The (((Trumpettes))) of Bel Air
Inside the high-society circle of Trump supporters: jewel-bedecked, ideologically flexible and even less politically correct than he is.
BEL AIR, Calif. — Past a pair of Rolls-Royces parked in the driveway and a bodyguard who answers the door, the first thing you encounter upon entering Toni Holt Kramer’s house is a picture of Donald Trump.
This Hollywood reporter turned bicoastal socialite is the founder of “Trumpettes USA,” a group of mostly high-society female friends and admirers of the GOP nominee — including Gennifer Flowers, of Bill Clinton sex scandal notoriety — dedicated to making Trump America’s next president.
Kramer gathered members of her club here, at her palatial home in the Los Angeles area, while their candidate worked a barn full of farmers in Iowa last Saturday. They discussed opportunities for pro-Trump events and venues for fundraisers, but mostly these ladies who lunch spent six hours together talking up the man several of them consider a longtime friend. And in the process, they provided a gilded window into the ultra-elite social circle Trump ran in for decades, before he descended a few steps on America’s glamour ladder to conquer the Republican Party.
The world of Trump and the Trumpettes is unsubtly wealthy, full of knuckle-sized bejeweled rings and multiple vacation homes. Its residents are ideologically flexible: Like Trump, they have donated extensively to both parties and claim friendships with power players across the political spectrum. (Kramer says she has been both a friend and donor to Hillary Clinton.) And like Trump, the Trumpettes and their male counterparts, “the Trumpsters,” are politically incorrect — often much more so than the proudly irreverent nominee himself.
Those gathered at Kramer’s home were largely dismissive of criticism that Trump’s campaign has played off racial tensions (“Black Lives Matter and all that bullshit”) or that some of his supporters are motivated by bigotry (“I was raised by a black nanny, there’s no prejudice on my side”). They disbelieve polls that peg their candidate as deeply unpopular with women — and some don’t think any woman should be president anyway (“You think ISIS is going to listen to her?”). And if they have quibbles with Trump’s rhetoric, it’s because they believe he has been, at times, too restrained (One “regrets” that Trump dropped the birther issue).
The Trumpettes are a socioeconomic world away from the populist blue-collar workers who have fueled Trump’s rise. But their visceral opposition to President Barack Obama (“he’s the racist,” one said), their approving view that Trump is a “strong man” who will keep the country safe, and their deep unease with Muslims would all fit right in with the rank and file at a Trump rally. It’s evidence that the Republican nominee, long accused of flip-flopping on a range of policy issues, perhaps hasn’t strayed so far from his roots after all.
To the Trumpettes, the candidate’s lack of governing experience is irrelevant. The proof of his ability to make America great again is in his business empire and the properties contained within it, places Trumpettes know well.
“The reason I love his club and Trump International is because it’s perfection,” Kramer said of Mar-a-Lago, his private Palm Beach club, and Trump’s nearby golf course. “That’s the way he’ll run the country.”
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