Would You Realize This Report From Trump Country Was Satire If We Didn't Tell You?

BASSACKWOODS, SADSYLVANIA -- In this town, where Donald Trump won one hundred percent of the vote, the carriage is still King.

Horse-drawn carriages put Bassackwoods on the map, and every hardscrabble American I spoke with here remains hopeful that President Trump will put the millers and wheelwrights back to work building the world’s finest mammal-towed conveyances, despite the cold fact that he won’t.

“Like hell he won’t,” says Dale Smail, a regular at the Olive Garden here. “Donald Trump has never told a lie or broken a single promise in his life, and he promised us he’d bring the wagon trade back so fast our heads would spin.”

When I ask why, in his view, this hasn’t happened yet, he shrugs.

“Crooked Hillary, I guess.”

“No, it’s the FBI now,” his wife, Gail, corrects him.

“That’s right, Obama’s Muslim FBI,” he says.

People here have a sophisticated understanding of the factors that caused the decline of the carriage business, though they can be less clear on what Trump might do about them.

“Immigrants,” says one visitor at the jobs museum. I ask him to elaborate.

“Transgenders,” he says. “Kaepernick,” he adds.

The mayor, Pat Warshington, takes a different view.

“First of all, it’s regulations. You can’t keep a horse anymore. Big Brother.”

It’s cold in the mayor’s office, and full of milk. Pat is also the dairy manager at Walmart.

“Then, two, you got Hollywood. In movies, everyone drives cars. It’s Harvey Weinstein values, and I believe the women who accused Donald Trump and Roy Moore of the exact same things Weinstein did are lying. That’s just the totally impartial sense I have as a public servant. Al Franken too.”

He swings two jugs of milk into their racks as I shiver.

A woman I meet outside is also candid: “The smart ones leave here as soon as they can, and we never forgive them.”

I ask what this has to do with Trump.

“Nothing,” she says. “I just like how he yells.”

In the town park, named in honor of a Confederate general who sacked the town during the Civil War, a father and daughter process the swings for scrap.

“I voted Democrat until they became the gay black abortion party, and I’m not racist. Don’t put my name,” he said.

I ask his daughter what she thinks of the Democrats.

“Fuck them pieces of shit,” she trills.

“Donald Trump is Santa Claus and Democrats worship Satan,” dad reminds her. “They hate Christmas.” He and his wife home school their daughter.

I didn’t learn much from my trip to Bassackwoods, and neither did you. But people will hate-read my report and tweet how dumb and pointless it is, thereby propagating it and driving demand for the next one. This cycle, like the opposite of the horse-drawn carriage, is something that’s here to stay.

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