More Trumpies at the mall
by digby
All sides have their weirdos and their cranks who show up at big public gatherings. But the Trump followers are really something else:
Arriving early at the Mall for Donald Trump’s “Salute to America” event on Independence Day, I saw no tanks. But I did see, everywhere, the face of John F. Kennedy, Jr.—on hand fans, on signs, and, in one instance, as a cutout fixed to the back of a chair. The chair belonged to a dark haired and trimly bearded forty-something man and a blonde woman of about the same age. Both wore red T-shirts prominently featuring the letter Q and some other indecipherable text. I asked the woman what “Q” meant. She smiled warmly.
“What I believe it is, is a military operation that is communicating with the public,” said the woman, a follower of Q, a mysterious online conspiracy theorist who claims to have top-secret information about various plots and intrigues involving the Trump Administration and the wider political world. “I don’t think it’s just one person,” she added, explaining that posts on the Web site were perhaps written by Donald Trump himself. I then asked what the J.F.K., Jr. cutout was all about.
“You know how he died, right?”
“A plane crash,” I replied.
“So there’s a theory that there’s a possibility, that, maybe . . . ”
She smiled almost apologetically.
“ . . . he didn’t actually perish.”
“I see,” I said.
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“That he staged his own death. In order to not only avenge his father’s death—J.F.K., who was assassinated—but also to take back our government. So it’s for the people, not an elite group.”
“So, he’s working with Trump to do that?” I asked.
“Possibly. Wouldn’t it be a neat ticket for 2020?”
I replied that it would be an interesting one.
As the President’s speech drew closer, the crowd thickened. Conversations broke out. I overheard a short blonde woman in a parka talking to a young man in an American flag shirt about clashes that had taken place between the far-right group the Proud Boys and anti-fascist protesters in Portland. The woman argued that the Mafia would not have tolerated open violence in the streets back in its heyday. She was Italian, she said by way of explanation. A minute or two later, the pair turned to the annual Independence Day parade that had taken place that morning.
“You know what I found interesting about the parade?” she asked. “The Taiwan-Americans, the Sikh-Americans, the Chinese-Americans playing ‘I’m proud to be an American, where at least . . . ,’ you know?”
“How did that make you feel?” the young man asked.
“It actually made me cry,” she said. “It was so nice to see them be grateful to America for giving them a better life!”
“Yeah, it really is!”
“But what you didn’t see,” she continued, “were Muslims. Muslim-Americans. Almost every different sect was represented except for the Muslims. They don’t want to assimilate.”
At about this point I decided to ask the woman, who had said she was Italian, how her ancestor or ancestors had come to the country; perhaps through Ellis Island?
“He was a stowaway, actually,” she replied. “He killed a man.” Then she turned away.
Some seconds passed in silence. I then asked her, with an apology for the question, whether she believed that a Mexican immigrant who had killed a man should be allowed to cross the border and enter the country. She considered this for half a moment.
“It was a different time,” she said. “Around the turn of the century! And, I mean, this was an honor killing, you know? The man was flirting with his girlfriend.”
Well, ok then.
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