The Sad Truth About Trump Die-Hards

The unprecedented events of today have me thinking back to something one of our subjects said in our Easy Money: Sturgis piece.

We interviewed dancers, bartenders, and bike wash girls who risked COVID to work the super spreader event of the year: Sturgis, South Dakota’s 80th annual biker rally. Most of our subjects didn’t want to be there but hadn’t worked in months and felt they had no choice but to risk their health in pursuit of good money.

Despite growing up in the Dakotas, I still experienced intense culture shock during the week long festival. The majority of attendees were die hard Trump supporters. To them, wearing masks was a political statement instead of a precaution. Since the majority of locals and traveling employees rely on rally money for a majority of their annual income, they were pretty much forced into even more unsafe Working conditions. No one is wearing masks or taking covid seriously because they’re afraid of pissing their clients off.

Amber, a dancer who’d travelled from a small town in Washington hoping to make enough money to pay for her wedding, had to play extra nice because her forehead tattoo and ball head outed her as a “radical antifa liberal.” The rally goers still loved her because she’s impossible not to love, but she still had to treat them with kids gloves.

She said, “I justify it to myself like this...there’s literally nothing I can do or say to get them to change their minds... Donald Trump could get up there, piss his pants, and everyone would be like ,’hell yeah pissing your pants is cool.’ Am I still gonna take their money? Yeah. I’m still gonna take their money.”

So what now? What are the rest of us supposed to do as we watch 30 percent of our citizens cyber-vomit QANON conspiracy theories and incite a civil war? Should we just be tired-single-moms about this and let them tantrum until they fall asleep in a pile of crayons and broken toys on the floor? Do we start our own country. Do we lean in and give them the Civil War they want? Here’s my answer, for now, anyways.

I’m treating Trump-diehards like members of a cult, because at this point, I don’t even know else is comparable. We’re digitally-illiterate, Internet-illiterate, and in some cases just standard illiterate, and therefore susceptible to conspiracy theories. This is a cult united by all of America’s worst qualities. Racism, class inequality, Madonna-whore complex hypocrisy, American exceptionalism, and of course, the lack of literacy issues I mentioned above. So how do we rescue people from themselves? Here’s some anti-brainwashing techniques:

- Don’t bombard with facts. This could end the conversation before it even has a chance to start.

- Keep asking questions. The longer people talk, more likely they are to get sick of their own voices or to become self conscious. It’s important that they feel reflective, not judged, or again, they’ll shut down and treat the conversation as a pissing contest.

- Ask non-judgmental, but poignant questions once they’ve said their peace and then LEAVE THEM ALONE. It’s important that you let them answer the questions for themselves, in their own time. In everything from the infamous fake-Bitcoin scam cult: One Coin, to the infamous Jonestown, the people who do leave, leave because they’ve been left to their own devices. Unfortunately, true reflection is only possible when we’re left completely alone with no one else to influence us.

- Dont rush the process. Unfortunately, this Is the most heartbreaking and scary truth. You can only do so much and time can only do so much. The rest is up to the individual.

Subscribe for more behind-the-scenes stories from this trip:

- deleted scenes from the piece

- the story of my drunk wedding to a meth dealer in a strip club

- upcoming projects featuring topics covered in this article!