hour days patrolling the conference grounds, and soon enough the shorter of the two was spilling all his beans—his divorce, his beat-style travels to most all the 50 states, and how a long career in tech had led him to the wacky world of small-time law enforcement. “Any corner in this city, I could point out all the agents,” he bragged, dragging with gusto from a borrowed cigarette. “It’s all in the mustache.”
An evening storm had washed away the casual drinkers—bright-eyed videographers, newscasters from D.C.—and left an electric mix of slurring cops and Wolski’s regulars, the latter of whom I followed to the dripping patio for some key bumps of Milwaukee’s finest cocaine. It isn’t in my custom to snort strange table drugs, but these weren’t normal times. Besides, I was dead set on earning the famous “I Closed Wolski’s” sticker, the likes of which an enterprising soldier had once slapped on Saddam’s vacant throne, as pictured in a photo near the bathroom.
Now a rousing debate had sprung out among the backyard smokers as to what had really happened yesterday at the Trump rally when a bullet from some three-named yahoo whistled just west of its target. Allegedly, of course.
“Most staged shit I’ve ever seen,” sputtered a regular at the patio’s far end. “You guys are frickin’ retarded if you think that shit was real.” The key bump crew roared in dispute—the guy’s a hero, ya fuggin’ jagoff!
Amped on Hamm’s beer, mid stimulants and the flutter of some vaguely patriotic new psychosis, I cut in. “But real or fake—it doesn’t matter! On a level of pure performance, it’s way bigger than that. Love the guy or hate him, it’s the image that’s what counts here. I mean, all the world’s a stage …” The regulars stared dully, willing me to wrap it up. “Either way, it’s fucking gangster,” I concluded, and they cheered as the dissenter rolled his eyes and slunk inside.
It was so strange, the way I’d felt since I’d seen the photo last night. The Secret Service agents, chaos on their downcast faces, set the foundation from which Trump rises in perfect triangulation, fist upheld so he appears to hoist the flag that soars above. The blood streaked across his face against the deep blue of the sky. All politics aside, it’s an awe-inspiring image—the ultimate collision, bogus as it may be, of MAGA fantasy projection with reality. “A lot of people say it’s the most iconic photo they’ve ever seen,” Trump told the New York Post aboard his private plane to Milwaukee Sunday night. “They’re right, and I didn’t die. Usually you have to die to have an iconic picture.”
I say “reality” as if there’s room for such a thing at a political convention, where power-hungry freaks become demented carnival barkers, broadcasting to the masses whichever temporary reality they deem most opportune. “What they cannot control, of course, are the winds of fate,” said Ken Layne, host of Desert Oracle radio, in an “emergency prophecy” episode late July. “They can plot, they can plan, but they, too, are at the mercy of the whims of the Great One, who is expressed in myriad ways through many gods and spirits and actions and intense waves of feelings that we call vibe shifts.”
Such a shift had taken place on Saturday, July 13, and it seemed obvious to me that we had jumped to a new timeline: Trump should rightfully be dead, and yet he lived. Now all anyone could talk about that weekend was The Photo, the most consequential image this country had produced since 9/11, I reckoned. But in less than two weeks’ time it was practically forgotten, Trump’s near-assassination already several cycles old, replaced by brand-new memes for a new false paradigm. —MG
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There’s no swift and painless way to travel from Los Angeles to Milwaukee. About two years ago, the spooky discount airline that shares its name with a spooky discount Halloween emporium severed the last direct connections between the two cities. The reason was self-explanatory. There isn’t exactly a robust migration of pilgrims wayfaring from the western Erewhon of false reality to what’s been frequently anointed America’s “most drunken city.”
This doesn’t help to counter Donald Trump’s description of Milwaukee as “horrible.” The 45th president and current favorite for America’s Next Top Politician mostly made the claim because it’s the bluest swath in a crucial swing state—the only major city to have elected three socialist mayors. In 2020, nearly 70% of voters broke for Biden, which led to allegations that there were more votes counted than actual registered inhabitants of Milwaukee County. Calling it “horrible” was also an unsubtle allusion to its homicide rate, fourth-highest in the nation last year (if you trust the rankings from WalletHub, a crime-enamored personal finance company).
Milwaukee swelled to nearly 750,000 by the time that Dwight Eisenhower offered his rejected warning about the military-industrial complex. In a milkshake-safe 1950s time warp, a fictional Fonz and Richie Cunningham indulged in nonthreatening hijinks to the delight of post-Watergate audiences searching for poodle skirt nostalgia. On the Milwaukee riverwalk, a “Bronz Fonz” still looms large, his thumbs pressed high to the leather greaser firmament above. You can’t forget the Happy Days spinoff, Laverne & Shirley, where the namesake characters worked as bottle cap girls at the “Shotz” brewing company. Both shows were filmed at Paramount Studios in Hollywood. By the time these sitcoms aired in the 1970s, Milwaukee’s run as the beer capital of the world was finished. In the last census, only 577,000 residents remained.
In 1959, Blatz sold out to Pabst, begetting a series of acquisitions and hostile takeovers. The onetime favorite of working-class Midwestern lummoxes became the beer of choice of the vice era; it’s now headquartered in San Antonio and owned by a San Francisco private equity firm. The same fate befell Schlitz, a brand bought and sold so many times that the original recipe was lost and never recovered. It too is now controlled by Blue Ribbon Intermediate Holdings LLC, the owner of Comet Bleach, CorePower Yoga, and Mavi’s Discount Tire. For the right price, you can live in condominiums built in the old factory that once employed the real Laverne and Shirley.
The lone Milwaukee holdout is Miller, founded by German émigré Frederick Miller in 1855, and since purchased by Phillip Morris, South African Breweries, and now MolsonCoors, a Canadian multinational with revenues of nearly $14 billion annually. Last year, the median household income in Milwaukee was a shade under $50,000.
What they see is a massively popular folk phenomenon who continues to exist outside the parameters of polite society. An archetypical antihero who has fought federal and state prosecutions, survived an assassination, and never given a fuck.
If not for the NL Central-leading Milwaukee Brewers and the panhellenic levitations of the Greek Freak, the city would be a complete afterthought. This isn’t editorializing. This is an explanation for why you can fly nonstop from LAX to Bentonville, Tulsa, Des Moines, Huntsville, the capital of French Polynesia, and even Appleton, Wisconsin. But getting to Milwaukee requires a layover in Phoenix, Denver, Chicago, or in my instance, Las Vegas.
Vegas may have once been a neon mob hideout built to fleece delusional middle-American Babbits. But it’s been decades since Ace Rothstein pointed out that “the big corporations took it all over … In the old days, dealers knew your name, what you drank, what you played. Today, it’s like checking into an airport.”
The presidential nominee of the Grand Old Party owns and operates a 64-story gold-plated money bin just three miles from here. But there’s no need to take the journey there to understand the extent of reality fatigue. It’s right here at the casino disguised as an airport. My eyes squint as I stride past thousands of slots greedily occupied by hypnotized tourists, who greasily slide credit cards down magnetic strips attached to rotating fluorescent wheels spitting out animated portraits of George Washington, Abe Lincoln, Ulysses Grant, and Benjamin Franklin.
The plan is to meet Meaghan at Wolski’s, a 116-year-old bar currently filled with Republicans, journalists, locals, and federales. She texts me that it “feels like fucking Saigon in 1968.” But this is America in 2024, so the flight keeps getting delayed.
When I arrive in the early hours of the morning, the Milwaukee airport is a geek show of dispirited journalists, preening delegates in their Polizei blue wool suits, and other stragglers. By the time I reach Wolski’s, the madness has mostly subsided. The G-men have gone home. The few left are the stalwarts drinking at 1:34 a.m. as Sunday bleeds into Monday morning. Admirable dead-enders offering mild respect for my fortitude in showing up to help close a bar with airport luggage in tow.
Wolski’s is located inside a wood-frame house on Pulaski Street, which sounds like a stereotypical Milwaukee street name that I just made up. It looks like it used to house a dry goods store, which it probably did. It’s the type of place that looks like the last verse of a Bruce Springsteen song. For now, there’s only enough time to slam a double whiskey and soda, and briefly admire this mighty shrine to midcentury liver murder. The bartenders apologize for having to toss us at 2.
On our way out, we’re handed the famous “I Closed Wolski” stickers, and step into an Uber steered by a 60-something-year-old Black woman named Janice. As soon as she starts driving, she starts commenting on Trump’s assassination attempt.
“It was staged,” she says with certainty, wearing a blue surgical mask. “That was fake blood. You can tell.”
The country station whines softly from the radio of the Nissan Sentra. Something slick from the ’90s.
“Trump just did this whole thing to make people feel bad and vote for him,” Janice continues. “It ain’t hard to see what really happened. It’s just like how they do it in the movies.”
We ask if she’s been getting bizarre fares now that the RNC is in town.
“A lot of these people are … losers,” she lets loose a gentle rhythmic laugh. For all the conspiratorial chatter, she exudes a sweet Sunday dinners-at-grandma’s energy. We pass by the red brick buildings and stolid bungalows of the lower east end of the city.
“It’s 95 degrees and these fools is all suited up and stuffy … fucking losers,” she says matter-of-factly, no animus involved. “I told this dude, ‘it’s fucking hot, take that shit off. I got the air on. It’s sweaty in here!”
“Look at this shit,” Janice interrupts herself, pointing to the concrete barriers and orange pylons patrolled by ominous-looking law enforcement who have erected an impenetrable security bivouac to make it impossible to come within 500 feet of delegates or political luminaries.
“This is all new. Wasn’t even up two days ago. They must’ve added more because of the ‘assassination,’” she takes her hands off the wheel to make air quotes. “This morning, I drove eight minutes just to go three blocks.”
“Damn,” I mutter.
She points to an otherwise undistinguished spot alongside the intimidating wall.
“That’s where a guy got killed last week by security guards,” Janice sighs. “He caused a ruckus, of course, but he was mentally retarded. And I taught special ed for 21 years. You gotta be trained to know how to handle these people. You can’t just be pulling a gun on ‘em.”
We both agree. It’s late and I’m tired, but Janice is still in the mood to talk, noting all the police keeping sentry in the witching hours. “Look at all them police – all this for a man who staged his assassination. We better elect Biden,” she says emphatically, exactly one week before the fading old man drops out of the race. “This country can’t take another four years of that other man.”
We pass by an electronic billboard claiming that 73% of Black murders are unsolved. It reads: “Save Black Lives. Vote Republican!”
“I’m going through my second life at the minute,” she says, turning onto Mineral Street, where we’re staying for the next four days.
I ask what else she does for a living.
“I’m an assistant principal, but when I retire, I’m gonna’ be a stripper. They’re gonna call me ‘yellow chocolate thunder!’”
She laughs uproariously like she’s never confessed her secret dream before. I ask what her stripper song would be. Without even taking a moment to deliberate, she replies “Danger.” —JW
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The air outside the Thunderdome crackled with schizophrenia, each corner a shrieking blur of esoteric homemade signs and unhinged graphic tees. “TURN OR BURN!” exclaimed the T-shirt of a man pacing Wisconsin St. with the frenzied look of one who’d been awake for several days. “You’re crying to be loved!” he bellowed at a nearby heckler through a megaphone. “And no one loves you the way you are. It’s ugly! It’s not lovely! It’s not the way God created you, oh, no!” The heckler stepped closer: “Aren’t you supposed to love thy neighbor?” “This IS love!” the man thundered. “You’ve never been LOVED this way before!”
A senior citizen in cowboy boots waved from behind a sign that read “FAKE MEDIA IS THE VIRUS.” I waved back. I’d pissed away 15 of my best years on “X.com.” Crackpots don’t phase me. It was Monday, the first day of the convention, and the energy was UP among the merry throng of men in too-small suits and women with too-big veneers, star-spangled Texas cowboys, 20-somethings dressed in seersucker as if ready to set sail on a Steamboat Willie cruise, and a few delegates who’d raided the “4th of July” section of their local costume store: hoop-skirted cotillion gowns, polyester Uncle Sam sets, and an errant tricorn hat in the mode of Paul Revere. Inside and out of Fiserv Forum, where the evening’s run of speeches had just begun, the sounds of “Working for the Weekend” or “Reelin’ in the Years” sparked contagious outbreaks of Trump’s signature move, the “Jerking off Two Guys at Once” dance. Manic conviviality and patriotic drag gave the impression of a parallel universe’s Burning Man, with toothy smiles and “after YOU!”s for all, except for me, whose black attire and neck tattoos clearly screamed “ANTIFA NARC.”
I’d course-correct tomorrow. For now, word on the street was that the sports bars across from the arena would remain open 24/7 from now until Friday. I ordered a double Cuba libre and watched Fox News on the big screen.
As for that third press pass—one must always take advantage of special gifts from God. So I called Charlie, my ex with whom I’d recently reconciled, and told him to get up to Milwaukee for the party of the year. He’s one of those magic people who can sneak inside of anything—strategic invisibility in tandem with louche charm. Even so, I had my doubts. To apply for our press passes, Jeff and I had given social security numbers, home addresses and what have you; our own badges came appended with our names and photos, where the third was blank and unidentified. “No way they’ll let you through security,” I warned Charlie by phone. “I mean, dude, they tried to murder Trump three days ago! They’re not messing around.” “C’mon, you actually believe that?” he scoffed. He’d be there by Tuesday afternoon.
American society had moved past the need for realism. As for the conspiracy theorists, they’d begun to sound small-minded, as if the deep state’s best-laid plans had anything on unadulterated cosmic chaos.’
KAMIL KRZACZYNSKI/AFP via Getty Images
Trump may have called Milwaukee a “horrible city” weeks before the convention, but I consider it among America’s most underrated gems. This is especially true when it comes to bars and restaurants, where neoliberal gray-washing has yet to transform century-old neighborhood institutions into salad chains and fitness boutiques. Local businesses had been advised to prepare for a weeklong RNC rush, but instead downtown was dead, as were the neighborhoods around it. Zaffiro’s, Milwaukee’s finest pizzeria, was nearly empty when we arrived for a couple rounds of Blatzes and two cracker-thin pies. “Sir, you can’t bring that in here,” barked a cop from Indiana eyeing Charlie’s box of leftovers as we approached the entrance to the convention grounds an hour later. “OK,” he said and walked on by. Of the several dozen officers hovering at the gate, no one bothered to check his pass, nor investigate the contents of the pizza box he carried. With his dirty black hair, wizard beard and dusty Minutemen jacket he’d found back in Chicago, he looked like a member of al-Qaida on summer break. Needless to say, he was in.
We headed for the Baird Center, where past a limestone bust of Donald Trump, generously donated by Indiana Limestone Fabricators, were tables hawking golf shirts emblazoned with the Declaration of Independence, books that explained to children a brief history of the War of 1812, and a vast selection of patriotic plastic jewelry one might win for 15 tickets at an arcade (“MADE IN CHINA”). For $1,000 you could take home a guitar autographed by Lee Greenwood, writer of “God Bless the U.S.A.” whose meet and greet was soon to begin nearby. But the line stretching past the bathrooms, which we instinctively joined, was for Marjorie Taylor Greene, here to sign $30 copies of her memoir, MTG. The line snaked past a conference room where half a dozen worshippers swayed to the quavering rhythms of a frail singer at a keyboard: “Worthy, worthy, worthy Lord, another glimpse of glory!” Down the hallway strolled a woman I’d have expected to meet hovering around the nitrous tank at Bonnaroo. Only here she’d braided red, white, and blue ribbons into her thinning hair and bedazzled her bell bottoms with rhinestone MAGA flair.
“Sir, you need to buy a book to get an autograph,” huffed a frazzled security guard. “But I can’t read,” Charlie announced pitifully. “I’m dyslexic!” MTG perked up, triceps flexed beneath her sundress. “Sergio? Sergio!” she called out to a handler. “This dyslexic gentleman here just gave me a great idea. Let’s make sure we get an audiobook in motion.”
“I do appreciate all the work you’ve done for literacy,” Charlie said. “Will you sign my chest?”
Two security guards closed in; she compromised and signed his forearm. Later that day, she would recount to Breitbart News a miracle she’d witnessed in a video of Saturday’s near-assassination: “The flag above, blown in the wind, got tied into what literally looked like an angel. Did you see that video? It was like an angel coming down.”
Tonight’s lineup of speakers inside the Thunderdome was a real “who’s who” of stooges that had been defamed, degraded and dogged out by Trump over the years and were now lining up to kiss the ring. Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley emerged draped in the silks of Mother Goose. “I’ll start by making one thing perfectly clear: Donald Trump has my strong endorsement, period,” she winced, meanwhile shaking her head “no” as if her animal instincts were rebelling against her mind. The cameras panned to Trump, who neither clapped nor smiled. “You don’t have to agree with Trump 100% of the time to vote for him—take it from me!” she soullessly bleated. “We agree on keeping America STRONG. We agree on keeping America SAFE. And we agree that Democrats have moved SO far to the left that they’re putting our freedoms in danger!”
The theme for the night’s speeches was “Make America Safe Again,” which explained the prurient sparkle in Sen. Ted Cruz’s eye as he settled in for a campfire tale of RAPE AND MURDER. “Every day Americans are dying—MURDER! ASSAULT! RAPES!—by illegal immigrants that the Democrats have released!” he yelped, sweat beading on his spray-tanned brow. “Teenage girls and boys wearing colored wristbands are being sold into a life of SEX SLAVERY—and it’s happening EVERY DAMN DAY!” Trembling with fever, he launched into story time: A woman is shot dead on a San Francisco pier; a nursing student goes for a jog, never to come home; a mother of five is RAPED AND MURDERED in suburban Maryland; a girl of only 12—you guessed it—RAPED AND MURDERED in Houston. “EVERY DAMN DAY!” the crowd cheered all together. What’s more, Cruz bellowed on, these RAPISTS AND MURDERS from Mexico, Venezuela, and Guatemala are simply chomping at the bit to cast a vote for Sleepy Joe! “STOP BIDEN’S BORDER BLOODBATH” read 500 signs that rippled through the arena like amber waves of grain.
I watched this from the bar across from Fiserv Forum, officially demoralized. An hour before, Charlie and Jeff had slipped past the cow-eyed blonde checking passes to get down onto the convention floor. “Ma’am? Ma’am! Your press pass doesn’t allow you down there,” she’d scolded as I tried to slink on by. Was it the stupid Uncle Sam hat I’d worn as camouflage? The satanic look of my tattoos? Either way, they’d clocked me at each entrance I tried. I drained a double Dark ’n’ Stormy, seething with envy at the selfies Charlie was sending live and direct from front row center, spitting distance from the podium, still toting the pizza box inside of which could be a pipe bomb, for all anyone knew.
On TV behind the bar, Gov. Ron DeSantis had slithered to the stage, looking like a wax museum’s botched attempt at Bradley Cooper. “Let’s be honest here: Biden is just a figurehead!” he squawked, intoning through his nose. “He’s a tool for imposing a leftist agenda on the American people!” Flanked by his newly Chadded sons and their cyborgian life partners, Trump smirked from the stands. “They want to ban gas automobiles, eliminate Second Amendment rights, and impose GENDER IDEOLOGY on everyone from our infantrymen to kindergarteners!” DeSantis whimpered on, stirring from the crowd a hearty “BOOOO!” “They mandated that you show proof of a COVID vaccine to go to a restaurant, but they opposed requiring proof of citizenship to cast a VOTE! They can’t even define what a WOMAN is!” The crowd went wild.
“And what brings you here?” asked a dread-headed bartender. I tipped the wilting brim of my Uncle Sam hat and slurred: “I’m an antifa super-soldier.” Two sallow-skinned Young Republicans dressed like haunted dolls traded glances and changed seats. The bartender shrugged and slid me another double. He was halfway to his tip goal of $1,000 by morning. —MG
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We have collectively made some progress, though. After years of racialized demonization, moral panic, and Miley Cyrus auto-da-fés, you can now proudly purchase a “Republicans Twerk Too” tee at the Republican National Convention. The shirt features a red, white, and blue elephant in the bottom right corner, but the pachyderm isn’t busting it wide open, which feels like a lost opportunity. We may not yet be at the point where Megan Thee Stallion is offered equal time at the Fiserv Forum, but this may be the closest that a divided nation can come together in 2024. On sale next to the shirts are stickers that read: “We the People got that WAP—Wrong Ass President.”
It’s reductive to claim that Trump entirely purged the GOP of its meatloaf, milk, and miserliness roots. The grandchildren of the original American Gothic conservatives are mostly still here, give or take a Mitt or two. But Trump paired the desire to turn back the clock to 1955 and 1985 with the marketing of a modern-day Barnum. No consistent ideology motivates him more than sheer power and the desire to entertain his fans, inflict vengeance on his enemies, and enrich himself in the process. This just happens to be the recipe for success in internet culture, where the engagement Moloch demands the complete sacrifice of nuance and any sense of proportion.
For the past several years, I’ve become convinced that the three most quintessential Americans of this century are Britney Spears, Kanye West, and Donald Trump. In the ’00s, the Louisiana pop star dictated and distilled the zeitgeist. “The American Dream since she was 17” instantiated our repressed fantasies and inherent contradictions. During the Bush era, the last gasp of organized national religiosity, Britney split open the jugular vein of desire by writhing about being a “Slave 4 U”—like Eve about to be evicted from the Garden of Eden. The pressure of existing in the eye of the entertainment-industrial cyclops eventually shattered Britney—as it would to anyone not blessed with the sociopathy built to shrug off the panopticon surveillance and the torrent of lies, innuendo, and revelations sold to the highest bidder. When she shaved her head in early 2007, it wasn’t merely the act of a distressed pop star, it was the full-blown outbreak of a national schizophrenia that has doomed us ever since.
Her successor in incarnating the zeitgeist, Kanye West, was equally an avatar of lofty ambition and gnawing demons. A manic visionary with megalomaniac impulses and the brilliance to actually manifest his dreams, he told the people unpopular truths while fueled by Hennessy at MTV Awards shows and during Hurricane Katrina fundraisers while synthesizing and sampling the best of a half-century of sounds and aesthetics. He intuitively realized that controversy was the most valuable currency in an overstimulated world, and served as a bridge between post-modernism and post-reality. But where everything is permitted, surprise becomes nearly impossible. Plugged into a matrix more powerful than anything he could control, Kanye’s Faustian bargain made him prone to self-destruction, which duly occurred.
It was only right that Kanye saw Trump as a kindred transmitter of “Dragon Energy.” Trump understood the blueprint before anyone else. But unlike Britney or Kanye, the New York developer had no messy illusions of artistry, which was a key asset in his rise. Without the need to manufacture a product, a process which requires time for imagination, reinvention, and creative evolution. Trump only had to sell himself. The ideas might constantly shift, the facts might be flagrantly compromised, but what mattered most was the emotion. Besides, in a world where everything can be artificially erased, manipulated, and swiftly forgotten, honesty is really just a feeling.
If we usually mark the “famous for being famous” era as beginning with Paris Hilton, Trump was already there in the 1980s. There was no good reason why a real estate tycoon from Queens would be worth the ink, but Trump became a fixture of the New York scandal sheets, a canonical Howard Stern guest, and a bestselling author without having to write a word of his own books. He was the first influencer, selling steaks, bottled water, and his own bogus business school. Right when reality television began to permanently rupture the boundaries between public perception and objective truth, The Apprentice became a ratings bonanza. At the dawn of the social media age, Trump realized that the press was an intermediary nuisance burdened by the old rules that governed society. The “self” was a fictitious conceit. But the Cartesian logic held: I post, therefore I am.
During Richard Nixon’s reign, Hunter Thompson confronted America with its unholy mirror image: “This is maybe the year when we finally come face to face with ourselves; finally just lay back and say it—that we are really just a nation of 220 million used-car salesmen with all the money we need to buy guns, and no qualms at all about killing anybody else in the world who tries to make us uncomfortable.” In 2024 we are a nation of 340 million content creators and semiprofessional propagandists, confessing mundane and sacred beliefs in the same breath, fighting vain and petty wars for personal validation. A weird blob of one-dimensional conspiracists with no time to pause between private reflection and digital retch. A loose confederation of lost souls thirsting for low-stakes fame, all in the futile hope that Vans will send free loafers in exchange for a TikTok.
You know how often suckers are born. What no one remembers about Barnum is that he was a successful politician, too—a two-term representative in the Connecticut state legislature and the Republican mayor of Bridgeport. Had iPhones existed then, he probably would’ve become president. Barnum’s most famous real quote was actually “I am a showman by profession … and all the gilding shall make nothing else of me.” It might as well have been in the Collected Poems of Donald J. Trump, a book actually on sale on the world’s least psychedelic Shakedown Street.
Before you can enter the heavily fortified Republican Green Zone, you first have to cross a threshold serenaded by dissenters.
“YOU GUYS ARE SUPPORTING A PEDOPHILE!!! YOU GUYS ARE BRAINWASHED AS FUCK!!!”
An effete man with a shaved scalp shouts loudly into his megaphone. No one pays much attention save for a few journalists capturing it as grist for the content mill. He’s wearing white Crocs and a “Support Black Trans Lives” shirt. The aggressive sun has turned him the color of poached salmon and sweat has left his collar misshapen and hanging off to one side.
“He cheated on his girlfriend with a porn star!!!” The man starts chanting. “He paid the porn star to shut the fuck up, to shut the fuck up!”
No one has the heart to tell him that Donald Trump actually cheated on his wife with the porn star.
A 60ish white liberal arts professor type with wild eyes waves a cardboard sign mocking everyone from “Duh Santis” to “Tucker Carlson AKA Fucker Charlatan.” A Black woman with gold bangles and short jean shorts quietly holds up a sign that reads “Stop The Project 2025 Agenda.” Her T-shirt reads “July 13 was a false flag.” When someone hands her the megaphone, she shrieks “DONALD TRUMP IS A FUCKING RAPIST.”
A gnomish woman beseeches me to read Psalms 43, but I decline. Before passing through the security gauntlet, I pass a pretty young girl in pigtails and a flower skirt. She smiles beatifically at me to ensure that I read her poster: “SEEK JESUS: DO NOT DELAY.”
The streets outside of the home of the Milwaukee Bucks have become the carnival midway of Trumplandia. Daily Wire representatives pass out cards with QR codes offering the chance to win a free “Leftist Tears” tumbler. Patriot Mobile advertises “America’s Only Christian Conservative Wireless Provider.” The United States Conceal Carry Association sells women’s handgun and self-defense books featuring women pointing weapons at me with “make my day” grimaces. An older white woman in a lonely booth asks if I’d like to learn more about the Frederick Douglass Foundation. She looks like a Sunday school teacher and tells me their mission involves “going into the Black community to ask what they need.” With polite insistence, she hands me a purple elastic wristband, and asks if I’d like a photo with a Trump cardboard cutout. He’s in a red MAGA hat and a “Real Men Make America Great Again, Vote Trump” T-shirt. I smile for the camera.
For the last eight years, Trump’s opponents kept pointing out his relentless attack on reality. In his interview with Lester Holt during the RNC, Joe Biden chided the media for supposedly ignoring Trump’s lies during the debate. But almost none of Trump’s supporters care. What he’s saying matters less than how he says it. Tone above substance. Entertainment above policy.
It goes without saying that there are thrice-divorced pool contractors in Fort Lauderdale and petroleum executives who only want to pay as few taxes as possible. Plenty of racists love his Hannibal Lecter meets George Wallace routines. And there is the usual coalition of evangelical zealots, anti-immigration fanatics, and those looking for some good old fashioned biblical retribution. But I suspect that the majority of his voters, at least the majority of the working-class ones, believe that no politician from either party will do much to improve their actual lives. They’re seeking to be a part of something bigger and buy some overpriced merch. For those who have found themselves immured in the post-reality world of ambient disappointment, the president is simply a grandmaster of vibes. And they would prefer to laugh at Trump’s jokes.
Trumpists worship Trump’s imperfections and share his grievances. His woes become their own. So when Trump survived the assassination attempt and rose to his feet to chant “Fight, Fight, Fight,” it was merely a confirmation of their most deeply held perceptions. You can see it in the cutouts of Trump as Rambo, shredded in a red MAGA bandanna, clutching an assault rifle. Trump as the Marlboro Man riding a red, white, and blue elephant. Trump dressed like Wyatt Earp, holding an old western Colt .45. A white-haired grandmother wearing a red cape, red hat, and ripped jeans, displays her “Thug Life” shirt—with Trump posing like ’Pac with dark shades and a thick gold chain.
It’s all an outlandish burlesque, pure kitsch, and they can barely keep the swag in stock. Trump tote bags and coffee mugs, bedazzled Trump Girl Hats and MAGA hats in Duck Dynasty camo. Pink pins with Trump superimposed in front of the White House; the bubble letters reading “Daddy’s Home.” Stickers scream “MEAN TWEETS 2024.” There are fake copies of the Declaration of Independence with “MAGA” written all over it. Trump babies and bears and fake gold medals and Bibles and “I Love Trump” pennants. Everything here that an apostle could dream of, except for maybe the limited edition $299 Trump assassination sneakers. Those are only available online, but last I heard they were all sold out.
The mayor of MagaVille has a Richie Rich face tattoo to match his candy-painted Richie Rich Rolls Royce. From his neck, a gold bust of Donald Trump dangles, attached to a chain so heavy that it probably causes sciatica. Even amid the outlandish costumes paraded at this nativist Mardi Gras, Forgiato Blow does not blend. This is the point. Everywhere he goes, Republican delegates and apparatchiks stop to pose for photos with the MAGA rap polemicist or at least offer a friendly bear hug.
Last night on the massive Fiserv Forum screens, the Floridian unveiled “Trump Trump Baby,” his brand new campaign anthem. Swiping the beat and cadences of Vanilla Ice’s “Ice Ice Baby,” the video stars Amber Rose, the stripper turned Kanye muse turned Slut Walk founder turned Trump surrogate. Wearing the aforementioned Trump pendant, Rose dances and flexes in front of a Trump-branded cybertruck. By her side, Blow inveighs against the Democrats, the fake news media (“the enemy of the people”), and the “two-tier justice system.” He demands reparations for “every idiot that voted for Joe Biden.” It’s unlikely to sway undecided voters, but it will give you a newfound respect for the comparative artistry of Vanilla Ice.
Rose has already left the convention halls. Last night, she delivered a charismatic and polished speech about recovering from leftist brainwashing. Rose has now realized that Trump isn’t racist and that he’s actually our last chance to make America stronger, safer, and wealthier. According to podcast host Joe Budden, “she got a really big bag” for her endorsement. I can’t confirm whether that’s true, but it’s difficult to imagine Amber Rose sacrificing millions of dollars in future brand deals out of the sheer feel-goodery of patriotism. Either way, it’s a fairly substantial come up for a party whose biggest celebrity speakers in 2016 were Antonio Sabato Jr. and Scott Baio. Over the last few months, Trump has appeared with vaunted regional street rappers including New York’s Sheff G and Sleepy Hallow, Detroit’s Peezy and Icewear Vezzo, and Philadelphia’s 0T7 Quanny. Right after the assassination attempt, 50 Cent posted the Get Rich or Die Tryin’ cover with Trump’s head photoshopped atop his shirtless torso. Reports claim that the famously bulletproof New York rapper may address the convention, but eventually, 50 declines to come to Milwaukee.
This isn’t bad news for Forgiato Blow, who by default becomes the official hip-hop ambassador of MAGA nation. Over the last year or so, the St. Petersburg native has become a semiregular on Fox & Friends, excoriating Target for wokeness and CMT for yanking Jason Aldean’s “Try That in a Small Town.” I keep on telling myself that I should approach him for an interview, but every time I see Blow, he’s mobbed by well-wishers. And as I approach the convention on Wednesday, the third night of the proceedings, a small crowd has gathered to watch the “Trump Train” rapper get interviewed live for Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA.
‘I have witnessed intense joy and exuberance and profound hatred and rage. Everyone is welcoming and polite and having so much fun until they are reminded of the evil forces that they believe have covalently bonded them.’ / Joe Raedle/Getty Images
“We need people to believe,” Blow explains about the importance of recruiting Amber Rose to MAGA nation. “If we’re giving speeches and waving Trump flags to the same people over and over, we’re not getting nowhere. We need to create a new culture and red-pill new voters.”
A decade ago, the rapper born Kurt Jantz had a blue mohawk, a blue beard, and at the age of 30, had nothing to show for his musical ambitions. His grandfather Stuart Arnold was a flamboyant New York playboy who moved to Florida to found the Auto Trader empire. At one point, Arnold owned a Lear Jet, a one-man submarine, and a 103-foot yacht called The Ivory Lady. Every Christmas, Arnold’s children and grandchildren gathered on the front lawn of his 8,000-square-foot Victorian mansion to frolic in artificial snow, which Grandpa Arnold had carted in by the truckload.
When Arnold died in 2017, he left behind a $13 million waterfront estate, then the most expensive on the local market. Around that time, Blow began to see the light. Until then, the erstwhile “Surf God” made generic auto-tuned trap that sounded like a lightweight Rick Ross and paid for guest features from established stars like French Montana, Lil Durk, and Paul Wall, none of which created much buzz. It just so happened that Donald Trump had begun establishing himself as a viable candidate amongst a staid and colorless field of Republican primary Sleestaks.
MAGA rap started with “Silver Spoon,” a barely heard 2016 track in which Blow equated his wealthy roots to the vitriol directed at Trump. By then, Blow’s Etch A Sketch beard returned to its natural brown and he began to be photographed exclusively in various shades of MAGA gear. Pledging allegiance to the cause, Blow added new tattoos to the gagged Lady Liberty already on his neck. The most notable being a portrait of Trump on his leg. In this rendering, Trump has face tattoos of his own—including the words “Self-Made,” “MAGA,” and “2020.” There’s also a goat.
“People think we’re grifters,” Blow shrugs off the criticism. “But we’re not getting anything by this grift, we’re getting deleted! I was there on Jan. 6, but I was outside the Capitol and I’ve had all my social media taken from me—all my platforms taken from me—because I’m fighting this fight.”
Blow’s first viral moment came at CPAC in 2021. Before a raised pickup truck with a Trump-as-Rambo mural, a suspendered Roger Stone got loose as a goose while Blow rapped about FBI overreach and the unjust persecution of the Jan. 6 rioters. Blow soon discovered what politicians had always known: There’s money in catering to the base. Branding himself “Trump’s nephew,” Blow has released diss songs against the vaccine and Joe Biden (including no less than six “Let’s Go Brandon” songs). His catalog encompasses tributes to Kyle Rittenhouse, Matt Gaetz, and Marjorie Taylor Greene (she appeared in the video). Rolling Loud won’t book Blow anytime soon, but he has several songs with millions of streams and 140,000 monthly listeners on Spotify. A decent working-class existence in a hip-hop world starkly divided between baller and budget.
“I’m the Trump of rap,” Blow brags in his interview. “My videos are always getting taken down and that’s exactly what happened to Trump. He was the president and wasn’t even allowed on social media.”
For all the conspiracies and lyrical venom, Blow seems affable and sincere. He doesn’t seem to see his songs as a joke per se, but you sense that he doesn’t intend for them to be taken all that seriously. At one point, the Turning Point interviewer asks about the rapper’s Damascus conversion:
“At first, I related to Trump’s lifestyle. The cars, the money, the pretty women,” Blow answers. “But then I started coming out to all the rallies, meeting people, and seeing how kind they are—and how much people need Trump.”
Starry-eyed, the interviewer responds: “beautiful, Forgiato, beautiful.”
In Trump, Blow saw the same aspirational ideal that dozens of rappers had in the past. In the ’90s alone, Raekwon called himself the “Black Trump” and Jay-Z branded himself “the ghetto’s answer to Trump.” Nas bragged about being a part of the best couple since Donald Trump and Marla Maples, and Method Man enlisted Trump for a cameo on Tical 2000. As the Staten Island native once said: Rappers make great actors because they’re the best liars. “They build themselves up to the point where they’re Gods.”
By 2016, Trump’s xenophobic and racially insensitive public comments ensured that an endorsement was the ultimate rap apostasy. Then Kanye, well, you know. Next, Trump teamed up with Ice Cube on a plan to economically empower Black Americans. At his final 2020 campaign rally, the Miami Soundcloud rapper Lil Pump emerged to stump for Trump (who accidentally called him Lil Pimp). And on the last day of his first term, the 45th president pardoned Lil Wayne on federal gun charges, and commuted Kodak Black’s nearly four-year sentence for making a false statement to buy a firearm.
A seismic shift was underway. Late last year, the St. Louis rapper Sexyy Red summed up the transformation: “they support [Trump] in the hood. At first, people … thought he was racist, saying little shit against women. But once he started getting Black people out of jail and giving people that free money. Aww baby, we love Trump. We need him back in office.”
This partially explains why last week, I was covertly sent a pro-Trump banger (?) uniting three huge street rap stars from the last five years: a New York drill legend, a Haitian American from South Florida famed for documenting pain and struggle, and a South Central-raised child of Mexican immigrants. When I asked if there was a release date, my contact replied that he wasn’t sure: “It’s on Donny lol”
Trump paused behind the podium to bask in the applause. Could it be pathos that I sensed in his expression? One of God’s own prototypes, too weird to live, too rare to die? ‘Thank you, Kid Rock, sometimes referred to as Bob,’ he said.
It’s easy to dismiss them all as unsophisticated or paid off, but something deeper is at play. These rappers aren’t really Republicans. They’re fans of what Trump represents to them. I’m not talking about his court picks or his ties to the Heritage Foundation. What they see is a massively popular folk phenomenon who continues to exist outside the parameters of polite society. An archetypical antihero who has fought federal and state prosecutions, survived an assassination, and never given a fuck. An outlaw, whose entire modus operandi is getting money, dissing his rivals, and shattering taboos. Lately, Trump has begun walking out to 50 Cent’s “Many Men,” making the symbology and meme cycle complete. Trump was right: When you’re a star, you can do anything you want.
“This is about Donald Trump,” Blow stresses to the Turning Point interviewer. “It’s not about me or you. It’s about Donald Trump and America and our future and our children. It’s about the history we’re making.”
The interviewer excitedly bobs his head, addressing the crowd and audience listening at home.
“We’re creating the new media. We’re creating new culture here,” he says. “And it’s a fun movement! And we’re going to win! Now we’re going to play a very special song.”
Yellow sparklers explode all around to the stage to the delight and applause of the assembled delegates. “Trump Trump Baby” booms loudly from the speakers. I’d link to the YouTube of the video so you could watch for yourself, but it’s already been yanked from the platform. It’s been said that Sony demanded it’s removal because of the uncleared sample, but who even knows anymore? —JW
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This is perilous territory for a writer. Don’t get me wrong. I’ve never been the objective type, but I have always strived toward honesty. And to cover this spectacle with any degree of fairness requires keeping an open mind and allowing myself to be susceptible to the awesome tidal swells of propaganda. I am the guest at the party who willingly allows himself to come under the spell of the hired hypnotist who suggests that I am a dog. And now in the middle of JD Vance’s vice presidential acceptance speech, I find myself terrified that I will soon start uncontrollably barking at cat ladies.
Over the last 72 hours, my brain has weathered contusions from both slick and crude tribunes screaming about murder and nefarious conspiracies. I have heard “Drill Baby Drill” chants and lusty affirmations for “JD’s Mom.” I have been threatened by invasions of ISIS terrorists and Venezuelan gang members “surging to the border.” 325,000 Americans are dead from fentanyl and I am told that Joe Biden is the grim reaper smirking behind it all.
I have stood in the Kansas delegation while a man next to me yells about IRS agents being fired and his neighbor just shakes his head and babbles “COVID, COVID, COVID.” I have been expressly instructed to help Make America Wealthy Again, and have no idea what that means. I have watched the entire room turn to Trump’s VIP section like they’re worshipping a Roman emperor about to turn his thumb down to execute the haters and losers on the Coliseum floor. I have seen people dressed like Uncle Sam and Betsy Ross and MAGA mermaids and Revolutionary War militiamen and counted no less than seven types of Trump-inspired ear bandages. I have been escorted out of the Virginia delegation’s country hoedown for crashing it without the proper credentials. I have snuck into the “Hogs N Dogs” party at the Harley Museum to watch a former Republican senator perform Steppenwolf covers in flamboyant Ed Hardy stretchy shirts that exude “affair with your social media assistant.” I have seen old pudgy men in suspenders with “another male lesbian for Rush ’96 pins.” I have deliberated seeing the documentary Red, White & Coup.
For two minutes, I watched a jumbotron video of Trump doing his patented “jerking off two guys at once” dance set to “YMCA” and wondered if everyone was actually in on the joke. I sat at the Drink Wisconsibly pub and overheard a gray-haired and bespectacled man in a navy suit tell his friend without any irony: “if you give me $100,000 in cash, I’ll whack anyone.” About a minute later, I watched him shake his head and despondently confess: “my son is a nice guy, I just don’t get it.”
I have witnessed intense joy and exuberance and profound hatred and rage. Everyone is welcoming and polite and having so much fun until they are reminded of the evil forces that they believe have covalently bonded them. Outside this arena, everything is malevolent and sinister; in here, it is secure. Trump is the benevolent protector, the final bulwark against the barbarians at the gate. Only he can keep them safe.
Is everything I have ever known a lie? What do I actually believe and hold sacred? And are they out to get me? They. My God, what is this strange encephalitis that has inflamed my brain? And how can I return to anything resembling normal when the concept of normalcy is as antiquated as an icebox.
I’m walloped by a mitochondrial level of exhaustion that makes me want to collapse right here on the convention floor. The vertigo that arrives when all the wires are twisted into a Gordian knot, and the more you try to untie it, the more entwined it becomes. And here is JD Vance in eyeliner, telling me about his ma-maw’s collection of 19 shotguns.
A stocky Costanza of a man interrupts my free fall. Barging into my space, he boxes me out like Rodman snaring a rebound. He wears a department store suit and a happy meal red tie and sweats profusely like he just emerged from the Wolski’s bathroom. I’m collateral damage in his quest to get the perfect selfie with JD Vance in the background.
“Plenty of space over there,” I mutter, attempting to get his attention. But he ignores me. Then I tap him on the shoulder and say much louder. “Bro, you keep knocking into me. Find a different spot?”
“I like it fine just here,” he says, not even deigning to turn around. The poisoned disorientation that I’d felt moments earlier is replaced by a startling aggression that I thought I had abandoned years ago. This could be my chance. A brawl on the floor of the convention to steal the thunder from JD Vance. I debate digging my fingernails into his haunches. How likely is it that the Secret Service will leave me in traction? They need to make up for that whole failing to stop a presidential assassin snafu.
But before I have the chance, the porcine acolyte dashes across the aisle to badger another delegate to take a selfie with him. He is not paying a bit of attention to Vance’s oration. His whole purpose is to document the fact that he made it here, greedily counting the Instagram and Facebook likes in his head. When he goes back home to Palm Beach or Scottsdale, everyone will be talking about his content. He better make it count.
I’ve never been a fan of hard and fast rules, but when you find yourself on the precipice of squabbling at a nationally televised event, it’s never a bad idea to leave early. Right before Vance goes into his final peroration, I duck out of the arena, head full of helium, laboring hard not to trip over my own feet. I approach the chain link fences, security checkpoints, and concrete stanchions separating the convention vortex from the common Volk. A phalanx from Akron directs me left, which leads into a metal barricade manned by Missouri State Highway Patrolmen. They scrutinize my credential and order me to head back where I came from.
Dizzily, I walk in the opposite direction toward an exit controlled by the Palm Beach sheriffs. They politely tell me that actually, everything is locked down. No one can escape until JD Vance is finished speaking. Those are the rules. I wait out this purgatory by sitting down on the concrete benches outside of the Fiserv Forum and eavesdrop on a coven of blond delegates plotting what time they should roll to tonight’s invite-only after-party: an EDM Republican rave in a nearby warehouse. As I spark the square, I try to remember the last time that it felt like everything wasn’t completely deranged. —JW
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I never saw my life going this direction. I’m a realist—put another way, a Capricorn. But American society had moved past the need for realism. Nothing mattered but performance; our future would be determined by who put on a better show. (Of course it’s always been this way, only now you can’t ignore it.) I could no longer discern whether anyone was being remotely serious when they spoke. (Was Donald Trump a hero? Is Kamala Harris brat?) Nor could I spot the difference between memes and propaganda, or say with any certainty what distinguished an attempted assassination from a stage play. As for the conspiracy theorists, they’d begun to sound small-minded, as if the deep state’s best-laid plans had anything on unadulterated cosmic chaos.
“Powerful events breed their own network of inconsistencies. Loose ends, dead ends, small mysteries of time and space,” wrote Don DeLillo in a 1983 essay titled “American Blood” on JFK’s assassination and the attempted one on Reagan 18 years later. “Violence itself seems to cause a warp in the texture of things. There are jump cuts, blank spaces, an instant in which information leaps from one energy level to another.” He went on: “The lines that extend from [JFK’s murder] have shown such elaborate twists and convolutions that we are almost forced to question the basic suppositions we make about our world of light and shadow, solid objects and ordinary sounds, and to wonder further about our ability to measure such things, to determine weight, mass and direction, to see things as they are.” Ah, but then the kicker: “We may all lead more interesting lives than we think.” —MG
It’s been at least eight years since everything became wrestling. But this was the finisher, the atomic leg drop. The goofball prophecies of Idiocracy coming so close that Mike Judge might as well be our Orwell. Of course, when you base a civilization around infinite amusement, eventually, life imitates WrestleMania IV.
Hulk Hogan was my first hero. I had his wrestling dolls. I watched his cartoon. I even wrote him a get-well letter once because the WWF told his fans that it would lend him strength. A 462-pound ex-sumo champ named Earthquake crushed his ribs in a vicious sneak attack and the experience was said to have left the Hulkamaniac deliberating retirement. I was at home sick with chickenpox and told him that if I could conquer this grave illness, surely he could recover too. Years later, I learned that the whole thing was just a bit to sustain interest while Hogan shot a film in which he played an intergalactic warrior who crashes his spaceship on Earth, leaving him stranded in suburbia. When I was old enough to realize that wrestling was fake, I stopped caring.
The intervening years weren’t kind to Hogan. He cheated on his wife with his 20-year-old daughter’s friend and got divorced. His teenage son nearly killed a friend in a drunk driving crash and spent five months in jail. In 2012, a sex tape famously leaked where Hogan cuckolded his best friend, a radio DJ named Bubba the Love Sponge. A few years later, Hogan’s personal injury lawsuit against Gawker unearthed more of these same recordings. This time, the Tampa wrestler was caught saying the N-word and admitting, “I guess we’re all a little racist.” The WWE promptly terminated its contract with him (he was invited back in 2018). Hogan’s Peter Thiel-lawsuit shut down Gawker.
If this were fiction, it would be far too on the nose. But America has never preferred subtlety. The biggest wrestler of the last half-century, the one who literally wrapped himself in the flag, and sparked countless “U-S-A” chants, was going out sad. But here was one last chance for redemption. The biggest audience that Hogan had commanded in over a decade. All of them, from young to old, screamed at him to flex his biceps and roar like a hibernal lion and show the world that he still had it, and maybe so did they. There was only one catch.
“We can save the American dream for everyone,” Hogan said, with the same deadly seriousness that he used to tell kids to say their prayers and eat their vitamins. “And Donald Trump is the president who will get the job done. All you criminals, all you lowlifes, all you scumbags, all you drug dealers, and all you crooked politicians need to answer one question, brother. Whatchya gonna do when Donald Trump and all the Trump-a-maniacs run wild on you, brother? God bless you.”
When Kennedy was killed, John Updike commented that it felt like God might have withdrawn his blessing from America. But the true believers gathered here understood there was something divine in the fact that the bullet had missed. And now their hero was back on track to win the belt once again. But there was simply no time to consider what any of it meant. —JW
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A54-year-old honky, spray-painted rust orange, had just lip-synced for his life to a song called “American Badass” while Melania bugged her eyes in bemused horror. “I’m a porno flick, I’m like amazing grace, I’m gonna fuck some hoes after I rock this place!” Kid Rock mouthed along, midriff spilling from his T-shirt, while a waxen Jared Kushner nervously checked the time.
Now the dark arena swelled with the weepy chords of “God Bless the U.S.A.” as Secret Service agents checked the stage for IEDs. For a second the room went black; then the backdrop lifted and there the diva stood, nearly melting beneath a wall of lights that flashed “TRUMP” in the mode of Elvis’ 1968 comeback special. “Slay, queen,” I whispered, adrift in a sea of phones refracting the image of the former president hitting his marks on both ends of the stage, pumping his fist solemnly and mouthing with great melodrama the ballad’s closing lines. (“God bless … the … YOUU—ESSS—AYYY!”)
Trump paused behind the podium to bask in the applause. Could it be pathos that I sensed in his expression? One of God’s own prototypes, too weird to live, too rare to die? “Thank you, Kid Rock, sometimes referred to as Bob,” he said. It was all downhill from there.
“So many people have asked me—what happened? Tell us what happened …” Trump began in a grandfatherly hush. “And therefore, I’ll tell you exactly what happened, and you’ll never hear it from me a second time. Because it’s actually too painful to tell.” Those who’d spoken with the former president in the days after the shooting had claimed to notice in him a newfound existentialism. Now he launched into the story like Thoreau at Walden Pond: “It was a warm, beautiful day in the early evening in Butler Township, in the great commonwealth of Pennsylvania,” he murmured, ASMR-style. “Music was loudly playing, and the campaign was doing really well. I went to the stage and the crowd was cheering wildly. Everybody was … happy.”
What felt like hours had passed. Somewhere in Delaware, Joe Biden was barking at the moon. Yesterday the White House had announced his 37th bout with COVID, which meant that he was getting a new face-lift or was dead.
“I began speaking very strongly, powerfully, and happily,” he lilted on, “because I was discussing the great job my administration did on immigration at the Southern border.” He paused for quick applause. “Behind me and to my right was a large screen that was displaying a chart of border crossing under my leadership. The numbers were absolutely amazing.” He slowly pantomimed craning his head to see the famous chart until he heard something whiz loudly, hitting his right ear. “I moved my right hand to my ear, brought it down, and my hand was covered with blood,” he solemnly went on.
“I immediately knew it was very serious, that we were under attack, and in one movement, proceeded to drop to the ground. Bullets continued to fly as very brave Secret Service agents rushed to the stage and pounced on top of me for protection. There was blood pouring everywhere. And yet in a certain way I felt very safe, because I had God on my side.” Half a dozen screens projected giant images of Trump’s blood-streaked face. Screams erupted from the nearby Wisconsin delegation, who had soberly removed their cheesehead hats.
What felt like hours had passed. Somewhere in Delaware, Joe Biden was barking at the moon. Yesterday the White House had announced his 37th bout with COVID, which meant that he was getting a new face-lift or was dead. But onstage, our great redeemer was spewing the sort of addled ramblings you regularly hear from wild-eyed men in hospital bracelets on public transportation. You could monitor the teleprompter as Trump rambled along, watching as the words onscreen became entirely detached from the speech that was unfolding.
“The chart that saved my life!” he gushed as it appeared onscreen behind him in a senseless maze of numbers and arrows. “One of the greatest charts I’ve ever seen. You know the chart. Oh, there it is. That’s pretty good. Wow! Last time I put up that chart, I never really got to look at it!” The crowd went wild. “I said, you gotta see this chart! I was so proud of it. I never got to see it that day, but I’m seeing it now …”
He’d been rolling for an hour now and showed no signs of stopping, as in desperate need of a drink, we attempted to leave.
“No one leaves this floor until Trump has left the stage,” snapped the man guarding the exit.
“With our victory in November, the years of war, weakness, and chaos will be over!” Trump babbled on. “We will build an Iron Dome missile defense system to ensure that no enemy can strike our homeland, and this great Iron Dome will all be MADE IN THE USA! We will soon be on the verge of finding the cures to cancer, Alzheimer’s, and many other diseases! We will not have men playing in women’s sports!” It had been 90 minutes now.
Ten thousand red, white, and blue balloons rained from the rafters as the sounds of “Nessun Dorma” trembled through the arena, exuberantly lip-synced by a tan, bloated Italian who seemed to have arrived straight off the happy hour set at David Lynch’s Club Silencio. A man in a seersucker suit and derby hat commenced stealing the signpost for the Washington delegation as the Trump family took the stage, not so much waving as waiting for the Don to hurry up and leave this Midwestern dump. But there he stayed, with an expression seen a thousand times—the face of a man five minutes before the bartender tells him, “You don’t have to go home, buddy, but you can’t stay here.”
Slowly, a crush of revelers oozed their way toward the staircases leading outside. But red, white, and blue balloons kept descending from the ceiling, as though the party had accidentally purchased an extra 20,000 and were set on getting their money’s worth. Soon, the entire floor was covered in the Stars and Stripes, making it almost impossible to take a step without spraining your knee. White-haired Midwestern grandfathers with canes began slipping, emitting antique groans. Dazed boomers in sparkling MAGA fedoras and their prim ponytailed wives hit the deck one by one, until finally, security noticed the growing calamity in front of them.
Removing pocket knives from their suits, the guards began frantically popping as many balloons as possible, as fast as they could. A minister appeared onstage to give a closing benediction. Hundreds of assembled parishioners swiveled to hear the prayer.
But the preacher’s words were barely audible over the deafening rumble of the punctured balloons. POP! POP! POP! It sounded like someone was strafing the hall with gunfire. And as the blessings of the Lord were summoned, the dropping bodies kept pace with the falling balloons. Eventually, the injured were cleared out of the way and even Trump reluctantly exited the stage. After a while, we were finally allowed to leave the arena, too—to return to whatever is now supposed to resemble real life. —MG & JW
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