The Struggle to Write About the Far-Right
After nearly three months on the road, reporting on the parallel universe of right-wing America has become a delicate dance of empathy and accountability.
I walked into the Election Night party with watery eyes. In the last few weeks I had been reporting in Arizona, the agitator was the ever-present dust that hangs in the desert air. But that night, up in the cooler, elevated parts of Prescott, a small town 90 miles north of Phoenix, I put in my contact lenses for the first time in months—a five minute exercise of flooding my eyes with solution and jabbing the wobbly silicone til it sticks to my cornea. I almost always prefer my glasses, but walking into a gathering of Trump supporters, nothing says “journalist” more than a pair of gold-rimmed Warby Parkers.
It was about 7 pm, and I arrived at a plaza in a largely empty parking lot, save for the massive white trailer truck brandishing nine different Trump flags. Outside of a thrift store called Just Stuff, a projector was streaming the NBC exit polls. David Speer, co-owner and co-host, rose to greet me from the semi-circle of five chairs around the screen. I had interviewed David at a Trump rally about two weeks prior, and he invited me to come back for the store’s election party. Originally, David and his business partner, Jared Klein, founded Just Stuff to sell items from foreclosed storage units à la Storage Wars. But in the last few months, Trump merchandise has become the real cash cow—from face masks depicting sheep saying, “I am being forced to wear this!” to “Fueled by liberal tears” water bottles. So-called “patriot” events like tonight are the promo. Just like everything else in America right now, politics is life.
Hot dogs sizzled on the grill. Jared’s daughter rollerbladed around holding McDonalds. Between ads and calls for the predictable states, David told me about growing up in California, his time in the military and time in jail. From our interview at the Trump rally, I knew how he felt about the media. In my journey reporting on a divided America, I wanted to be here to watch Trump supporters engage with the news on a night looming with misinformation—which, as we now know, has only intensified the distance of right-wing America from reality.
Chatting stopped again when David Ignatius of The Washington Post popped up to discuss America’s standing in the world with Trump at the helm. Ignatius’ talked about how world leaders were watching to see if America would return to its old self. Jared, the co-owner, went ballistic. “We remember when there were American flags everywhere!” he shouted at the screen. “Now Democrats are burning them. It’s your fucking fault! Piece of shit.” Moments later, he shouted again. “That didn't stop you from lying the last six months. God, I want somebody else to watch.”
Cognitive dissonance took hold of me. I remembered meeting Ignatius last year at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club in Hong Kong, where I lived for the last three years. I was freelancing for The Post covering the Hong Kong protests at the time, and the lecture was about the brutal murder of Jamal Khashoggi, which evolved into a broader conversation about global press freedom—a topic heavy on the minds of Hong Kong journalists facing heightened threats from Beijing. Since then, in the shadow of the pandemic, Beijing has orchestrated a coordinated crackdown on Hong Kong media, raiding newsrooms, arresting journalists and delaying visas for months—including my own.
I returned home, only to once again feel like a foreign correspondent, reporting on a place I no longer recognized. For the last three months, I’ve been driving across the country, documenting an America in crisis for Contra Post. From armed white-supremacist rallies in Louisville to election protests in Phoenix, never did I think I’d have to navigate the same rising authoritarianism at home. To be sure, there are key differences in censorship and access. But when it comes to a recognition of basic facts, it is so much worse. As with Hurricane Katrina, it wasn’t just the storm of Donald Trump, but the collapse of the levees—the failure of right-wing media to hold up the truth, drowning the public in lies and conspiracy so toxic that Covid patients are going to their grave denying their diagnosis.
As a journalist in this post-truth moment, I feel like I've had to learn the language of misinformation. The bedrock of a functional democracy is an informed electorate. But we are so far from that now. Journalists are reporting on the scars of Trump’s America, a significant demographic of people who have been so thoroughly misled by far-right media and the President himself that reality is as changeable as the television channel. With right-wing America now a parallel universe, my reporting has become a delicate dance of empathy and accountability.
* * *
The line to get inside the Trump rally was a river of red. Without masks or distancing, thousands of people stood in line under the hot noon sun for over two hours waiting to get onto the tarmac of the Prescott airport. As I wait, I overheard a man say, “Trump just called Fauci a disaster, hahaha,” reading from his phone. “That’s awesome.” As I got closer to the security entrance, a face-painted man in a viking helmet donned a Q cape—referring to the QAnon conspiracy theory that Democrats run a satanic pedophilia ring, and that Trump was sent to save them.
I approached a retiree in line named Judy Cook and asked her about her “Women for Trump!” shirt. She lauded Amy Coney Barett, and said she’s sick of late term abortions and the “sale of aborted baby parts”—referring to a false accusation of Planned Parenthood dismissed in a Texas court. We chatted for about seven minutes as the line snaked along, until I asked her if she'd voted yet. “Noooo,” she replied. “I want to see my ballot go right into the box.” Her daughter, wearing a bedazzled Trump cap, echoed the sentiment, saying she was volunteering at the polls to give out water, “maybe even splash holy water on people!”
“Are you worried about mail-in voting?” I asked.
“Are you not?” Cook replied.
Her daughter jumps in, exclaiming that an unidentified “they” were “dumping ballots in the canals and dumpsters!”
“Where?” I pressed her.
“The canals and the dumpsters!”
It was all downhill from here. Cook’s daughter was repeating misinformation purported by right-wing media (and later that day, Trump himself). But because I pressed her on this claim—which I always do with wrong or dubious claims—they shut down on me. This happened on several occasions in my travels. Trump supporters seem to interpret the very premise of my questioning as bias, as an unwarranted challenge to their worldview. At a “patriot” rally in Louisville, I saw three journalists conducting interviews draw jeering crowds. If I’m going to conduct an interview with Trump supporters, and get to a place where I actually feel and understand them, it seems I have to play by their rules. I have to buy into the conspiracies, and nod along with the lies.
After 1.5 hours in the rally line, I made it through security where my empty aluminum water bottle was confiscated and thrown into a pile of others—Trump’s climate policy in a cardboard box. I moved to the back of the crowd, the only place there’s room to stand. “Getting tired of the pandemic aren’t they? Turn on CNN that’s all they cover,” Trump said from the stage. “People aren’t buying it you dumb bastards.”
“God bless Trump!” one woman shouted near me. “We love you!” echoed another. I could barely see the stage from my tippy toes, so they helped me stand in a spot where I could see Trump. From that angle, he stood underneath a ladder.
I introduced myself to these women, named Donna and Chenise. I’m Casey, a journalist traveling the country. “With who?” they ask with suspicion, always. No one, I’m independent. Writing about a divided America for my newsletter. They responded enthusiastically, thanked me, even.
Chenise then introduced me to her husband, David, who kissed and hugged her in greeting. Under a sliver of shade, David told me about Just Stuff and a recent patriot rally they’d organized. In early September, Jared, the co-owner, got wind of a Black Lives Matter rally in town, organized by an 18-year-old woman. Jared circulated the post on right-wing Facebook, as reported by the Arizona Republic, which ended up drawing more than 100 counter-demonstrators, many armed, before it even began. In attendance: members of extremist groups including the Oath Keepers, Three Percenters, and Proud Boys.
David lamented about the media, including the coverage of the protest. He didn’t like the way the press had portrayed it, but he couldn’t have been nicer to me. He and Chenise told me they’d likely host an election party in two weeks, and invited me to come along. I realized then how lucky I was to be working solo. Independence seemed to liberate me from the almost damning stigmas of mainstream publications among Trump supporters. For anyone who’s serious about getting through to the hearts and minds of right-wing America, perhaps something to consider.
* * *
Night grows colder standing in the parking lot, and the 9pm exit polls continue to roll in predictably. “Donald Trump showing an incredible amount of resilience tonight,” says the NBC host to guest commentator Bob Woodward. “You’re not saying it. I will say it though. A man who is the most racially insensitive president in modern American history—”
“That’s SUCH a lie!” David shouts, leaning back with hands in the pockets of his cargo jacket. “Oh my God that’s such a lie.”
Moments like these require a deep breath, until I remind myself: we are all products of the System. Whether that’s discrimination, a Baby Boomer economy, bad education, or poor healthcare, our environment shapes our views. While Ta-Nehisi Coates and James Baldwin fly off the shelves in progressive zip-codes, these men live in a pro gun-rights town that is 91% white with the same clips of violence in Kenosha and Portland on repeat. For these men, racism is not a lived reality. Racism is a question of the past, violently and unnecessarily resurrecting on the streets.
“We all make mistakes,” says David when the topic of slavery comes up. “I’m a felon. But you forgive and you forget and you move on.”
Within their context, of course they think that way. That doesn’t make their views on race valid. But their feelings about a world changing faster than they can understand are.
The screen goes black. Jared fiddles with the computer for a few minutes, and now Fox News appears on the screen. I ran inside the shop to warm up for a few minutes. On my way back, at about at 9:30 pm, I hear a resounding “FUCK!” from outside.
“Did we make a call on Arizona?” says Brett Baier. “Did our decision desk make it?” A yellow check mark emerged.
“Fuck that dude!” Jared yells. “Fucking bullshit!”
Jared and David sit quietly. Jared stares at his phone. David stares at the TV, chain smoking.
It’s getting cold so we move inside. They disassemble the projector, and we reconvene around the desk inside, where Fox News returns to the flat screen. For the next couple hours, the mood is shock and denial. Jared pulls up an article on his phone. “Even ONA is saying [Fox] shouldn’t have called [Arizona],” he says, referring to One News America, a far-right site known for peddling conspiracies.
It’s about 12:30 am, and Jared’s kids have fallen asleep on the floor. No result is coming tonight, so we bid goodbye and plan to reconvene tomorrow. Jared and his wife pick up their sleeping children. I ask how they’re feeling, and Jared says he’ll “try not to shoot something,” dryly. Says David: “Now that we’re a blue state we gotta get rid of the bullets.”
* * *
I return to the shop the next day around 4 pm, where NewsMax—another far-right conspiracy site that has yet to call the election for Biden—is now streaming on the TV inside their office. We all sit around exhausted, chatting about their preferred media. David tells me, generally, Fox News. “Fuckin not anymore!” Jared interjects from the back right corner, where he’s printing gun parts from a 3-D printer. Jared goes on to tell me how he “verifies” news by comparing articles from mainstream outlets alongside Breitbart, ONA, and other small news sites. The argument with the number of most articles wins.
“Here’s your lib trash media saying [voter fraud] didn't happen,” he says motioning with one hand, “and here’s all the evidence saying it did,” with the other.
When I speak to people on the far-right, they speak as if the truth is some secret that only they know and understand. In moments like this, my head spins. Even if I were to speak up and correct them, it wouldn’t do anything. I can’t tell them their entire political reality is informed by a rising empire of pay-to-play right-wing sites. That not all media operates with the same standard of journalistic rigor. That's a task far beyond my reach. Bringing a misinformed society back into the fold calls for systemic change to federal policy on media literacy, education, and social media. It calls for the revival in local media, and a rabid Fox News to finally draw a line.
In the meantime, all I can do is just sit, listen in earnest, and make them feel heard. I hung out in that shop for three days, just trying to understand, both their arguments and their feelings. Even when their opinions went haywire, their emotions endured. Nothing makes a person more human than when you watch them swear, sweat, and laugh. And nothing makes you feel more terrified than to watch, in full view, the spiraling madness of right wing propaganda hijack the same instincts with which we love our families.
I know my approach registered with them. “You know, I couldn’t guess your political views if I tried,” said Jared. I explained that as a journalist, I try to keep my political views separate from my interviews, that I’m a sounding board. They both sighed in relief. “THANK YOU!” David exclaimed. “You should teach a media school.”
This is journalism 101, and I am obviously not qualified for that. I can hardly muster any better advice other than “listen.” But the relationship between the media and Trump supporters is a two way street. I can’t stop Robert Mercer from pumping money into Breitbart. But maybe, if these men know how honest reporting feels and happens, then maybe they’ll read this knowing I’m writing from that same place, too.
* * *
I return for a third and final day to watch the election results continue to fall into place. NewsMax is still playing. On the screen, the faces of moderate Republicans Mitt Romney, Chris Christie, Nikki Haley—the few who’ve rejected Trump’s voter fraud tirade—were emblazoned with “TRAITORS.” In a moment of bitter disappointment, the image created a space for validation and blame.
Trump then comes on to deliver his now infamous speech about voter fraud, so ridden with lies that several networks cut away. Not NewsMax. Trump leaves abruptly, with the press shouting questions after him. “Did you really think he was gonna stay there for your ridiculous questions?!” David says. “God I love that.” Jared mocks the media headlines to come: “Trump declared victory again even though he’s losing”—even though that’s exactly what was happening.
A red-headed woman enters the store with her young daughter to buy Trump yard signs, and starts talking politics from the moment she enters the room.
“You know why they stopped putting Biden out? Because they can’t put him with women and children,” she says, echoing the QAnon conspiracy.
“If Biden wins, he’ll implement a mask mandate,” says David. “That’s how they start communist rule.”
All of that, within about 10 minutes.
By day three, there’s still no winner, and Trump supporters were kicking off protests in Phoenix with the infamous Alex Jones (the one claimed the Sandy Hook shooting was a hoax) in attendance. I packed up my campsite in the nearby national park and said goodbye. I thanked them for spending so much time with me, and they told me to be safe.
When I arrive in Phoenix, David and Jared’s views explode outside the State Capital, heaving in a circus of red, white, and blue. People shout “Fox News sucks!” waving “cancel Murdoch” signs and QAnon flags. That morning, Joe Biden was announced the winner. When I ask several people how they feel, they reply with disbelief—so much so that they’re abandoning Fox News for Breitbart, Daily Caller, and NewsMax, where their election denial can find a home.
I checked back to Just Stuff’s Facebook page to see how Jared and David reacted to the news of Biden’s win. In a new post last Monday, they announced a fire sale in honor of a special occasion:
“Here at Just Stuff, we would like to give an early congratulations to President Trump on his #landslidevictory to be announced in the coming days!”
Who’s going to tell them?