Chapter 1. The Trump Rally. "Fuck Joe & the Hoe" + "You Missed, Bitches!"

Call it a happy accident but on the day I flew into Asheville, North Carolina, to work on stories about the US elections, Donald Trump was hosting a rally at a local convention hall in Asheville’s city center. Asheville is a progressive city in the rural west of the state, a haven for writers, artists, and creatives of all types, or, in the words of one Trump supporter I overheard that day, “a blue liberal shit hole.”

Rainbow signs abound. All are welcome here, it’s clear.

On that sunny Wednesday afternoon, Asheville’s downtown, with stores run by witches and women’s cooperatives, and a bookstore offering yes, books but also coffee and community, was filled with people who would apparently have no time for that stuff. “I hate Hippies,” one man said, “I hate their Birkenstocks, I hate their smell.” He also hates socialists. “The only good socialist is a dead socialist,” he said. “Do you really mean that?,” I asked. “Well,” he clarified, “I wouldn’t kill a socialist unless I was being attacked.”

To continue reading, please go to “Dispatches”, my reporting column on Substack.