Chapter 2. The Trump Fan.

James is skinny, scrawny and 22 years old. He has two kids, Jaden, a four year old boy, and a younger girl, whose name is Elena. “That’s all I’m doing,” he tells me. We meet outside his single wide trailer up in the “coves” of Madison County, on a beautiful Saturday morning. Two banners hang from his porch: a Trump banner from his 2020 campaign, with the words, “Let’s Keep America Great,” and an American flag. James is wearing a “Best Dad Ever” baseball cap. He is from Florida but his mom moved him and the rest of her family to North Carolina 10 years ago to get away from “all the bad stuff.”

He pronounces “Kamala” like Trump does, and he tells me that if she gets in to the White House, it’s “not going to go too well.” He describes fuel prices as “insane,” and blames this on ...

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