Trump MAGA store "ethnographic" trip
A fleeting piece of political and cultural Americana captured in photographs
I still have a dozen “poverty photo walks” to process and post from my summer in the UK, but in the meantime I would like to offer you a very different “visual essay”. Passing through Lenoir, TN on a congested Interstate 40 a few days ago, we needed to get gas anyhow and take a rest break. There were giant signs to the Trump store, and after a little navigational hesitation and deviation we managed to locate the entrance. I asked the store assistant if I could take photos, and she graciously said yes. I offer this visual reportage on an “as is” basis — it is up to the viewer to provide the commentary and make sense of it as modern anthropology.
You can get a contrasting view on the store here. There are even more radical critiques available. All I can say is that I did buy a hat — a souvenir of this moment. I have a sense of what is coming (namely the exposure of decades of election fraud), so the significance of this is not about a man, but a longing for truly representative government. What strikes me is that this sort of place is ripe for dispassionate analysis as a social and cultural phenomenon, not a geopolitical one. Maybe these images will be useful to future scholars of this most unusual era.
Excellent "clip" of The Bible Belt section!!! ;-) Why do you think Hillbilly Country was hit so hard?!! It will take these poor people YEARS to recover! Nor will we ever know the true death toll!! Larger than Katrina, for sure!! We just have to look at "who" really owns this world.....not a pretty sight!! This has all been going on for centuries, so no wonder it is a Big Jolt to wake everyone up!! ;-)
It would be an excellent subject for an ethnography. I would hazard to guess that there has never before been a presidential superstore.