A Trump Rally

October 30, 2020  /  Susannah Breslin

In October 2016, I attended a Trump rally in Naples, Florida. I was and am not a Trump fan, I vote Democrat all the way, but I was curious to see what was so compelling about this cartoonish figure. I figured this was my last opportunity to see him in this way. There was no chance he’d win the presidential election the following month. As I recall, the rally was held in a field. As I walked toward the gathering crowd, an older white man looked at me and said: “Isn’t this great?” Out front, a Black man was selling Trump-themed T-shirts. Eventually, the president-who-surely-wouldn’t-be made a dramatic arrival in a helicopter. Most of the attendees, largely white, hooted in excitement. Finally, Trump made his way to the stage. He was taller than I expected, and while I find his politics utterly repellent, I could see there was something compelling about him. His strongman delivery offered comfort to people who perceived themselves as weak and under threat and wanted to protect their way of life, a way of life based on the exploitation of others and the devaluation of people of color. They didn’t think of themselves as white supremacists, but they were. Trump appealed to their closeted desires: for a man in a blue suit wearing an invisible Klu Klux Klan robe to restore their place in the world, one in which anyone who wasn’t white had no right to exist, to be heard, to vote. At a certain point, the attendees started chanting: “Lock her up!” The only thing more apparent than their racism was their misogyny. Eventually, I left. It was a weird window into an awful world, but surely it wouldn’t lead to a presidency. Yet, here we are. Four years later, the country has been turned topsy-turvy, by a sociopath. Here’s hoping for an empath as our next president.

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tags / POLITICS, PHOTOGRAPHS, JOURNALISM

What I'm Reading

October 20, 2020  /  Susannah Breslin

I’m reading “Taking Back Our Privacy” by Anna Wiener in The New Yorker.

An excerpt:

“Acton and Marlinspike wanted to demonstrate that it is possible to build mainstream technology that is not beholden to the incentives of venture capital, or to markets, despite the overwhelming cost of producing and maintaining software. Signal has always been remote. Its nonprofit status protects it from outside interests demanding rapid returns. Nonprofits cannot be acquired by for-profit companies, so there will be no repeat of what happened between Whisper Systems and Twitter, or between WhatsApp and Facebook. Acton told me, ‘The user is the customer, and we can actually put them first in terms of what their needs and their desires are, rather than a corporate bottom line or a profit motive or anything else. To me, it’s a powerful message to deliver.’”

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tags / PRIVACY, WHAT I'M READING, TECH

Serendipity

October 16, 2020  /  Susannah Breslin

I had to drive across town this morning for an appointment, and on my way there, I drove past Trashy Lingerie, a Los Angeles institution when it comes to members-only lingerie stores. In any case, it was still dark when I drove by the first time, so I made a mental note to drive past it again on my return. By the time I returned, it was no longer dark out, and there was a woman out front. She was surrounded by several boxes and various mannequin parts. I got out of the car and took several photographs, including this one of the torso and head of a mannequin supine on a box. I’ve been taking photos of mannequins for over 20 years. They’re easier to photograph than humans. They don’t move when you go to shoot them.

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tags / PHOTOGRAPHS, COLOR, MANNEQUINS, LOS ANGELES, LINGERIE