Are Americans crazy? Let's just say they're different. Five days after Donald Trump's victory in the race for the White House, gleeful supporters hailing from The Villages, an all-retiree town in Florida, gathered in a parking lot for a wild afternoon. On the agenda for this joyful event was a tailgate party – a cluster of open car trunks filled with alcoholic beverages – followed by a golf cart rally, a slow but proud golf cart procession. Different, as we were saying.
To attend the party, one woman accessorized extensively. In addition to a blue visor, heavily festooned with American flags, she put a genuine monument to style on her nose. Designed in 1952 by optician Raymond Stegeman ,and marketed four years later, Ray-Ban Wayfarers have stood the test of time, without getting old. What's even crazier is that, from the outset, they were designed to do just that: With this model, Ray-Ban's stated ambition was to strike the same timeless vein as an Eames armchair or a Cadillac tailfin.
However, the most interesting item she was wearing was her T-shirt. Over time, the slogan "Jesus is my savior, Trump is my president" has become a classic, repeated across countless objects glorifying the reelected president. It illustrates Trump's astonishing popularity among American Catholics. Indeed, he has succeeded in making them forget his dissolute lifestyle and total lack of religious practice, garnering almost 60% of the votes from the country's 54 million Catholic voters (i.e., one in five) – a record for a Republican candidate since 1984.
Let's continue the inventory. In the background, a man wears a camouflage-style pro-Trump cap. Behind him, a lady stands out in her cowboy hat. Also emblazoned with a striking "Trump 2024" slogan, the hat in question features the characteristic raised brim. Yet why are cowboy hat brims turned up like that? It's technical, but also perfectly logical: It prevents a lasso from hitting the hat in mid-throw.
Finally, note the flag, printed with a photo of Trump taken seconds after his assassination attempt in Meridian, Pennsylvania, on July 13. The photo was taken by American photographer Evan Vucci, a war reporter with experience in Afghanistan and Iran. He later explained that, at Trump's rally that day, it was precisely his familiarity with the sounds of detonations that had enabled him to keep calm and continue photographing the scene, and therefore to produce this image, which has now gone into posterity.
Translation of an original article published in French on lemonde.fr; the publisher may only be liable for the French version.