Politics mix with profanity in a store dedicated to Trump

Boone’s Mill, Va. (CNN) — Walk into Trump Town USA in Boone’s Mill, Virginia, and you can marvel at the vast display of human creativity, until you’re distracted by the fact that the merchandise addresses some of the most controversial political issues in a very crude manner. possible

The most spectacular specimens are in the back right corner: Veni, a pair of silver metal testicles hanging from a ring and wrapped in protective clear plastic. “They’re Trump’s balls,” explains store owner Whitey Taylor. The smallest set costs $75; The largest, 125. They are heavy.

There are dozens of independent stores across the country that sell items supporting former President Donald Trump’s re-election bid. That’s another distinguishing feature of Trump’s appeal, and what his customers buy is a sense of what they want politically, and not subtlety.

Taylor’s Store is a good example. A few weeks before the Iowa caucuses, business boomed and visitors flocked to a dilapidated small-town church now filled with Trump merchandise. It’s like the cave of wonders from the Aladdin movie, but with more references to butts, feces and urine.

One bumper sticker shows a cartoon of Trump urinating on “Putin.” There is a keychain that if you press, it will defecate a small trump. “Mooney Trump” effigies depict the former president defiantly baring his bare buttocks. “We sell a lot of them,” said Taylor, who has long sought to create his own controversies.

Gag gifts can bring smiles to customers, but they also show your passion, pride, and faith in Trump.

Dale Copeland was buying some Trump hats and a Trump sign to put on the garage he just built, “so you’ll see it when you pull into the driveway. And then I’ll post it all over Facebook.”

Copeland said he fears an economic crisis comparable to the Great Recession of 2008 and is counting on Trump to prevent it.

At the time, he said, “I lost what I had. I barely survived… This brings us back to the same thing. So it’s coming. The fall is coming.” He thought Trump could right the ship.

He said he made his living working with bricks and concrete in North Carolina and had been busy with his own business in recent years. But the economy was tougher for her grown children, who said they would struggle to afford homes and cars and were “poorer than they should be”.

Talking to store owner Taylor, he likes the idea that Trump might impose some kind of retaliation. “One thing’s for sure: If he comes back, someone’s going to go to jail,” Copeland said.

Melinda Williams, who works behind the register at Trump Town USA, said the economy is on many customers’ minds. “They’re very scared, I think, about the way things are going,” he said. “They feel like we’re stuck, like we’re not going anywhere. And it’s definitely not going in a positive direction.”

Another shopper, Mary-Jean Palmer, spoke reflectively about her politics and why she felt the criminal charges against Trump were “absolutely evil.”

“I am a fair woman,” she said. “I often wonder, what motivates people to become Democrats? Because I don’t see a lot of compassion. I don’t see a lot of help for our country. And I don’t see a lot of talk, no action. That’s why I hate Trump. Like.”

Over his shoulder was a rack of stickers, some reading “F*** Biden.”

But while Taylor offers several articles disparaging President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and the Democratic Party, they don’t sell well. “They love slogans. They love reading them,” Taylor says of the anti-Biden articles. But “they don’t wear it.” Taylor offered merchandise with a photo of Hillary Clinton in prison, “and they were like, ‘I don’t want a photo of that b***h on my back.’ It was terrible.”

Taylor follows political news closely to be prepared for the next trend. When a great political meme emerges, it sells well at the time but interest wanes within weeks.

Trump’s mugshot from his criminal case in Fulton County, Georgia, available on T-shirts, yard signs, flags and, of course, mugs, was “very trendy” for about two months, Taylor said. Before sales began to decline. The same was true for the “Let’s Go Brandon” products, which came out after a sportswriter misheard the chant “F**k Joe Biden.”

Taylor sources his items from wholesalers and small businesses across the country, and not all of them are winning bets. New York Democratic Rep. Cans of “AOC Brand Cow Farts” haven’t sold well, according to an article by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez linking Big Agriculture to climate change. “This old guy from Greensboro spent $25,000 to get that label and everything. Then he dies. His wife calls me and says, ‘Do you want all these cow leaves? … Please come and get them out of my garage. Take it out,'” Taylor explained. “I said, ‘OK, I’ll go after them.'” They were stacked on a shelf next to “Mooney Trumps.”

There was a print of a painting in which Trump addressed reporters dressed as a clown, signs with Biden’s face on them, flower aprons embroidered with “Trump 2024,” Trump baby clothes, Trump watches, Trump flags. “Trump Train,” and “America First” flags and mixed American and Israeli flags. And then there’s an American Stars and Stripes flag being pulled by a muscular arm to reveal a Confederate flag behind it.

What will be the next bestseller? “who knows?” Taylor says. “You just have to wait. And the more Democrats talk about crazy Trump supporters, then, you know, something will come of it.”

Taylor is known locally for stirring up controversy and getting his name in the papers. He has owned racetracks for decades, and said he knows how to pull off stunts, such as wet T-shirt contests or announcing cockfights he never planned to hold, to get people angry and get attention. It has long sold products at large events, such as special sunglasses for viewing the solar eclipse. (There was more competition in parts of the country where the sun was only 90% of the path of totality, he said.)

At the start of the 2016 race, before Trump took over the Republican Party, Taylor was selling racing merchandise at the Daytona 500, and prayed to God for guidance. “My son said to me, ‘Dad, what is God telling us? It hit my soul: ‘He wants me to help Trump,'” Taylor said. His son laughed, “And plenty.” Taylor said he would order 1,000 T-shirts. His son urged him to start with only 100. “I told him, ‘Kid, go big or go home.’ I said, ‘If God tells me, we’ll sell them all, and if not, we’ll throw them away.’ And we will go.’

His first item of clothing was a white T-shirt, and on the back was written: “Donald Trump: Finally Someone With Balls.” Taylor said: “I became known as the ‘ball guy’ on tour.” If he left a campaign rally, other traders told him that college students had come looking for him, asking, “Where’s the ball man?”

In September 2020, he opened his store inside a century-old church next to a traffic light on Highway 220. “Religious people come here and say, ‘Is this the house of God?’ I tell them, ‘No! Trump paid for the house.”

After the election, his biggest seller was “Stop Theft.” Taylor believes the 2020 election was stolen (it wasn’t). But he thought the storming of the Capitol on January 6, 2021 was a “bad thing” and that the rioters “should never have gone in.” Still, he said he doesn’t blame Trump for the uprising, and he doesn’t believe Trump was responsible for pacifying the agitators.

Although making money is his business, Taylor also said he might not be interested in running a Trump store if the former president wasn’t so controversial himself.

Whether Trump himself, like some merchandise, was too rude, uncivilized and unpresidential, Taylor replied: “The whole world has changed.”

“It’s not really cool that he does that…when he yells ‘f*** this’ and ‘f*** that,'” Taylor said. “But he sucks. The bottom line.”