Friday’s event was my first Trump rally in a sporting arena, which, I soon learned, is where he makes the most sense. The scene outside Milwaukee’s Fiserv Forum set the tone for the evening’s entertainment; while Democrats may dispute Trump’s claims to have created some 7 million jobs as president, nobody can deny that he’s now providing employment for the dozen or so merchants who trail his events selling bootleg merchandise, including some of the only Black men to be found outside the average Trump rally. The latest designs include: “Support Diversity” alongside a row of different sized bullets; a heavily-armed Smoky Bear saying “Only You Can Prevent Socialism”; Trump clutching cats alongside the message “Make Pets Safe Again” in reference to the campaign’s anti-Haitian blood libel; an austere looking Trump standing with open arms outside the White House beneath the bolded pink announcement “Daddy’s Home”; a heavily stylized Western illustration of Trump and Vance in cowboy hats labeled “The Outlaw and the Hillbilly”; and a rendition of Kamala Harris’s face with a line through it, as part of the message “Say No to the Hoe.” There are also the ubiquitous Trump hats, which more attendees than not showed up already wearing, creating a striking visual effect that’s also a bit disconcerting, especially when viewed from the center of it.

This originally ran on August 12, 2016. We are republishing various Trump-related articles, as explained in Why We’re Publishing Some Trump Stuff Again. By now many people have seen Donald Trump’s mocking imitation of The New ...