TUCSON, Ariz. — The Trump Organization’s own gift shops have nothing on the Trumpiness of this border-town store in southern Arizona.
On highway 80 about 75 miles southeast of Tucson, Wyatt Forster and Carey Appolonia have been running a local gift shop selling all things Trump.
“We got tired of keeping our mouths shut,” Forster told The Federalist, which led the married pair from Tucson to open up the store seven months ago. Appolonia, a local model in Arizona, explained that her political views prompted her to be excommunicated from the other performers so the couple felt they had nothing to lose. Continued self-censorship, she said, wasn’t an option.
“I just couldn’t live like that,” Appolonia said.
Now they’re some of former President Donald Trump’s biggest cheerleaders, selling anything and everything one would expect to find in a typical gift shop, and then some.
Inside, visitors can find coffee mugs, watches, key chains, and ball caps of every kind under a massive television that plays Newxmax around the clock.
Customers can also buy bottles of honey labeled “Make Honey Great Again” modeled after the honey bear, except the bear’s head has been replaced with Trump’s.
Profanity-laced magnets and bathroom products featuring Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden even line the store’s tables.
The merchandise might suggest the owners hate leftists, with products reading “Joe and the Hoe Gotta Go.” But if their left-wing counterparts would actually speak to them (a tall order these days), they would quickly realize the owners merely despise leftism. Many of their friends are Democrats, but the couple is clearly fed up with the monolithic liberalism thrust upon them in Tucson.
“I always joke saying it’s like getting paid for having group therapy every day,” Appolonia said. “Because everybody comes in and they’re all feeling like it’s a safe place where they can gripe about what’s going on.”
“It’s some of the friendliest people you’ll ever meet coming in here,” said Forster.
The owners have a good time mocking the political circus in the process with the sale of items such as the “Trump Zen Garden” for said therapy sessions.
The couple also recognizes Trump as one of the most gay-friendly presidents ever to take office. Trump was the first president sworn in as a supporter of same-sex marriage and also appointed the first openly gay cabinet member.
At the Trump store, customers can buy rainbow beanies that read “Let’s Go Brandon,” a euphemism for “f-ck Joe Biden.”
While a crowded contest for the Republican presidential nomination is almost certain by the end of the year, the couple remained skeptical that any candidate could sway their support from Trump.
“I’m a Trumpster,” said Forster, adding that 2016 was the first election in which he had ever voted. Appolonia remains more open-minded but said that for now, Trump remains “number one” because “he wasn’t a politician.”