I took a trip to Trump country. It was more bleak than I could have imagined
...
Along with corny fair merch and anime ponchos, every, and I mean every T-shirt stall was draped with Trump flags: “I’m voting for the felon,” “F— Biden” and the relatively anodyne, “I’m With Trump.” While browsing the pet supply shop across from the local Republican Party’s stall, I saw GOP staff greeted with cheers and raised fists — echoing Donald Trump’s triumphant pose after the assassination attempt on him — by numerous fairgoers wearing red caps and “Ultra MAGA” shirts. “Boo, Kambala!” yelled a woman, laughing.
In packed queues for roasted corn, I squeezed past parents balancing their children’s plastic lemonade cups in their arms with “Trump/Vance 2024” lawn signs tucked under their armpits. “Nice sign!” one blonde, elementary school-age girl shouted above the din, with her thumbs up at a woman holding one of them.
One of my cousins saw clusters of young men walking the grounds in floral Hawaiian shirts, which have recently become an unfortunate sartorial symbol of the far-right “boogaloo” movement, a militant group that aims to incite a second Civil War. I asked my cousin if he was sure about this because the idea seemed completely absurd. Maybe it’s just a bunch of dorky kids, I thought. But my cousin grew up there and probably went to school with their parents — he was sure.
I was just trying to have a chill time looking at show rabbits. But I was bombarded by right-wing politics.
Yeah, they've been a boogaloo thing for a while.
Unfortunately for me I have always liked Hawaiian shirts
And I'm a white guy, with a shaved head, who works in 911 dispatch so I'm police-adjacent, with some outdoorsy hobbies like hunting and fishing, with a pet malinois (free dog that fell into my lap, didn't go out seeking a super police/military dog breed, but that's the card the universe dealt me)
I'm practically a walking conservative stereotype in just about every superficial appearance, except that I'm not a conservative.
Pisses me off to no end that they've co-opted things like Hawaiian shirts and tiki torches.
Fortunately, unless you’re marching around with the tiki torch, no one is going to think you’re a fascist. It’s fine to set them up in your back yard or campsite, like they’re meant to.
And I imagine/hope that as long as you don't wear any military adjacent gear with the Hawaiian shirt it's fine
Oh sad face, currently wearing my camo painting shorts and threw on a hawaiin shirt while I BBQ. I line up with punk nazi punchers much more than anything in my heart. I'm not gonna let them take my hawaiin shirts away from me! Fuck them.
Good point, I hope.
I feel ya brother. I live in a conservative small town, have a big beard, wear my hair in a high and tight cut, drive a truck and I can go on. I get mistaken by these people all the time as one of theirs. Thing is I couldn't be further from them. My kids godparent (for lack of a better term) is trans. I call myself an equalist because I believe everyone should enjoy the same rights and treatment that I as a white cis male enjoy. It's annoying as all get out that my personal aesthetic is so closely tied to these assholes