Javanka ’24: Will They or Won’t They?

Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump
Photo by Aaron P. Bernstein/Getty Images
Tina Nguyen
October 7, 2021

Last August, as I traversed the country reporting on the Trump movement in exile, I stopped over in Black Hills, South Dakota, to witness an extraordinary migratory event. Every year, hundreds of thousands of bikers hop on their Harley-Davidsons and drive thousands of miles to the open-sky freeways surrounding Mount Rushmore to attend the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, where they spend two weeks joyriding in shiny chrome flocks, thronging to Kid Rock at Buffalo Chip and knocking back Wild Turkey around campfires at night. While the Rally itself is apolitical, the merchandise is most definitely not: vendors lining the highways hawk every manner of culture-war totems, from “Trump Won” stickers and Thin Blue Line flags to Three Percenter and other right-wing militia gear.