But, in the tradition of this great country, she seemed to want more for Averie. In August, she attended a “White Party” thrown by Kim D. If celebrity is now that powerful-powerful enough to win delegates and then to launch nukes-why wouldn’t every citizen want it?Ī Google search reveals that although she isn’t one, Renee at least knows Real Housewives.
And, in a sense, there is no more perfect distillation of Trump’s candidacy, and the Republican primary in general, than an American like Renee seeking to turn a little girl like Averie into a reality TV star by latching onto the celebrity that Trump believes will vault him into the White House. It’d be tempting to view this scene as a metaphor for Trump’s candidacy: a stage mom, a child repeating xenophobic rhetoric she can’t possibly yet believe, all to get that elusive puh-liss-ity. Meanwhile, Renee was on the phone with Bo Dietl, a former New York City detective and conservative media personality, who is a longtime friend of Trump’s and even attended his most recent wedding. “And… illegal aliens… and only let people that I know into the country… other people into the country are bad, like ISIS… you cannot let them in.” Speaking slowly, careful not to get anything wrong, she continued, looking to Dawn for guidance all the while. “I want him to fix the economy, right?” she asked. “I want him to-what?” she looked up at Dawn, who was coaching her through the questions reporters asked her. “I like the kind of stuff he says,” she smiled. She likes Trump because he would “make America great again,” in the words of his campaign slogan, and said that if it were up to her, she would made America great again by banning drugs and smoking. She said she’d been holding it “for almost an hour.” “Yes,” she said when I asked if it was heavy. Held vertically, Averie’s sign would almost be as tall as she was, and she struggled to keep it steady in the air. “She watches CNN, she watches the debate, and she likes what she sees,” she said.
Renee said she and her daughter were “Trumpkins” but that Averie’s obsession with the tinsel-haired Republican candidate was all her own.
The mother and daughter had made the trip up to New York City with Renee’s best friend, Dawn Pugliese, a real estate agent who Renee referred to as her daughter’s “publicist,” to buy Trump’s new book, Crippled America: How to Make America Great Again, released Tuesday. “Yes, I took her out of school today for this special occasion,” she said. (She said she couldn’t say which magician she assisted, but that he was very well known).
Her mom, who looked like a Real Housewife but claimed to be a magician’s assistant, stood nearby and introduced herself as Renee Paige of Saddle River, New Jersey. She said her name was Averie, she was in the second grade and her favorite subject in school was English. In blue and red marker she wrote, “MAKE AMERICA GREAT! DONALD TRUMP.” It was hand-drawn, and it had taken her about an hour to make. She was missing several teeth, and she smiled proudly as she held a sign in the air. She was about 4 feet tall and dressed like an American Girl Doll, in a peacoat and newsboy hat.