Photo by Gage Skidmore

In the early afternoon, in a grim suburban shopping plaza some miles outside of Chicago, a howling crowd of Donald J. Trump supporters writhe around an elaborate stage. He is set to appear soon, and the foaming mob struggles to contain itself long enough to bear witness. I find myself immediately ill at ease, as a curious outsider, loitering on the fringe of Trump’s America, hoping to compose a report for the boys back home.

This stage is unusual; made from jet-black materials, it seems almost to vibrate, as if out of phase with reality. His banners fly high, with the same eerie quality to them. On either side are grotesque stacks of speakers, thousands of watts of Trump-Dolby sound. Music is piping in; it is the National Anthem, played over and over, but in the wrong key. Dissonance, whether musical or cognitive, keeps the chain-wielding thugs on edge, ready to break out in violence at the drop of a “Make America Great Again” hat. Just how the Donald likes them, I think. I ask one of the tamer-looking Trumpers what she hopes to hear today, but as she opens her mouth, blood pours soundlessly forth, and she waves her knife wildly about. The human interest angle will have to wait.

Suddenly, the creeping Anthem cuts out, replaced by a low-tone rumble, like a great engine lurching into action. Is the man about to appear? His frenzied followers are beginning to rip each other apart, throwing out accusations of feeling the Bern, or of being Muslim, or of being anything less than an absolute devotee. I am not sure we all will last the speech.

Finally, he lurches onto the stage, as if from nowhere, a mound of suit and skin and hair. The crowd erupts at their icon, unleashing Dionysian ecstasy at a creature who cannot even begin to feel that level of emotion. He raises his two great orange paws to quell them, and a tense hush falls over them. He opens his great maw, and slurps his tongue directly into the microphone; I panic, looking for an exit, but I am surrounded now. There is no escape for me. I am trapped with Trump.

“It is good you have come,” he utters, as if beginning a prophecy. A sharp departure from his normal, blathering style, it booms from the speakers at a volume that must surely reach both coasts. What could this mean?

“Soon, the streets across America will run red with blood, shed in my name. You will do this for me, for Trump.” The crowd shrieks, and rattles its vast armory. A great sea of flesh, ready and willing to die for Trump.

“I am accused of wickedness. Of fascism. Of lies, deceit, demagoguery. But, you know me better, do you not?” Weeping, the crowd swears they do. Some begin to cut themselves, or neighbors. I elbow my way to the front, where six Secret Service men keep a semblance of order. The Great Ghoul looks even less human up close, and ever more monstrous as his horrid speech continues. He seems to grow larger with every syllable, oranger with every sentence. My God, how can this be? And how can it go on?

“I am not good. I am not evil. I am what you wanted me to be. I am, after all, a personification of America, a nation built upon greed and hate and violence. A nation that hates to apologize, or atone. I am every chicken, come home to roost. I am a tell-tale heart, beating beneath every inch of your bloodied soil. Your democracy was ever rotten; every so often, you make an effigy to remind yourselves of this, a human monument to the worst parts of you. Andrew Johnson. Richard Nixon. And now, Trump is come. You built a new God, and I am He. My rage is yours, my zeal yours, my bloodthirst yours. You are all of you Donald J. Trump. Let the darkness reign.”

With that, the mighty beast reaches out and eats the Secret Service men, cherries for his foul sundae. His shambling fans take this as a cue, and begin playing for keeps. As they descend upon me, I realize, all too late, that I did not visit Trump’s America today. It was always Trump’s America. And we built it for him.