Zoe Beloff
In August of 2016 I began to have a cold sick feeling that Donald J. Trump would be the next president of the United States. I had never heard a right-wing demagogue first hand, and now I felt compelled to face my fears and experience one in the flesh. First and foremost, I wanted to document Trump’s supporters, to understand energy of the crowd. To blend in and in the spirit of ethnographic research, I went dressed as an ‘alt-right housewife’. I decided that a phone camera was too much of a blunt instrument. There are thousands of YouTube videos showing a sea of white faces in red hats. So, I decided to draw the event, four hours in a sweaty, packed gymnasium. Think of this sequence of images as a documentary film on paper.
![](https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/da89fa43f0ed3446f719084876ebadc438927fe81e752af99958c6befb73ce03/6-29pm-champions.jpg)
6.29pm Champions
![](https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/76ae23b5c3c2e74cb7360d541f3293185b5b8e884de6e9c528a34c003f5f2893/6-45pm-country-back.jpg)
6.45pm You Want Your Country Back
![](https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/0b5c962f3f3809fcc59efb998d2d42fbf6cd5fa7ef38bc9ad6e2b3da0101717f/7-12pm-lock.jpg)
7.12pm Lock Her Up
![](https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/feda75d608746968ffacf444fb9151808fe106e4c3a3dbcb3d050d76818e9887/7-20pm-crooked.jpg)
7.20pm Crooked Hillary
![](https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/8fa41ef2c6887b8db1ce97896c74dd7798dcffa432efa49854405ff0d94eb4bb/7-30pm-buried.jpg)
7.30pm Buried Alive
![](https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/7dceea7e876bb87c7e5ec4c8fecc7f7c74335cde6f66f28d893ff4796e5d320a/7-45pm.jpg)
7.45pm
![](https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/7e2dafa6e464a84dc47f0d0a700ff9a20a0dd3e7274ec53b439f4b79de15a3c0/8-00pm-yeh.jpg)
8.00pm YEH!!!
![](https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/46f4b4b946d7662dfb4f0a00cd53553b266db76e4f6666bd422cc3f310e1ca37/8-05pm-USA.jpg)
8.05pm USA! USA!
![](https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/8fbf7d2a57c1ac043336a65c6be90fe82d9c76eb412365b7e7373b5a2ba7e95e/8-20pm-jobs.jpg)
8.20pm Jobs
![](https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/57d6bd09a17c3faae3e1ad0168aea2ce38f55afc4a9a6f320235d466cf8c4046/8-30pm-NRA.jpg)
8.30pm NRA