Months before his latest wiretaps tweetstorm, Donald Trump was in a much more cheerful mood on Twitter thanking a block of voters for their support on his road to the White House: bikers.

“Thank you to Chris Cox and Bikers for Trump – Your support has been amazing. I will never forget. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN.”

Six months later, as Trump was about to be sworn in, biker Cox and his group pledged to form a “wall of meat” – a sea of men standing arm to arm – to protect him from inauguration protesters. Cox’s Facebook group, which gathers 200,000 followers, states as their mission to “help elect Donald Trump president of the United States”. Mission accomplished.

But “the bikers”, as Trump has lovingly referred to them – those “who have been so good to me, fantastic people who truly love our country” – are not a single group revving one Trump engine. Even among those who ride President Trump’s pick of the most emblematic American made-in-the US macho machine, there are stark differences.

A Harley-Davidson Dyna Super Glide motorcycle. Photograph: Ian Langsdon/EPA

The politics of motorcycle enthusiasts are as diverse as the ways in which they customize their bikes, according to Trump supporter and longtime Harley rider George Kovach, 64, of Oakland, California.

“I might put a skull and crossbones on my bike,” Kovach says. “One guy could be a hippie-biker with a flower power sticker, and another might be one who’s just happy with money in his pocket and a beer in his hand. And the Bikers for Trump – most of them are veterans of one era or another,” he says, himself a Vietnam veteran and supporter of the group.

It was Trump’s business savvy that swayed Kovach from his longtime Democratic affiliation.

In my day, bikers valued freedom over everything, and were suspicious of any rich guy shilling for the ‘establishment' Harley rider George Christie

“Dude’s got a lot of issues, but one thing you’ve got to remember about Trump is he’s a businessman,” Kovach says. “I can tell you from a businessman’s standpoint, nowhere near the magnitude he is, that when you’re in business, your objective is to get the money from that person who walks through that door. And a successful businessman will be able to talk to a black man, a Latino, a Jewish person, a hippie … So I think of Trump along those lines, as being a mixed bag, but a businessman first and foremost.”

Others have a more nuanced take. Rich Gibbon, a longtime rider and racer and president of the Mad Dog Oakland MC in the San Francisco Bay area, says Trump “is the village idiot. We know that. But if he can do some good somewhere, then I support anything positive that can come out of this train wreck.”

Gibbon says that this good could come if Trump were to lift tariffs on motorcycles sold overseas as he initially promised, even as he left some baffled by signing an executive order to end the US participation in the Trans-Pacific Partnership – which would have lifted these tariffs.

“He’s a businessman, down to his 70s-era power handshake,” Gibbon says. He wants to exert strength, and I think he sees strength in Harley-Davidson. The Harley-Davidson riding community is about freedom of speech and freedom of expression, all those guaranteed freedoms … Harley-Davidson is very Americana. It’s visceral, it’s a little rough, and he’s attracted to that.”

Donald Trump jokes with reporters after greeting Harley-Davidson executives on the South Lawn of the White House. Photograph: Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images

But even though Trump singled out Harley-Davidson in his first address to Congress, referring to the “five magnificent motorcycles on the lawn of the White House”, there are those who ride who plain just don’t like him.

One of those bikers is George Christie, a former longtime president of the Ventura, California, chapter of the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club.

“In my day, bikers valued freedom over everything, and were suspicious of any rich guy shilling for the ‘establishment’,” said Christie, in a recent blogpost titled Trumped on Two Wheels. “We didn’t support ‘law-and-order’ candidates because they were inevitably all for eroding our precious civil liberties. Most of us served in the military and knew the reality. In my day, we wouldn’t have given a second look to some soft, privileged, trust-fund mutt who deferred from the draft multiple times.”

Christie says that Trump’s years on The Apprentice help him gauge the mood of the public and give them what they want. “There’s a populist attitude we have right now,” Christie says, “and I think he saw how to tap into that … Twitter is an automatic weapon for him.”

Also among “the bikers” are those who didn’t vote for either Trump or Hillary Clinton, but who support any economic incentives that would benefit US companies like Harley-Davidson.

“Every time I listen to him, he irritates me,” says Jerry Aebi, 56, a Harley owner in Simi Valley, California. “But I like that he supports Harley and that he wants them to succeed. I think Trump is trying to appeal to a very ‘Made in America’ mindset that’s popular with bikers.”

Even though the company invited the president to take a ride on one of the bikes parked on the White House lawn, the company might not be as enamored with Trump as he is with the brand. The president opposes H-1B visas that allow Harley-Davidson to hire outsourced labor abroad, as Harley does in India. The withdrawal of the US from the TPP also means that the company will “now of course … turn our attention to whatever bilateral trade agreements that could help level the playing field for Harley-Davidson,” according to Harley-Davidson’s CEO, Matt Levatich.

Still, the company remains a successful American powerhouse. Its stock rose 2.3% after Trump named the brand during his speech to Congress, and continues to rise.

“Harley Davidson is the perfect brand for president Trump to associate himself with,” adds David Langton of Langton Creative Group. “It’s rugged, regular-guy, tough and not too elite. It’s not fussy (or Italian) like Moto Guzzi. It’s not the efficient machines of Yamaha or Honda (or Japanese). It’s all American. There is a short-term advantage for the brand to associate with Trump’s form of politics. But since Harley-Davidson has a long established brand they do need to be careful in aligning themselves with Trump. Because Harley-Davison is a long-term, quality brand and Trump, alas, isn’t.”

Though the bikers Trump has appealed to might disagree on his ability to put his foot in his mouth – or “to be a real asshole”, as one rider said – they all agree that his dedication to building up American companies is something they can get behind.

“There’s a camaraderie for two wheels out there, especially for Harleys,” says Jerry Aebi. “We’re going to give the peace sign to everyone on a two-wheeler.”