Election Throwback - Love Baby Trump

,In 2016, my best friend and I manifested the inner infant of Donald Trump and took it across the country. It was initially her idea, and I was, initially, skeptical. Ultimately it's been one of the grandest adventures of our friendship. 

We had been working on a Youtube series about two bumbling, would-be new age influencers who were also possibly lovers for half a year when it became clear that Donald Trump was going to become the Republican candidate. Other than voting and complaining to friends and family about whatever the current cause celebre/ Right Wing gaff might be, I had never been politically involved. So "reparenting" a miniature Donald Trump effigy in a live, performative, comico-political action was daunting. But Manda was game, and since 2004 wherever Manda led, I followed. And I'd never regretted it.

I was living in Los Angeles and she was in Grants Pass, OR, so the initial build of the voodoo doll fell on her. As she sent me footage of the process, I warmed to the idea. It was just so WEIRD. And, oddly, it started to make sense. When we took the doll to the Jackson County Fair together in the summer as a sort of test flight, I was amazed by the instant chord it struck. We were fully in costume and character, and I wore Donald in a DIY-constructed front pack so that he was in the vanguard everywhere we went. And people WANTED to engage. We filmed various interviews that day and got some great one-liners from folks who clearly had a lot of deep feeling about what was going on in Washington. The doll seemed to disarm them, allowing them to speak freely and from the heart. I started to develop a sense of pride around the project; I was letting my freak flag fly in a way that challenged me as an artist, and, maybe more importantly, I was engaged in real political activism for the first time. Because Manda had dreamed it and we'd built it out together, it was an activism that felt organic, artistic and productive.

We ended up filming with Baby Don Don in Los Angeles, Washington DC, New York (we actually took him into Trump Tower and no one stopped us) and Las Vegas. I soon learned that some folks who came in for a closer look would quickly scurry away when they 'got' it -- MAGA supporters, I assumed.  They showed us their backs, but they were never mean.

I've navel gazed over the years, returning to watch these videos somewhat regularly. I didn't do much to personally promote them when we were making them. We had a dedicated Youtube channel, Facebook page and Twitter, but I never claimed Wanda Ann Pollard (my character) in a meaningful and outright way on my own puny social media. I'm a bit ashamed now to admit the reason: my folks didn't respond to the material. Now, eight years on, I have some ego strength and distance from my particular parental enmeshment in the 2010s (my husband jokingly characterizes some of my family's dynamics as "Southern California Gothic"). I'm hip to the truth that while my parents have generally good taste, they are not the Arbiters of it. And I'm allowed to be as loudly proud of the bizarre world of Wanda Ann, Chastity and Donald as I actually am.