I regret not shaving this morning. Staring at myself in the men’s-room mirror, I fretted over my appearance: square glasses, plaid shirt. “At least you’re a white male,” my co-conspirator, a woman of color, had reassured me earlier. Yet I wondered — was my skin tone and gender expression enough to convince the Trump supporters that I was on their team, or would we be outed as imposters?
It was 10 minutes before the start of the first presidential debate, and here I was pacing in the bathroom of a south San José Round Table Pizza, the international pizzeria chain that — thank God — serves alcohol. When another Bold Italic writer tipped me off to the fact that the Santa Clara County Trump Campaign was hosting a debate-watching party at this humble suburban pizzeria, I knew this was a journalistic opportunity I couldn’t pass up.
Paranoid about drawing attention to ourselves and thus having our cover blown, we prepped for contingencies. What if they ask us about our political affiliations? “Just say you’re libertarian — they can look like anyone,” my companion suggested. Back in the bathroom, the only alteration I made to my appearance was to tuck in my shirt. Some conservative fashion tropes never die.
The Trump party was situated in the back of the Round Table, in a suburban-child’s-birthday-party-size room with glass windows and flat-screen TVs on opposite walls. Before descending into the chaos, my friend and I ordered two beers — Bud Lights, like true conservative patriots, not some hoity leftist craft-brew bullshit that would surely blow our covers—and sauntered back, trying to look poised and comfortable. A “TRUMP-PENCE” sign hung on the door to the conference room, which was wide open and unguarded. Five minutes until the debate. I took a breath before entering.
Most liberals I know (including most of my immediate family and friends) bemoan Trump’s appeal as if it were beyond comprehension. But there’s really nothing incomprehensible about it: a huge number of Americans, mostly white and mostly working class, are utterly disenfranchised by the modern economy. The Democrats, historically the party of working people, had a great opportunity to capture this demographic by articulating the true cause of their hardship: namely, an unregulated market economy that treats workers as disposable and demands that citizens and their governments capitulate to the whims of finance capital.
Over 60% of Trump’s support base is white people without a college degree; only 9% of his supporters are not white.
The Democrats could explain this to people — it’s a relatively simple narrative—but they don’t. And because of that, Trump and his cronies are pushing an alternative narrative regarding “What Went Wrong.” It’s just that the Trump version scapegoats immigrants, Muslims, environmentalists and multiculturalism as the cause of all white working-class ills. (Over 60% of Trump’s support base is white people without a college degree; only 9% of his supporters are not white.) Trump’s right-wing furor is further invigorated by a mainstream liberalism that has made an exclusive (rather than inclusive) version of identity politics their cause célèbre — opening the door for the right to seize upon what they perceive as an elite liberal mainstream obsessed with obscure cultural rules and language policing, objectives that have little tangible effect on a stagnating rural America suffering amid the residue of an ever-diminishing manufacturing economy.
Because most Democrats, Hillary included, are actually pretty chill with letting corporations make whatever mess they want while we all get fucked, no one from Team Blue (aside from Bernie Sanders, who’s technically an Independent) could even mount a coherent rebuttal to Trump’s totalitarian worldview. The revelations from the DNC email leaks made it crystal-clear that the Dems are committed to being a centrist party, a spineless political position encapsulated by the 1997 Everclear alternative-rock classic “[You Always Try to Be] Everything to Everyone,” which might as well be the Clinton campaign’s theme song.
“You know all the right people, you play all the right games, you always try to be everything to everyone.”
Anyway, that just about brings us back to now, 2016, with me standing here holding my Bud Light in the Round Table Pizza situated within this shingle-roofed shopping center in south San Jose, witnessing the end of days. I keep my chin high, smile wide and look calm and comfortable as I walk into the pizza party, where the Trump fans are spread out between long cafeteria tables.
Anyway, about the crowd: you probably started reading this article with a ready-made stereotype about Bay Area Trump supporters, but I’m sorry to report they’re not quite what you’d expect. Sure, they’re mostly white, and yes, they’re mostly old — “some of them look like your racist grandparent,” my friend commented. And sure, they’re also clearly the kind of older people who are unconcerned with their appearance, which is good, because those red “MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN” hats look ridiculous. But while I wouldn’t call the Trump supporters diverse, they were at least more diverse than I anticipated; in particular, there were a number of Asian people in the throng, and one young black guy who was wearing the most epic Iron Maiden shirt ever.
By now it was pretty apparent that I needn’t have worried so much about how I looked. There were a lot of different styles in the crowd, some (tucked-in) collared shirts, some graphic tees and some jeans. Still, certain Bay Area archetypes weren’t represented at all — if I’d been a tattooed hipster with a nose ring and skinny jeans, or frankly, if I’d been wearing a Rosie the Riveter shirt, I would have aroused suspicion.
Even though my friend and I were young — ostensibly the future of their party — no one passed around a clipboard, asked our names or handed us any information (or pizza!).
Still, sans the red hats, I would not have been able to peg anyone in the room as a Trump supporter had we crossed paths in public. They were very self-aware about being a political minority in the region; Robert Varich, the jovial precinct captain for the local Republican Party, joked about this when addressing the crowd. “I can’t believe there are this many conservatives in San Jose,” he remarked, to a chorus of laughter from the crowd. Later, he made a joke about sending Trump campaigners to Nevada. “Go to Nevada. That’s where we need to win some votes,” he said. “You can register to vote there; they don’t have ID laws.” The crowd erupted in laughter. “We’re not the Democrat party; we’re the Republican party,” he added quickly, as if that made the joke about voter fraud in better taste. (“I would have been fired if I made that joke when I was organizing for Obama,” my friend said later.)
A quickly-shot video of Varich’s voter fraud joke.
We found a spot on a bench in the back next to one of the grannies, who was cordial enough — she offered me some table space to put down my beer, but didn’t offer us any pizza or those puffy cheese-bread things, even though we’d paid the $10 entry fee. Trump’s campaign has been dogged from the start by rumors that they’re amateurs with no idea what they’re doing; this proved true at the local level too. Even though my friend and I were young — ostensibly the future of their party! — no one passed around a clipboard, asked our names or handed us any information (or pizza). No one even asked for our e-mails. Given that a cursory recording of e-mail addresses is like Political Organizing 101, it seems probable the Santa Clara County Trump Campaign is either blasé or disorganized.
From our perch against the wall, we had a commanding view of two televisions and the whole conference room, though the characters nearby stood out most acutely: there was the cordial granny to my left, who, rather than heckle the nice blonde lady on the TV like everyone else, instead spent the entire debate shushing the commentariat (all 90 minutes of it — she was shushing people every 30 seconds at least); to her right, an Asian couple with backwards MAGA caps, who would periodically stand and shout at Clinton; further to our right, a middle-age guy in an orange shirt toting an American flag hanging from a roller bag (Orange Shirt Guy takes the peanut-gallery role in this narrative); and finally, a conservatively dressed conservative, an old skinny white dude who had his Macbook open to Breitbart.com for most of the debate and who was doing his best to ignore OSG’s mutterings from across the table.
Just a few scant minutes after sitting down, the debate began. We joined in with raucous clapping for Trump as he walked onstage and tried to earnestly boo at Clinton too. As the two candidates shook hands, Orange Shirt shouted, “Hey, she didn’t burst into flames as he shook her hand!”
This was one of the hardest parts of this Trump pizza party —training myself to laugh at the opposite beats as I would normally. I was trying to do three things at once: watch the debate, watch the crowd and take notes on what was happening, which was pretty difficult to do while remembering to clap along to Trump’s zingers and boo at Clinton. It was exhausting. My friend — as I said earlier, a woman of color — was understandably more nervous at first and looked unusually focused as she attempted to follow the crowd’s cues. “What the fuck are we doing here?” she whispered. “I need another beer.”
From our situation amid the die-hards, I was totally convinced that Trump was slaughtering Clinton. When Trump would talk about how this or that aspect of American civilization was a disaster, the crowd would stand up and cheer. When he talked about jobs leaving the country, a man in front stood up and shouted, “Reality!” Orange Shirt Guy stared at his phone and looked up every couple of seconds to scoff, which was followed by granny’s shushes.
The woman in the MAGA hat in front of me actually stood up, infuriated while Clinton was talking, to shout at the television. “You’ve done nothing! You’ve done nothing!” Another less inspired audience member just yelled, “NO!” at Clinton several times.
Toward the second half of the debate — which, people tell me later, was when Clinton seemed to be “winning,” though frankly from our perspective I couldn’t tell — the anti-Hillary intensity increased. The woman in the MAGA hat in front of me actually stood up, infuriated while Clinton was talking, to shout at the television. “You’ve done nothing! You’ve done nothing!” Another less inspired audience member just yelled, “NO!” at Clinton several times.
When the candidates started talking about solar panels, the tension in the room shot up from bell pepper to jalapeño. “We can deploy half a billion more solar panels. We can have enough clean energy to power every home,” Clinton said, to loud boos and jeers. Many people laughed outright at her. When it was Trump’s turn to speak, he led with “She talks about solar panels. We invested in a solar company, our country. That was a disaster.” The crowd bursts out in applause at this.
They loved the pettiness and the bullying more than anything; every time he bullied or belittled her, there would be random cheers of approval, claps and laughs reverberating throughout the room.
Yet it was more alarming watching how the crowd reacted when Trump bullied Clinton. If you watched the debate, you probably noticed how in the first half hour, Trump was constantly interrupting and belittling Clinton, such as when he commented on her honorific:
“Now, in all fairness to Secretary Clinton — yes, is that OK? Good. I want you to be very happy. It’s very important to me.”
At this moment and during all the other moments when Trump interrupted or mocked her, the crowd went fucking nuts. They loved the pettiness and the bullying more than anything; every time he bullied or belittled her, there would be random cheers of approval, claps and laughs reverberating throughout the room.
Watching the debate was like being in a shadow world. Remember when Trump made the comment about having a “winning temperament,” which got audible laughs from the live audience? The Round Table crowd not only saw no irony in his statement; they cheered for it. There was no question he had a winning temperament.
Whenever it was Hillary’s turn to speak, Singh would mutter repeatedly under her breath, “She’s such a snob. She’s such a snob.” I found this especially curious given that her candidate of choice flies in a private jet with a gold-plated bathroom sink.
Sometime during the second half of the debate, a new viewer entered the room and plopped down next to us at the table: Vanila Singh, a Stanford professor of medicine and a Republican who ran against Mike Honda in the 2014 US House race for California’s District 17. Maybe because her table-mates knew who she was, they gave her pizza immediately. (Meanwhile, we were sitting inches away, still pizza-less.)
Singh was a very vocal debate observer. Whenever it was Hillary’s turn to speak, Singh would mutter repeatedly under her breath, “She’s such a snob. She’s such a snob.” I found this especially curious given that her candidate of choice flies in a private jet with a gold-plated bathroom sink.
Toward the end of the debate, Hillary brought up the subject of Trump’s tax returns — a moment that popular audiences generally agreed was a big win for her.
SECRETARY CLINTON: For 40 years, everyone running for president has released their tax returns. You can go and see nearly, I think, 39, 40 years of our tax returns, but everyone has done it. We know the IRS has made it clear there is no prohibition on releasing it when you’re under audit.
So you’ve got to ask yourself, why won’t he release his tax returns? And I think there may be a couple of reasons. First, maybe he’s not as rich as he says he is. Second, maybe he’s not as charitable as he claims to be….
There was a hush through the room at this line; everyone ceased chewing their pizza. After a beat, Clinton continued,
And I have no reason to believe that he’s ever going to release his tax returns, because there’s something he’s hiding.
“You’d know, Hillary!” shouted Orange Shirt Guy. This broke the tension; everyone cheered at his remark, except for Granny (who shushed, natch).
While Trump’s widespread support is very understandable, for economic reasons already described, I confess that I was more troubled—and shocked—by how many of Trump’s supporters would react to clearly true statements, denying well-verified facts.
CLINTON: Well, I hope the fact-checkers are turning up the volume and really working hard. Donald supported the invasion of Iraq.
TRUMP: Wrong.
CLINTON: That is absolutely proved over and over again.
TRUMP: Wrong. Wrong.
CLINTON: He actually advocated for the actions we took in Libya and urged that Gadhafi be taken out, after actually doing some business with him one time.
This is unequivocal. There are lots of interviews and quotes from Trump from multiple sources that attest to his support for the Iraq War. Still, the audience was unmoved. “Such a liar,” Singh repeated as Clinton spoke. “Such a liar.” Orange Shirt Guy stood up, angrily. “Stop!” yelled the woman in the MAGA hat, standing at attention. Granny shushed all of them.
Minutes later, when Hillary said that “Donald has consistently insulted Muslims,” the crowd once against turned vicious. “Wrong! Wrong! Wrong!” shouted a man across the room. “Liar!” Singh repeated.
These two moments were the only points during the evening that crossed the line from bemusing to horrific. I was reminded of the scene in George Orwell’s 1984, when, under duress and being tortured, Winston finally starts to see four fingers as five.
“There is a Party slogan dealing with the control of the past,” he said. “Repeat it, if you please.”
“‘Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past,’” repeated Winston obediently.
“‘Who controls the present controls the past,’” said O’Brien, nodding his head with slow approval. “Is it your opinion, Winston, that the past has real existence?”
A lot of us who lived through the W. regime recall taking offense at how Bush played fast and loose with the truth. And though he grossly exaggerated the notion of a connection between Al-Qaeda and Iraq, his base argument was, at the least, rooted in a few spotty intel nuggets.
Yet Bush’s transgressions feel measly in comparison to Trump’s; remember, even Bush eventually apologized for the “Weapons of Mass Destruction” fib.
“Only the disciplined mind can see reality, Winston. You believe that reality is something objective, external, existing in its own right. You also believe that the nature of reality is self-evident. When you delude yourself into thinking that you see something, you assume that everyone else sees the same thing as you. But I tell you, Winston, that reality is not external.”
In my early 20s, I was a high school science teacher, and like most teachers, I had my share of students who actively disliked science. “Why do we have to learn this stuff?” many would ask. My prolix reply to that question was this: in order for a democracy to function, the voting citizenry must know a little bit about everything; for how are we to know what’s best for us and for each other if we don’t understand the very basics of the arts or the humanities or of engineering or of mathematics? By knowing what our neighbors and our families do, by understanding the building blocks of society — only then can we make informed decisions, and only then will our democracy work.
“Reality exists in the human mind, and nowhere else. Not in the individual mind, which can make mistakes, and in any case soon perishes: only in the mind of the Party, which is collective and immortal. Whatever the Party holds to be the truth, is truth. It is impossible to see reality except by looking through the eyes of the Party. That is the fact that you have got to relearn, Winston.”
Admittedly, democracy has never worked perfectly—millions routinely vote against their best interests. But with Trump, I believe we’re seeing a new phenomenon, epitomized by the scene at this Round Table Pizza. Right here, in a room that reeks of Budweiser and breadsticks, I am surrounded by dozens of people with whom I can empathize and converse, and recognize as utterly human — but who see five fingers where I see four.
“How many fingers, Winston?”
“Four! Stop it, stop it! How can you go on? Four! Four!”
“How many fingers, Winston?”
“Five! Five! Five!”
“No, Winston, that is no use. You are lying. You still think there are four. How many fingers, please?”
“Four! Five! Four! Anything you like. Only stop it, stop the pain!”
When the debate ends, there is applause all around. “Trump definitely won,” Orange Shirt Guy assures me when I speak to him afterward. Only later, when I arrive safely at home and sit down to read the news, am I aware that most pundits (and polls) say that Clinton scored a clear victory.
HOLT: Mr. Trump, a lot of these are judgment questions. You had supported the war in Iraq before the invasion. What makes your …
TRUMP: I did not support the war in Iraq.
HOLT: In 2002 …
TRUMP: That is a mainstream media nonsense put out by her, because she — frankly, I think the best person in her campaign is mainstream media.
HOLT: My question is, since you supported it …
TRUMP: Just — would you like to hear …
HOLT: … why is your — why is your judgment …
TRUMP: Wait a minute. I was against the war in Iraq. Just so you put it out.
HOLT: The record shows otherwise, but why — why was …
TRUMP: The record does not show that.
HOLT: Why was — is your judgment any …
TRUMP: The record shows that I’m right.
Still, I’m more frightened by this revelation that many of our citizens have lost the ability to tell truth from fiction — to even recognize truth as truth, when it waves itself in our faces.If a powerful leader can tell his followers that 2+2=5 — and no matter what, they’ll believe him — then there is no hope for democracy. We’ve lost. That’s the end of the American experiment.
In that sense, it doesn’t really matter whether Trump wins or loses. In the absence of a viable, articulate left alternative, it’s only a matter of time. If Trump doesn’t win this year, there will be another Trump eventually, Trump 2.0 or 3.0, rhetorically unassailable and with followers just as avid, just as certain that 2+2 is 5 or that a pepperoni is really an olive.
O’Brien held up the fingers of his left hand, with the thumb concealed.
“There are five fingers there. Do you see five fingers?”
“Yes.” And he did see them, for a fleeting instant, before the scenery of his mind changed. He saw five fingers, and there was no deformity.
