T-shirts and silver balls: Politics get mixed in with the profane at a Trump store

Walk into Trump Town USA in Boones Mill, Virginia, and you may marvel at the breadth of human creativity, as long as you’re not distracted by how the merchandise tackles some of the most controversial political issues in the most vulgar way possible. The most spectacular specimens are in the back right corner: pairs of silvery, veiny metal testicles hanging from a ring and wrapped in protective clear plastic. “That’s Trump’s balls,” the store’s owner, Whitey Taylor, explains. The smaller set costs $75, the larger, $125. They’re heavy.

There are dozens of independent stores across the country selling items supporting former President Donald Trump’s reelection bid. They are another unique feature of Trump’s appeal and what their customers buy offers some insight into what they want politically – and that is not subtlety.

Taylor’s outlet is a prime example. A couple of weeks before the Iowa caucuses, business was brisk with out-of-towners flocking to a decommissioned church in a tiny village that is now packed with Trump merch. It’s like the Cave of Wonders from the movie Aladdin , except with more references to butts, poop and pee. A bumper sticker shows a cartoon Trump urinating on “Putin.” A keychain can be squeezed to make a tiny Trump defecate. “Moonie Trump” figurines depict the former president mischievously showing his naked backside. “We sell a lot of those,” said Taylor, who has long sought to create controversies of his own.

The gag gifts may raise a smile among the customers, but they also show their passion, pride and faith in Trump.

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

He said he was afraid of an economic crisis to rival the Great Recession of 2008 and counting on Trump to prevent it.

Back then, he said, “I lost everything I had. I barely survived … This is leading up to the same thing again. So, it’s coming. The downfall is coming.” He thought Trump could right the ship.

He said he did brick and concrete work for a living in North Carolina, and his own business had been busy the last few years. But the economy had been tougher for his adult children, who he said would struggle to afford a home and car and were “more poor than what they should be.” Talking to Taylor, the store owner, he seemed to like the idea that Trump might mete out some retribution. “One thing about it: if he gets back in there, somebody’s going to prison,” Copeland said.

The economy is on a lot of customers’ minds, said Melinda Williams, who works behind the register at Trump Town USA. “They’re very scared, I think, because of the way things are going,” she said. “They feel like where we’re at right now is stagnant, like it’s not going anywhere. And it’s definitely not going in a positive direction.”

Another shopper, Mary-Jean Palmer, spoke thoughtfully about her politics and why she felt the criminal indictments against Trump were “just totally evil.”

“I’m a reasonable woman,” she said. “I often wonder, what encourages people to be a Democrat? Because I don’t see a lot of kindness. I don’t see a lot of help for our country. And I see a lot of talk, no action. That’s why I like Trump.” Over her shoulder was a a rack of stickers, some reading “F**k Biden.”

But while Taylor offers many items denigrating President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and their Democratic Party, they don’t sell well. “They like the slogan. They like to read it,” Taylor said of the anti-Biden merchandise. But, “they won’t wear it.” Taylor had offered merch with a picture of Hillary Clinton in prison, “And they would say, ‘I don’t want that b*tch’s picture on my back.’ It was terrible.”

Taylor keeps a close eye on political news to be ready for the next trend. When a big political meme pops up it sells well in the moment but fades 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 “really hot” for about two months, Taylor said, before sales began to cool off. Same thing happened with the “Let’s Go Brandon” merch that sprung up after a sports reporter misheard a “F**k Joe Biden” chant.

Taylor gets items from wholesalers and mom-and-pop shops around the country, and not everyone is a winner. Canned “AOC Brand Cow Farts” – a reference to a paper from (and later disavowed by) Democratic New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez linking Big Agriculture to climate change – have not sold well. “This old guy spent $25,000 in Greensboro having that label made and all. Then he passes away. His wife calls me – she says, ‘You want all these cow farts? … Please come and get them out of my garage,’” Taylor explained. “I said, ‘OK, I’ll come get ‘em.” They sat stacked on a shelf next to the Moonie Trumps.

There were prints of a painting showing Trump addressing reporters who were dressed like clowns, dart boards with Biden’s face, floral aprons with “Trump 2024” embroidered on them, Trump baby onesies, Trump clocks, a “Trump Train” flag, an “America First” flag and a flag that blended the American and Israeli flag. And then there’s a flag of the American Stars and Stripes being pulled upward by a muscular arm to reveal a Confederate flag behind it.

What’s the next bestseller? “Who knows?” Taylor said. “Just have to wait. And the more the Democrats talk about MAGA crazy people, then, you know, something will spin off of it.”

Taylor is well-known locally for stirring up controversy and getting his name in the newspapers. He owned a racetrack for decades, and said he knew how to pull stunts – like wet t-shirt contests or announcing a cockfighting match he never intended to hold – to make people mad and get attention. He’s long sold merch at big events, like special sunglasses for viewing the solar eclipse. (He made more money, he said, in the parts of the country where the sun was only 90% eclipsed than in the path of totality, where there was more competition.)

Early in the 2016 race, before Trump had taken over the Republican Party, Taylor was selling racing merch at the Daytona 500, and prayed to God for guidance. “My son said, ‘Dad, what’s God telling us?’ It came in my spirit: ‘He wants me to help Trump,’” Taylor said. His son started laughing, “and profusely.” Taylor said he’d order 1,000 T-shirts. His son begged him to start with just 100. “I said, ‘Go big or go home, boy.’ I said, ‘If God’s telling me, we’ll sell every one of ‘em, and if not, we’ll throw ‘em in the trash can and leave.”

His first item was a white T-shirt, and on the back, it read, “Donald Trump: Finally someone with balls.” Taylor said, “I became known as ‘the Balls Man’ on the tour.” If he skipped a campaign rally, other merchants would tell him college kids had come looking for him, asking, “Where’s the Balls Man?”

In September 2020, he opened his store inside a hundred-year-old church by a stoplight on Highway 220. “Religious people come in here and they say, ‘Is this God’s house?’ I say, ‘No! it’s the house that Trump paid for.’”

After the election, his big seller was “Stop the Steal.” 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,” that the rioters “never should have gone inside.” Still, he said he did not blame Trump for the insurrection, and did not think Trump had a responsibility to convince the rioters to calm down.

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

As for whether Trump himself – like some of the merchandise – was too crass, too vulgar and not presidential, Taylor responded: “The whole world has changed.”

“It’s not really good that he does that … when he hollers ‘bullsh*t this’ and ‘bullsh*t that,’” Taylor said. “But, it is bullsh*t. Bottom line.”

走进位于弗吉尼亚州布恩斯米尔的“特朗普小镇美国”（Trump Town USA），你或许会惊叹于人类创造力的广度，前提是你不会被那些以最粗俗的方式处理某些最具争议性政治议题的商品所分散注意力。最引人注目的展品位于右后角：一对对银光闪闪、纹理清晰的金属睾丸，悬挂在一枚环上，并用透明塑料膜包裹。“那是特朗普的睾丸，”店主怀蒂·泰勒解释道。小号的售价75美元，大号的售价125美元。它们很重。

全国各地有数十家独立商店出售支持前总统唐纳德·特朗普连任竞选的商品。这是特朗普吸引力的另一独特之处，而顾客的购买行为也反映了他们的政治诉求——这一点毫不含糊。

泰勒的店就是个绝佳的例子。在爱荷华州党团会议前几周，生意异常火爆，外地游客蜂拥而至，来到一个小村庄里一座废弃的教堂，那里现在摆满了特朗普的周边商品。这就像电影《阿拉丁》里的“奇迹洞穴”，只不过这里充斥着更多关于屁股、粪便和尿液的暗示。一张保险杠贴纸上画着卡通版的特朗普正在对着“普京”撒尿。一个钥匙扣，只要轻轻一捏，就能让一个迷你特朗普拉屎。“统一教特朗普”系列玩偶描绘了这位前总统调皮地露出裸露的屁股。“这些东西我们卖得很多，”泰勒说道，他一直以来都热衷于制造争议。

这些恶搞礼物或许能让顾客们会心一笑，但也展现了他们对特朗普的热情、自豪和信念。

戴尔·科普兰正在购买一些特朗普的帽子和一个特朗普的竞选标语，准备挂在他刚建好的车库上方，“这样当你开车驶入车道时就能看到它。然后我还要把它发布到Facebook上。”

他说，他担心会出现堪比 2008 年大衰退的经济危机，并指望特朗普能够阻止危机发生。

他说，当时“我失去了一切。我勉强活了下来……现在的情况又要重蹈覆辙了。所以，它要来了。垮台要来了。”他认为特朗普能够力挽狂澜。

他说自己在北卡罗来纳州靠砌砖和浇筑混凝土为生，过去几年生意一直不错。但经济形势对他的成年子女来说却很艰难，他说他们买房买车都很困难，“比他们应有的境况还要穷”。和店主泰勒交谈时，泰勒似乎很赞同特朗普可能会进行报复的想法。“有一点可以肯定：如果他再次当选，肯定有人要坐牢，”科普兰说道。

在特朗普美国城收银台工作的梅琳达·威廉姆斯说，经济形势是很多顾客都非常关心的问题。“我觉得他们很害怕，因为现在的情况就是这样，”她说。“他们觉得我们现在的处境停滞不前，看不到任何希望。而且情况肯定没有好转。”

另一位顾客玛丽-简·帕尔默深思熟虑地谈到了她的政治观点，以及她为什么认为对特朗普的刑事起诉“完全是邪恶的”。

“我是一个讲道理的女人，”她说。“我常常想，是什么促使人们成为民主党人？因为我没看到多少善意，没看到多少对我们国家的帮助，只看到很多空谈，没有实际行动。这就是我喜欢特朗普的原因。”她身后挂着一排贴纸，其中一些写着“去他妈的拜登”。

尽管泰勒出售许多贬低乔·拜登总统、卡马拉·哈里斯副总统及其民主党的商品，但这些商品的销量并不好。“他们喜欢这些口号，喜欢阅读这些口号，”泰勒谈到反拜登商品时说，“但是，他们不会穿。”泰勒曾出售印有希拉里·克林顿狱中照片的商品，“他们会说，‘我不想把那个婊子的照片印在身上。’真是太糟糕了。”

泰勒密切关注政治新闻，以便把握下一个潮流。当一个热门政治梗出现时，它会在一时风靡一时，但几周后就会销声匿迹。泰勒说，特朗普在佐治亚州富尔顿县刑事案件中的嫌犯照——被印在T恤、庭院标牌、旗帜，当然还有马克杯上——在大约两个月的时间里“非常火爆”，之后销量就开始降温。同样的情况也发生在“加油布兰登”的周边产品上，这件产品是在一位体育记者误听了“去他妈的乔·拜登”的口号后突然出现的。

泰勒从全国各地的批发商和夫妻店进货，但并非每件商品都能卖得好。罐装的“AOC牌牛屁”（AOC牌牛屁）——这个名字源于纽约州民主党众议员亚历山大·奥卡西奥-科尔特斯（Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez）的一篇论文（该论文后来被她否认），论文将大型农业企业与气候变化联系起来——销量很差。“有个老头在格林斯伯勒花了2.5万美元做了这个标签什么的。然后他就去世了。他妻子打电话给我，说：‘你想要这些牛屁吗？……请你来我家车库把它们搬走，’”泰勒解释说。“我说：‘好的，我去搬。’”它们就堆放在架子上，旁边是“统一教特朗普”的宣传品。

展品包括一幅画作的印刷品，画中特朗普正在向一群打扮成小丑的记者讲话；印有拜登头像的飞镖靶；绣着“特朗普2024”字样的花卉围裙；特朗普婴儿连体衣；特朗普时钟；一面“特朗普列车”旗帜；一面“美国优先”旗帜；以及一面融合了美国国旗和以色列国旗的混合旗帜。此外，还有一面美国星条旗被一只肌肉发达的手臂向上拉起，露出了它后面的一面南方邦联旗帜。

下一个畅销书会是什么？“谁知道呢？”泰勒说，“只能等着瞧。民主党人越是谈论那些‘让美国再次伟大’的狂热分子，就越有可能由此衍生出一些新的东西。”

泰勒在当地以制造争议和频频登上报纸头条而闻名。他拥有赛马场数十年，并声称自己深谙如何搞噱头——比如举办湿身T恤大赛或宣布一场他从未打算举办的斗鸡比赛——来激怒民众并博取眼球。他长期以来一直在大型活动中销售周边商品，例如用于观看日全食的特制太阳镜。（他说，在日食仅遮蔽90%的地区，他赚的钱比在日全食带内更多，因为日全食带竞争更激烈。）

2016年大选初期，在特朗普掌控共和党之前，泰勒在戴通纳500赛车比赛现场售卖赛车周边商品，并向上帝祈祷寻求指引。“我儿子问我：‘爸爸，上帝在告诉我们什么？’我的内心突然有了启示：‘他要我帮助特朗普，’”泰勒说道。他儿子顿时哈哈大笑起来。泰勒说他要订购1000件T恤。他儿子恳求他先从100件开始。“我说：‘要么全力以赴，要么就别干了，孩子。’我说：‘如果上帝指示我，我们就一件不落地卖出去；如果不是，我们就把它们扔进垃圾桶，然后离开。’”

他的第一件商品是一件白色T恤，背面印着：“唐纳德·特朗普：终于有人有种了。”泰勒说：“在巡回演讲中，我成了‘有种先生’。”如果他缺席了某场竞选集会，其他商家就会告诉他，有大学生来找他，问：“有种先生在哪儿？”

2020年9月，他在220号公路旁一个红绿灯路口的一座百年教堂里开了家店。“信教的人进来后会问，‘这是上帝的殿堂吗？’我说，‘不！这是特朗普出钱买的房子。’”

大选之后，他的畅销书是《停止窃选》。泰勒认为2020年大选被窃取了（事实并非如此）。但他认为2021年1月6日冲击国会大厦是“一件糟糕的事”，暴徒“根本不应该进去”。不过，他表示并不责怪特朗普煽动暴乱，也不认为特朗普有责任劝阻暴徒冷静下来。

泰勒表示，虽然赚钱是他的事业，但如果这位前总统本人没有那么大的争议，他可能不会对经营特朗普商店感兴趣。

至于特朗普本人是否像某些商品一样过于粗俗、庸俗，缺乏总统风范，泰勒回应道：“整个世界都变了。”

“他那样做确实不太好……他大喊‘胡说八道’、‘胡说八道’，”泰勒说。“但说到底，那确实是胡说八道。”