DERP
WE AM TRUMP, OR THE MAN WHO ISN’T THERE
Maggots have spiracles (breathing holes) near their ass
ends, which grant them the ability to eat for as long as they
please without stopping for breath. This natural science fac-
toid crossed my mind Friday, as Republican autophile
Donald Trump proclaimed his glory, at length, to more than
3,500 adoring fans (EW’s count).
Counting down to Trump’s short-notice Eugene rally,
the city clenched up nervously for the arrival of an angry
rightwing cyclone-circus invasion of hillbillies, country
music radio and riot cops.
Anti-Trump factions characterize his followers as dim
rubes, led yet again to self-slaughter by a slick pretender.
And some part of me was eager to smell, firsthand, the
sickening fear-sweat hate froth so commonly described in
news stories about The Donald’s rise to political fame.
But that’s not what I found.
I spoke with mothers who shared concerns about the
world in which their kids are growing up. I listened to for-
mer Democrats who crossed over after Obama’s first term.
A teenage boy wearing a T-shirt bearing the slogan “Trump
that bitch!” told me not to sweat Trump’s bigotry; he’s only
inciting conflict to get attention.
All agreed: Hillary Clinton is by far the greatest of loom-
ing evils.
Trump’s detractors have good reasons to feel afraid.
Many seem to think King Trump will hammer the country
down to fit his own weird vision of America, which might
look like a 3.8-million square-mile police state Las Vegas.
But the Hilter analogies fizzle the moment you realize the
great and powerful orange billionaire offers up zilch.
Witnessing up close the furious bluster helped me to see
the candidate as he really is: a blinking fluorescent tube at
the end of dark alley, around which swarms a gaggle of
apolitical git-’er-done Americans who share more DNA
with lotus-eating Berners than either group is comfortable
admitting.
Trump’s message is primarily subliminal. Racism and
clumsy misogyny hide the simplest platform on offer this
election season: Career politicians are venal and newspeo-
ple are a sort of vampire.
If Trump’s people look like a thousand living punch-
lines to a thousand Jeff Foxworthy jokes, it’s because rural
poor and working class Americans have held these truths to
be self-evident for centuries.
And they’re not wrong. — Ben Ricker
TRUMP SUPPORTER JAKE TOWE
MEGAPHONE-KARAOKES
RODNEY CARRINGTON’S ‘VOTE
FOR TRUMP’ IN THE
FAIRGROUNDS PARKING LOT
THIS PROTESTER CLARIFIED TO
CONFUSED TRUMPERS THAT HE ISN’T
PRO-TRUMP, HE’S ‘PRO-CIRCUS’
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May 12, 2016 • eugeneweekly.com
photos by todd cooper