We Will Make America Great Again Tattoo

"Hey Google, play state music on Spotify."

On cue, music started and Bob Holmes settled into tracing a black, white, and blue butterfly pattern for Crystal Goutheir, of Amesbury, Massachusetts. This is Crystal's third butterfly tattoo, inspired by a butterfly she saw that reminded her of her late mother. Appropriately, it was the day earlier Mother'south Day. Holmes has tattooed many butterflies, but he's nearly famous for tattoos of Donald Trump.

It was a misty, overcast afternoon in Seabrook, New Hampshire, a small coastal town only 6 miles from the summer tourist haven Hampton Beach. Holmes prepared his merely tattoo of the day within The Clay Dragon Tattoo Studio, a shop nestled in a strip plaza selling adult videos, fireworks, and comic books. The shop was clean and smelled similar incense, and Hellboy was playing on the television. At that place'due south a massive airbrushed landscape of dragons surrounding Clayton Gould, Holmes' late brother-in-law whom he named the shop later. At that place are besides framed Globe War II-era posters with slogans like "United Nations Fight For Freedom" and "United Nosotros Are Strong, United We Will Win."

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The Clay Dragon Tattoo Studio is in Rockingham County, New Hampshire, and true to swing state course, was fairly divided in the 2016 presidential election. The county ultimately turned blood-red, with Trump winning 50.5 percent of the votes. The town of Seabrook, dwelling to nearly thirteen,000 residents, also swung to the correct, clocking ii,743 votes for Trump and 1,595 for Clinton.

Inside this tattoo shop, information technology'south Trump country.

In the summer of 2016, Holmes gained national and international attention for offer free Trump tattoos ahead of the presidential election. "Information technology was adventitious," Holmes said of the promotion. When a reporter from the U.K.'south Telegraph asked him how he'd react if someone wanted a Donald Trump tattoo, Holmes replied off-the-cuff that he'd do it for costless. The response went viral, and his appointment book quickly filled up with dozens of requests for Trump portraits and Make America Great Over again script. At that place was a Trump stamp—a lower dorsum tattoo flanked by tribal designs—and a custom "super Trump."

Courtesy Bob Holmes

Prior to Trump's presidential run, Holmes said he had no interest in politics and had never voted. "I never said a political word in my whole entire life before this ane," Holmes said. "Getting somebody somewhat normal, like us, is the primal."

Holmes offered the free Trump tattoo promotion for i year and his shop has completed 78 Trump tattoos.

The clientele is a mix of both Holmes' regulars and Trump fans across the country. "I've had 'em from Tennessee, from Florida, Texas," Holmes said. There was fifty-fifty one Albanian man in his mid-twenties who got a Trump portrait on his calf, he added.

The response, Holmes said, has been overwhelmingly positive. "I've got like 300 friends from around the nation now. It'due south pretty funny, they hit me up like, 'Oh I just desire you to know I appreciate what you're doing and you're a patriot.'" Holmes laughs, "I'm not a patriot, I simply want to practice what's best for this land considering this land's non doing well. Information technology wasn't doing well, information technology'due south doing a lot improve now."

Sarah Rogers/The Daily Beast

Bill Fowler, 48, an Army veteran and father of 12, agrees. That's why he got "Brand America Great Once more" tattooed on his arm.

"Nobody's saying 'I'm going to punch you because you have a Donald Trump tattoo,'" Fowler said. "I desire to make America great. This is my statement, he just happened to coin information technology. I want America to be nifty don't y'all? Anybody wants America to be great, and we're not anymore."

Fowler's Trump-inspired ink wasn't his first get nether the needle. "Truth" is scrawled across ane forearm and "Justice" on the other. He'due south tattooed "We The People" on his own leg. He also has a skull and basic, a dragon, and The Lorax, a character from a Dr. Seuss book of the same name.

Sarah Rogers/The Daily Beast

Fowler has no regrets about his "Make America Great Again" tattoo, and said veterans in particular "are 100 percent for it. They always inquire 'Where'd you get it, how much did it cost?'"

The only negative feedback Fowler said he's received is from his own brother, a Democrat who told him, "unfortunately the tattoo is free but removals are expensive." Fowler said there's no run a risk he'll get it removed.

One-half a mile away, James Cook, 48, a cigar salesman, bears a forearm tattoo from Holmes of the constitution with "Make America Groovy Again" in script. Melt, who refers to himself as a "Constitutionalist," says getting a Trump tattoo wasn't a rash decision. "In college, back in 1990, I had big posters of him in my dorm and stuff," he said. "It wasn't like I was i of those bandwagon jumpers. I was waiting for him to run for decades."

Cook got his tattoo ahead of the election, and said even if Trump would accept lost, he wouldn't accept regretted it.

"Tattoos aren't a political argument, they're like postcards."

He likened himself to a suitcase covered in stickers and memories.

"I'm luggage!" he laughed.

Sarah Rogers/The Daily Animate being

Cook said he's gotten "tons" of positive reactions from his tattoo, just as well his truck. "The back of my truck is all Trump stickers, I got the trump shirts and I wave the trump flags. Driving around in my Trump truck with my tattoo I've never had a negative response, non once. I ever go honks and thumbs ups." Cook then admitted that one time when walking into a grocery shop an elderly woman saw his "Make America Great Over again" chapeau and told him "If yous call back he's going to do that, you're full of shit."

"People can say he's a buffoon, he's a Television personality, and all these things." Cook said. "That might be the case, but he's also very smart, he's got a lot of business apprehending; He's the correct guy for the task."

To date, Holmes knows of only one Trump tattoo he's washed that's has been covered. The recipient, who asked not to exist named in this article, had "reTRUMPlican" tattooed beyond the arch of her human foot. Information technology'south since been replaced with a reddish rose and with swirling greenery by another creative person at one of Holmes' three tattoo shops. "The ink did not hold, and then instead of touching it upwards, I decided to embrace it," she said. Despite this, she clarified, she's still a "100 percent Trump fan."

Courtesy Bob Holmes

Holmes has been tattooing in his New Hampshire shops for near xxx years and is covered in tattoos. Surprisingly, he doesn't have a Trump tattoo himself.

"I'm waiting for Trump to come by and sign my arm, and so I'll exercise his signature," he said.

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Source: https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-shop-that-spawned-78-trump-tattoos

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