January 24 2025

Billy's late; it's almost 10 o'clock, and he's still five minutes out. The warehouse shift ran until six this morning, and his legs feel like lead. Cold bites through his canvas work jacket—fifteen bucks at Goodwill, no insulation—while kids in puffy North Face coats brush past without seeing him. His breath fogs. His phone buzzes—Derek, the one guy from Millerton who still texts him, still checks in, still remembers when they were both just warehouse kids with no future.

Derek: You going to that Nazi class today?

Derek: You going to that Nazi class today?

He pockets the phone and keeps moving, past students with four-dollar coffees and carbon-fiber backpacks who've never worked a forklift in January at 4 AM. His notebook is a dollar-store spiral. The MAGA hat sits low on his brow, and his fingers ache from the cold.

Registration text hit earlier:

Registration: HIST 412 spot opened. You still want in?

Registration: HIST 412 spot opened. You still want in?

He'd added himself to the waitlist two weeks ago on a Campus Patriots assignment. It wasn't a joke now. You gotta show them you're not afraid. His father's voice, lodged in his head. There's a Berkeley liberal inside that room. Fine—let them see him coming.

Billy dropped out at seventeen, got his GED, and went to the warehouse. That was 2015—the year Trump came down the escalator calling Mexicans rapists, and Billy's father said, "Finally, someone who tells the truth."

In October, his father drove them to Harrisburg for the rally. Billy had never been to anything like it. The parking lot alone—trucks with flags, people in red hats streaming toward the arena—felt like something clicking into place. Inside, the crowd packed tight, shoulder to shoulder, and the heat rose despite the October chill outside. A man next to Billy, maybe sixty, wore a Vietnam Vet cap and kept saying "Finally, finally."

When Trump walked out, the roar was physical—Billy felt it in his chest. Trump pointed at the media pen, caged off at the back, and shouted, "These people are the most dishonest people!" The crowd erupted. Billy's father gripped his shoulder, and Billy shouted with everyone else, his voice lost in thousands of voices all saying the same thing: someone finally sees us.

Driving home, his father's hands were steady on the wheel for the first time in months. "That's what a leader looks like," he said. Billy was seventeen and had never felt that kind of belonging.

After Trump won, Billy worked the forklift and told himself things would get better. They didn't—not in Millerton. But Trump kept fighting, and Billy kept believing. He scraped gas money for rallies: one in 2018, another in 2020 (packed arena, no masks, pure defiance). These weren't just political events; they were proof he wasn't alone.

By twenty-three he was making sixteen dollars an hour and staring at a flat future. Derek pitched community college—two years, then transfer—and in Fall 2022 Billy enrolled: English, history, math, geology.

The history instructor, Dr. Reeves, was maybe fifty, wore plaid shirts, and didn't talk down. Second week, Billy turned in a paper on the Revolutionary War—he'd actually read the sources, stayed up late getting it right. Dr. Reeves handed it back with a B+ and said, "You write clearly. You make arguments. Keep doing this." No condescension. No surprise that the warehouse guy could think. Billy stared at that B+ for a week. He'd never been good at school, but maybe he'd just never had anyone treat him like he could be.

He still worked nights and weekends on the forklift, but he kept showing up to class.

By Spring 2024 he'd graduated. Derek kept pushing: "Apply to State U. Get the four-year degree. You got the grades."

Billy hesitated—more debt, more years, more liberal professors—but Derek was insistent. "I wish we both could go," Derek said one night over beers. "My family needs me here. But you can. Don't waste it. Get out of this town!"

Billy applied. State U said yes. Aid would cover tuition; loans would cover the rest. He needed the degree. His best friend, Derek couldn't go, but Billy could—and that meant something.

That fall, Billy transferred to State University.

The Quad looked like a brochure: parents hugging kids, cameras out, everyone smiling. He sat through sessions on library resources, wellness, and the success center. No one was hostile; they just didn't see him.

At the bookstore, he stacked three textbooks at the register: $167, $142, $98. The cashier scanned them without looking up. "Four hundred seven dollars."

Billy's hand froze reaching for his debit card. He pulled out his phone, opened his banking app: $1,847. Rent was $650. He had four months until the next disbursement. He swiped the card and watched the balance drop. Outside, he sat on a bench in the sun, the bag of textbooks heavy on his lap, doing math in his head. Ramen. No beer money. Maybe pick up extra weekend shifts. He watched a girl walk past holding a single textbook, laughing on her phone about switching majors. Some people just didn't count money the way he did.

Billy wore his MAGA hat everywhere except in classrooms; it was a marker—I'm not one of you. Some students stared, some looked away, and every so often a conservative kid gave him a silent nod.

In the dining hall, third week of classes, Billy sat alone with his tray—chicken tenders, fries, water—scrolling through his phone. A shadow fell across the table. He looked up. Guy with a crew cut, built like he lifted, American flag pin on his backpack strap. The guy glanced at Billy's hat on the seat beside him, then met his eyes.

"You from around here?" the guy asked.

"Millerton County."

"No shit. I'm from Lancaster. Brandon Walsh." He held out his hand. Billy shook it. "You get a lot of grief for that?" Brandon nodded at the hat.

"Some."

Brandon grinned. "Campus Patriots. Room 112, Thursday at seven. We've got about twenty people who aren't gonna apologize for it. You coming?"

That night Billy went.

Twenty-three people crowded into Room 112 talking about a coming Palestine protest, a professor's "anti-American" line, and DEI policies they framed as discrimination. Connor, the president, set the doctrine: show up, don't apologize. A community began to form. The weekend warehouse shifts still wrecked him, but he kept going. By mid-October there was a Portal, a group chat, and actual plans.

On October 15, the Palestinian solidarity march came down the main walk—maybe a hundred students chanting "Free Palestine" with signs about genocide and apartheid. The Patriots set up on the library steps with their own signs: "America First," "Support Israel," "Liberals Hate America."

A girl with pink hair and a keffiyeh around her neck stopped in front of Billy and pointed at his MAGA hat. "You're a fucking fascist!" she screamed, her voice cracking.

Billy smiled. His heart pounded, but his hands were steady. "You're entitled to your opinion."

"Entitled? You're supporting a wannabe dictator!"

Brandon stepped beside him. "We're not going anywhere."

The girl looked between them, then turned and rejoined the march. Billy's chest felt light. For the first time in months, he felt completely awake.

That October Billy met Jake Morrison, another Millerton guy, quieter and younger than Billy, better at building arguments while Billy supplied volume and presence. They weren't close, but they'd developed a casual friendship: same terrain under different boots.

The crew settled in—Brandon (sharp), Connor (structure). They debated strategy and media bias between classes and drank cheap beers at the Rusty Nail. They pushed a petition against a DEI initiative and gathered three hundred signatures. It didn’t move the policy, but it mattered anyway. When a liberal group tried to cancel a speaker the Patriots invited, they packed the room and held the line. Victory selfie. The Portal post:

We're here. We're not leaving. We fight.

We're here. We're not leaving. We fight.

Brandon replied:

Billy's going to war.

Billy's going to war.

November 5, 2024 — Election Night

Billy drove to his father's house, not Derek's. They sat in the living room, his father in the recliner with the newspaper from that morning still showing Harris leading in some polls. The TV showed the map: Florida red, Ohio red, Georgia red. Pennsylvania—Trump. The popular vote ticked upward. First Republican since 2004.

His father leaned forward, both hands gripping the armrests. "They said he was finished."

"They always say that."

Wisconsin flipped. The TV anchors' voices went tight. His father's hands were shaking—the Parkinson's—but his eyes were wet. "He did it. He actually did it."

Billy had been with Trump since 2016—through the Access Hollywood tape, through Charlottesville, through COVID, through January 6th, through all of it. Never wavered. And now vindication.

The map turned solid red across the Rust Belt. His father stood, slowly, and gripped Billy's shoulder the way he had in the car driving home from Harrisburg in 2015. "We were right," his father said. "All along, we were right."

Billy's belief, forged at seventeen in a Harrisburg arena, hardened into absolute certainty.

December 2024

Over winter break his father asked, "How's school?" and Billy said, "Good. I've got my people. We push back." "Hold the line," his father told him.

Billy, Connor and Brandon took a rally road trip—Billy's sixth Trump rally since 2016, but the first where he went as part of an organized group. Trump's first post-election victory tour stop.

The arena was packed, the air electric. Trump walked out to "God Bless the U.S.A." and the crowd lost it. Brandon was on Billy's left, Connor on his right. When Trump said, "They tried to stop us—but you stopped them!" Billy shouted with the rest, but this time he felt the crew around him. Same energy as Harrisburg 2016, same as Erie 2020, but different. He wasn't alone anymore.

On the long drive home, Brandon navigated while Billy drove. "Next semester," Brandon said, "we make State U the campus where Trump supporters don't blink. No more apologizing."

Billy grinned. He wasn't a lone resistor anymore; he had a platoon backing the movement he'd believed in for nine years.

Two weeks after the election

The kitchen table was scarred from decades of plates and homework. A newspaper lay open to victory headlines and manufacturing promises. His father's hands shook—Parkinson's, early stage—and he said, almost to himself, "The closure wasn't personal," remembering the 2008 cafeteria where six hundred workers heard the words "Mexico" and "restructuring." Thirty-two years, erased. After that came half-pay gigs, foreclosures, and Megan's medical bills. "Should've learned something else," he whispered. "Gotten training."

"You were a good worker," Billy said.

His father looked up. "The new president's bringing real jobs back. Like I had."

Billy had heard this same hope in 2016, in 2020. The certainty never dimmed. Nine years later, his father still believed. On the page, Trump looked like a defiant survivor.

"Libtards hate him 'cause he won't play their game," Billy said.

His father leaned back, chair creaking slightly. "Never has been. That's why we went to see him that first time, remember?"

Billy nodded. Trump stopped being politics a long time ago; he was the through-line of Billy's adult life—the one constant that gave his father's shaking hands meaning.

Campus Patriots swelled—new winter additions. Connor posted, "Spring is BIG." The objectives were clear and aggressive: counter-protest more events, recruit harder, maybe stage a pro-America rally, and show up at any anti-Trump faculty talk. Brandon said, "Take Brenner's class. We need eyes." Connor called it "the belly of the beast." Billy joined the waitlist. It wasn't just a dare anymore; it was representation.

January 24, 2025 — 10:01 AM

Outside Room 204, Billy stops. Through the door he can hear Dr. Brenner's voice, already started, that careful professor cadence like a man tiptoeing through a minefield. A student walks past in the hallway, glances at Billy's MAGA hat, looks away quickly.

Billy adjusts the brim. His phone buzzes—Derek again:

Derek: Don't let those commies get to you, man. Tell 'em Trump's the real deal.

Derek: Don't let those commies get to you, man. Tell 'em Trump's the real deal.

His hand rests on the door handle. Cold metal. Through the narrow window he can see the back of students' heads, see Brenner at the front gesturing.

Why here? Because the system hollowed his town and humiliated his father while liberals shrugged. Trump fights—has fought since he came down that escalator in 2015, fought through every rally Billy's attended over nine years.

Whatever Dr. Brenner's saying about Hitler or authoritarianism, Billy isn't there to absorb. He's there to stand, to signal that working-class anger has a body and a hat and a nine-year commitment that won't break. Not defensive. Intentional. A true believer carrying the banner he picked up at seventeen.

He grips the handle and pulls.