Rise of the Right in the U.S. Heartland: a Bibliographic Essay

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Since Iโ€™ve only made brief visits to other parts of theย country, this is my quest to understand the rise of right-wing reactionaries in the hinterlands, andย why they are sympathetic to white nationalism and have electorally supported Donald Trump.

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Triumph of the Swill

Fridayโ€™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 Milwaukeeโ€™s Fiserv Forum set the tone for the eveningโ€™s entertainment; while Democrats may dispute Trumpโ€™s claims to have created some 7 million jobs as president, nobody can deny that heโ€™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: โ€œSupport Diversityโ€ alongside a row of different sized bullets; a heavily-armed Smoky Bear saying โ€œOnly You Can Prevent Socialismโ€; Trump clutching cats alongside the message โ€œMake Pets Safe Againโ€ in reference to the campaignโ€™s anti-Haitian blood libel; an austere looking Trump standing with open arms outside the White House beneath the bolded pink announcement โ€œDaddyโ€™s Homeโ€; a heavily stylized Western illustration of Trump and Vance in cowboy hats labeled โ€œThe Outlaw and the Hillbillyโ€; and a rendition of Kamala Harrisโ€™s face with a line through it, as part of the message โ€œSay No to the Hoe.โ€ There are also the ubiquitous Trump hats, which more attendees than not showed up already wearing, creating a striking visual effect thatโ€™s also a bit disconcerting, especially when viewed from the center of it.

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Iowa Bluffs

This piece was originally published on October 4, 2023 and is one of a series of Trump-related articles we’re republishing. Crossing the Mississippi River from Illinois into Iowa by car is an almost effortless glide, eliding entirely the forceful pull of the Great River and the centuries of violence greater still that harnessed its bucking current into an engine of commerce unsuitable for fishing, swimming, or drinking. Itโ€™s difficult to imagine that this momentary glimpse of blue in my peripheral vision was once the artery from which fortunes gushed or trickled, the playground where the nineteenth centuryโ€™s Saint Hucks found death and adventure, and the vanishing horizon for the freedom of enslaved people sent ever-southward as the human traffic on which this nationโ€™s wealth was built drew the entire southern social order into its own death spiral.

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Middle Class War: A Visit to Staten Island’s Autonomous Zone

This piece was originally published on December 20, 2020 and is one of a series of Trump-related articles we’re republishing. Transmission rates are on the rise again in New York City. Hospital beds are filling, the temperature is dropping, and most have accepted a renewed lockdown to be a foregone conclusion. But the talk of the town has been a humble pub on Staten Islandโ€™s East Shore pushing against the trend. As the transmission rate in the vicinity pushed it into the โ€œorange zone,โ€ Macโ€™s Public House declared last month it would not abide by a state-mandated closure but instead stay open with a โ€œsuggested donationโ€ model intended to skirt business regulations.

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“The Last Stand of Freedom in America”

This piece was originally published on December 9, 2020 and is one of a series of Trump-related articles we’re republishing. โ€œHow many of you have an easy life?โ€ the speaker asked the audience. To his dismay a handful of people raised their hands. โ€œWell, okay, I guess some of you have it good, but many of you clearly donโ€™t.โ€ His voice could be barely heard and the audience shouted at him to speak into the microphone. They were gathered to express their defiance at the voter fraud that cost Donald Trump the 2020 election.

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Thankful for President Trump: Thanksgiving with Stop the Steal

This piece was originally published on November 29, 2020 and is one of a series of Trump-related articles we’re republishing. On Thanksgiving morning supporters of President Trumpโ€™s doomed reelection effort descended on the Loop neighborhood of Chicago to raise the battle cry โ€œStop the Steal!โ€ The โ€œstealโ€ in this tortured locution is the purported Democratic Party theft of the November presidential election, chronicled in a convoluted conspiracy theory that one conservative federal judge recently compared to โ€œFrankensteinโ€™s Monster,โ€ as it is โ€œhaphazardly stitched together.โ€

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Lessons from Rosemarie: My 25 years in Brooklyn

โ€œKeep going down Atlantic, then hang a left at Bedford,โ€ advised the lot attendant, a white guy in his 60s, as my pal Patrick and I dropped off a U-Haul truck at the corner of Flatbush and Atlantic. โ€œBut be careful, Fellas. Youโ€™ll be driving through Godโ€™s country.โ€ It was a white guyโ€™s way of …

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In the Eye of the Storm: A Report from Kenosha

What’s so simple in the moonlight by the morning never is. ย -Bright Eyes The night of the shooting, bands of armed white men dotted the landscape before we even arrived in Kenosha. Police roadblocks along I-94 barred easy access to the small Wisconsin city and forced us off the highway early, to hack it through …

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