Don-Bombing Sedona — Rick Reilly tries a social experiment.
Came home the other night, flicked on the kitchen lights and found Donald Trump standing there. Just about needed the defib.
Not the actual Trump. A life-size, stand-up, full-color cardboard Trump. Blue suit, double thumbs-up, grinning at me. Turns out pulling the Don bomb is a thing. Someone Don-bombed my buddy with it, so my buddy Don-bombed me with it. He said now I had to Don-bomb somebody else with it.
So I decided to Don-bomb the entire town.
I wanted to try a social experiment. I wanted to see how people respond to Trump when no one’s around. Because I don’t think this election is about Joe Biden vs. Trump. I think it’s about Trump and only Trump, the most space-swallowing, ulcer-inducing, fire-starting colossus this country has ever seen.
I live in Sedona, Ariz., which is about as politically purple as a town can get. People are either vortex-worshiping or riding around in 4x4s with a gun rack in the window. We call it “Crystals and Pistols.”
I started by standing Trump up in front of the Safeway, right under the No Loitering sign. I sat in my Jeep 20 feet away and pretended to work on my phone.
The first guy to come along wore a speckled-gray ponytail, a sweat-stained ball cap and a black T-shirt. He looked about 50. He stared at the cutout, saw me and said, “Can I use that for target practice?”
Flat Donald was off to a good start.
Some people smirked at him. Some smiled. But 10 minutes into the experiment, a scowling Safeway employee snatched him and started back inside. I had to jump out of the Jeep and give chase. “Sir? Sir, that’s actually mine. It’s a social experiment.”
He shot me a sour look and handed it over: “We can’t have … that … on the property.”
I took it and left. I did not like the feeling of saving Trump from the compactor.
Next, I set him up in front of the town’s sole McDonald’s, reputedly the only one in the world with blue arches instead of yellow. (It’s a Sedona thing.) People trying to take photos of its blueness were not happy to see Trump in the shot. “You’re going to have to edit that out,” a woman said to her daughter.
I took His Orangeness up a mountain to one of Sedona’s scenic overlooks. It was dusk, and the setting sun was turning the magnificent red rocks purple. I positioned him facing the dozens of tourists taking in the view. A balding, 60-ish guy had his wife take his picture standing beside Cardboard Don, duplicating the double thumbs-up move.
“You’re a fan?” I asked.
“Oh, yeah,” he said, beaming. “Just posted it to Instagram!”
A couple of minutes later, a younger guy in a ski hat came over and said, “Can I push him off the cliff?”
“If only,” I said.
I heard somebody yell in my direction, “That thing wrecks the view!”
An ex-military man with a crewcut told me he admires Trump. “That surprises me,” I said. “Didn’t he fake an injury to get out of being in the military?”
“Well,” the guy said, “yes and no.”
“And didn’t he call fallen World War II soldiers ‘suckers’?”
“Well, yes and no.”
Well, yes and yes.
One 40-ish woman from Germany saw the cutout and faked putting a finger down her throat — the universal ralphing sign.
A guy wearing an AR-15 T-shirt said he’d voted for Trump in the Arizona primary, which prompted his two junior-high-school-looking kids to boo him. “They hate Trump,” the gun dad said. “Hopefully, they’ll learn. But when they’re 18, I’m going to drive them to the polls to vote, either way.”
One guy flipped Trump off. Another went up and hugged him. A woman of about 40, an Illinois librarian, said, “Why would you bring him here?”
“Well,” I said. “Trump lost to Biden in Arizona by only about 11,000 votes, so this state really matters. I wanted to see what people said about him.”
“Well,” she said, “I honestly don’t think he lost last time.”
“Really?” I said, gently. “Didn’t they adjudicate that in court over and over, and he lost every time?”
“Well, yeah, I guess,” she said.
“And didn’t every state recount change nothing?”
“Well, yeah. Kind of.”
Well, yeah and yeah.
People kept coming by to rave or rant about Trump while we stared at him. I made it 60-40, Trump beating Biden, but I noticed something. The Bidens were all-in on Biden, while some of the Trumps wished they had another option.
“I don’t really want to vote for Trump,” the librarian admitted. “But I can’t vote for Biden. … I just wish Trump wouldn’t talk the way he does. I like his policies but I hate the way he behaves. Why can’t he just shut up?”
That’s when it hit me. I loathe Trump and yet I liked some of these Trumpers. I realized that for eight years, I’ve been lumping Trumpers in with Trump, as though they also flame-throw lies and start insurrections. But these were just plain, nice Americans with kids and Hondas and lawns. They just don’t realize yet that they’ve been Don-bombed themselves — by a BS artist I’ve known for 40 years.
As I was heading home, a gully washer hit. Both Trump and I got soaked on the way to the door, and I dropped him as I fumbled with the key. He was flat on his face in the mud, in the rain. While I savored that image for a moment, I realized: This social experiment needed one last stop.
I put Cardboard Don in a dumpster, with his shoulders and head sticking up, grinning. Passers-by either laughed or shook their heads or ignored him, but no one saved him. Everyone just left him behind.
This November, I recommend you do exactly that, too.
Doonesbury — Oh, Jesus…
