My pal Ben recommended it. Stating that Trump completed a distant third in D.C. in 2016 to Marco Rubio and John Kasich, he argued that this is perhaps the one major Trump loses in 2024 — and we could possibly be part of it.
That’s precisely the way it performed out. Haley dealt Trump his first defeat this weekend with 63 p.c of the overall within the D.C. GOP major to Trump’s 33 p.c — and mine was one of many 1,274 votes she acquired. As Republicans in 15 states go to the polls within the Tremendous Tuesday primaries, I can solely hope that the timeless political maxim holds: As goes the District of Columbia, so goes the nation.
Voting within the D.C. GOP major was simple. I simply needed to change my social gathering registration three weeks earlier than the first. But when I used to be going to register as a Republican, it was solely proper that I ought to begin performing Republican. And so started my month of dwelling Republicanly. I ate like a Republican, slept like a Republican, shopped like a Republican. I watched TV like a Republican and spent my leisure time like a Republican. And I rooted towards Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce of the Kansas Metropolis Chiefs within the Tremendous Bowl, cheering as a substitute for the 49ers and their Trumpy defensive finish Nick Bosa.
Having fun with the novelty of my new affiliation, I started working in phrases equivalent to “As the one Republican within the room…” This grew to become an issue once I regaled some out-of-town guests with tales of my Republican exploits, solely to find, too late, that they have been actual Republicans and didn’t have interaction in such pursuits mockingly.
Ben and I met on the morning of Jan. 29 on the D.C. Board of Elections workplaces close to Nats Park in Southeast. Ben, styling himself a Chamber of Commerce Republican, wore a swimsuit and a reddish tie for his conversion. I’m extra of a Deplorable, so I opted for denims and a T-shirt. The clerk gave us kinds and clipboards, we crammed in our particulars, and, a couple of minutes later, he returned and handed me my new voter registration card.
We posed for photographs with our new playing cards in entrance of the elections workplace’s U.S. and D.C. flags — then we celebrated our change in standing with a really Republican meal: We went for an Authentic Hen Sandwich and a milkshake at Chick-fil-A.
It remained to be seen whether or not I might relaxation simple as a Republican, and that is the place Mike Lindell got here in. The MyPillow founder is in a foul method, after his election lies led retailers to drop him and brought about a $5 million arbitration award towards him. I helped him out of arrears by buying a Mike Lindell Patriotic Roll & GoAnywhere Pillow & Case for $14.99 after 50 p.c off for coming into a promotional code for the “Sean Hannity Specials.” This appeared to have been equivalent to the reductions supplied for the “Sebastian Gorka Specials,” the “Dan Bongino Specials” and the “Warroom Bannon Flash Sale.”
My pillow arrived 10 days later, as flimsy as Trump’s authorized arguments. The pillowcase options a picture of Lindell holding a flag in his proper hand and the Structure in his left. It got here with not one however two Bible-verse inserts and promotions for “Ashwagandha gummies,” “pure tooth whitener” and different issues the election denier is now hawking to make ends meet. And I used to be positive to want my pillow after experiencing the free reward (“$20 worth”) I additionally acquired: a obtain of Lindell’s audiobook.
Nicely rested, I drove my gas-powered automobile out to Harrisonburg, Va., for the Showmasters Gun Present. I paid my $9, acquired a bull’s eye hand stamp and plunged into the cavernous exhibit corridor on the Rockingham County Fairgrounds. Right here, I used to be positively house amongst my fellow Republicans.
I perused cubicles promoting knives, handguns, rifles, shotguns, wilderness survival kits, 25-year-shelf-life meals, a few Republican candidates for Senate and a plan to name a constitutional conference. At one sales space, operated by the Massanutten Patriots, a lady invited me to the group’s upcoming assembly about “election integrity.”
“First AR?” a person at one other show requested me as I seemed warily at his providing of military-style weapons. “In case you’re trying to defend life and residential, that is your gun.”
For these trying to offend quite than defend, there was additionally an arsenal of stickers, magnets, caps, T-shirts and canine tags with aggressive messages: “Traitor Joe.” “Pedo Joe.” “China Joe won’t ever be my president.” “Make RINOs extinct.” “Waterboarding Teacher.” There have been Accomplice flags, Christian-nationalist flags and Three Percenter emblems.
I couldn’t justify paying $699 for the bulletproof sculpture one man was promoting for goal follow: a silhouette of a cowboy, with pink bullseyes on his chest and his head, in addition to blue, anatomically correct genitals. The one with Bigfoot giving the center finger was much more out of attain at $1,650. So I purchased a fridge magnet as a substitute that introduced, “I help Donald Trump. I like freedom. I drink beer. I eat meat. I personal weapons. I shield my household. In case you don’t prefer it transfer.”
I discovered many extra potential objects for my new Republican way of life at a Virginia department of Interest Foyer, the craft empire based by an evangelical Christian that efficiently fought on the Supreme Court docket to disclaim contraception protection to its workers. There have been acres of beads, baubles, sparkles and stickers, and scores of framed posters and panels quoting scripture.
Strolling to the sound of sentimental guitar music and the scent of potpourri, I perused the motorsports-themed part (“There’s No Day Like Race Day”) and the firearms-themed part, the place one wall show with crossing handguns introduced “We Don’t Name 911.” Bullets shaped the 11 in 911. One other introduced: “God, Weapons & Guts Made America Free (Let’s Hold It That Method).”
Amid the prodigious amount of Bibles, crosses and prayer fragments have been books providing political recommendation, together with “Jesus Politics: Win Again the Soul of America,” and “The Theft of America’s Soul: Blowing the Lid Off the Lies That Are Destroying Our Nation.” There was a framed poster of the Structure and one with a Ronald Reagan citation. I handed these up, as a substitute going house with an merchandise from the pro-police show, a house-shaped piece of desk decor, made in China, with the message “In This Home We Again the Blue.”
Hundreds of thousands of such purchases made Interest Foyer founder David Inexperienced a billionaire, and he used his cash to launch the Museum of the Bible in D.C. It was there that the brand new Home speaker, Mike Johnson (R-La.), spoke in December to a Christian-nationalist group, telling attendees, as Rolling Stone reported, that his election as speaker was a “Crimson Sea second” through which God selected him to be the Republicans’ Moses.
My very own go to to the Museum of the Bible was much less revelatory. Ben and I shelled out $29.99 apiece for the privilege of touring the primary assortment however declined to pay the additional $9.99 for a digital actuality tour of Israel. The gathering is a bit depleted, as a result of the museum was discovered to be in possession of varied forgeries and ill-gotten artifacts. However we toured a pretend stone village of Nazareth, the place the Disney-style expertise included a costumed girl who sprinkled in a phrase or two of Hebrew. A movie within the Galilee Theater (offered by the TV sequence “The Chosen”) confirmed Jesus performing the Miraculous Catch of Fish.
We checked out the restaurant, referred to as Manna, the cafe, referred to as Milk and Honey, and the reward store, the place BibleOpoly and a Franklin Graham ebook have been among the many choices. I participated in a survey and realized that I used to be in a tiny minority of museumgoers to disagree with the assertion “There’s a menace to non secular freedom in America.” Nonetheless, as a Republican, I discovered that the museum was maddeningly ecumenical and apolitical. There was nothing about God tapping Johnson as Moses!
Weary from our exertions, Ben and I retired to a sports activities bar to look at NASCAR on Fox. It was a stunning race, on the Atlanta Motor Speedway, starting with a 16-car pileup on the second lap and ending, 258 laps later, in a three-way picture end. The vehicles have been pushing 200 mph. The adverts, for Only for Males beard dye and COPD medicine, recommended the standard NASCAR viewer strikes quite extra slowly. My one disappointment: Brandon Brown was not among the many drivers, so we couldn’t chant “Let’s go Brandon!” from our barstools.
Ben purchased every of us a Republican-In-Identify-Solely tattoo (short-term, like our social gathering affiliation) of a rhinoceros sporting a swimsuit and smoking a pipe. However the reality is most D.C. Republicans are what MAGA Republicans would disparage as RINOs. The D.C. GOP’s annual dinner, held this 12 months on Feb. 21, is known as the Lincoln-Douglass Gala — named for former Southeast D.C. resident Frederick Douglass, not Stephen A. Douglas.
D.C. Republicans are a rich and well-educated set, and once I confirmed as much as solid my poll within the major, I used to be the one particular person within the place sporting camo gear. The social gathering is so tiny in Democratic D.C. that the election had just one polling place: the high-end Madison Resort downtown. There was completely no early voting allowed, a strict voter ID requirement was imposed — they’re, in any case Republicans — however contained in the polling place, there have been two tables of Haley marketing campaign swag and never an indication of something MAGA. I acquired my paper poll, darkened the Haley circle, slid it into the digital reader and proudly slapped on my “I Voted” sticker.
After which, a nice shock: Discovering a protracted line of my fellow Republicans on one aspect of the lodge foyer, I realized from them that Haley herself was on the town — and about to handle a rally in a ballroom upstairs! I joined the road, accepting an “I Decide Nikki” sticker and one other displaying a rooster with orange hair and pink tie that mentioned “Trump is simply too rooster to debate.”
There have been many big-shot reporters within the room – the Atlantic’s Mark Leibovich, NBC’s Ali Vitali, USA At this time’s Francesca Chambers — and, providing myself as a Haley voter, I granted interviews to Politico’s Natalie Allison and Slate’s Ben Jacobs. “Simply discovered the standard D.C. @nikkihaley voter and did a person on the road interview,” Jacobs tweeted out with a photograph of me.
However the gag ended when Haley began speaking to the packed home. Her phrases jogged my memory why I had turn out to be a Republican within the first place, and it had nothing to do with MyPillow.
Haley spoke about Trump’s latest menace that anybody supporting her “is barred completely from MAGA.” The gang cheered on the notion of being barred from MAGA.
These have been my sort of Republicans!
Haley additionally talked about Trump’s latest suggestion that he “would stand with Putin and encourage him to invade our allies.” The gang booed.
“Trump would aspect with a dictator who kills his political opponents,” she went on. “Trump would aspect with a tyrant who arrests American journalists and holds them hostage. Trump’s going to aspect with a madman who’s made no bones about the truth that he desires to destroy America. And he’s going to aspect with him over the allies that stood with us after 9/11?”
Quickly after this, a person within the crowd shouted: “He can’t win a common election! It’s insanity!”
“Possibly Donald Trump is the issue,” Haley mentioned to a giant cheer.
The D.C. Republicans in that room have been, in a real sense, my fellow partisans. They’re from the roughly 30 p.c of Republican voters who need to treatment the social gathering of its MAGA illness. A wholesome Republican Celebration is important for America, if we’re to get again to a time once we can battle about points with out savaging our democratic ideas, and one another. On this, we’re very a lot on the identical aspect.
Haley’s closing traces supplied hope for a treatment to the “stress and anxiousness and melancholy” which have overtaken the nation within the Trump period and a return to “regular.”
“Are you able to think about a rustic the place we might sit down on the dinner desk and never have a political battle?” she requested. “Are you able to think about a rustic the place we might strongly disagree and never hate one another over it? That’s the place we need to go.”
That’s precisely the place I need to go. As I left the ballroom, a Haley volunteer noticed my “I voted” sticker and mentioned, “Thanks for voting!” I smiled.
I’m now again to being a registered unbiased. However in that second, I felt proud to be a Nikki Haley Republican.
