I’M JUST BACK from the United States of America after a five week shoot for a new three-part documentary series on RTÉ2.
With the presidential election looming, the country feels balanced on a knife edge, and as the shoot brought me through deserts, cities and swamps, I found myself buffeted by strange winds from all sides. Between the hardcore Trump fans and gun-lovers of episode 1, the webcam models of episode 2, and the bikers, juggalos and voguers seeking family in episode 3, my head was spinning with competing ideologies, conspiracy theories, dreams… America is, first and foremost, vast.
Each day my appointments were eclectic: one day I might try my hand at shooting an AR-15 at a machine gun attraction; the next, I’d meet an online dominatrix, and the following week would see me joining a militia in training, at The Gathering of the Juggalos, or in The Sausage Castle—a party house in the alligator-infested Florida Everglades.
The only thing that’s certain is that you can find pornographically fluffy pancakes and candied bacon wherever you go.
Just outside Miami, I met Chris Petrovich, founder of the South Florida Survivalist Network. Chris is a “prepper,” dedicated (in his off hours) to preparing for all manner of apocalypses—a niche hobby that has gone mainstream in the last few years, at least according to Chris.
His office, a single-storey concrete building painted bright yellow, was filled with supplies for the end times—from gas masks, to fast-acting coagulants, to water filtration devices. In a back room, a wall of filing cabinets hid an ammunition stockpile, tinned ready meals (perfect for trading in a post-money society), and a lifetime’s supply of powdered peanut butter—“It’s steak in a can!” Chris told me excitedly.
It’s funny, in a way, to see bullet-proof vests displayed beside oil-powered generators beside biohazard suits beside a simple box of rubber gloves: of course there’s always the possibility for disaster, but they can’t ALL happen. Chris had his own theories (“I think we’re looking at a perfect storm—the world economy sucks, and all we need is something to push us over the edge”) but the people who attend his classes can’t seem to agree on what exactly they think is coming, just that it’s coming soon. One way or the other, Mr. Shit will hit Mr. Fan.
I asked Chris for his prediction for the general election. Clinton, he says, would be “Obama on steroids,” but he thinks his candidate—Trump—might slow things down. “Give you some time to put away some more food and water before the end comes.” It’s a message of generalised doom that I encountered many times during the shoot.
A week after meeting Chris, I found myself on the streets of Cleveland during the Republican National Convention, where the anger was palpable, and both police and citizens were legally armed, but violence never made an appearance. It felt like the calm before the storm.
The meeting with Chris was a glimpse into an unfamiliar world, but it was far from the weirdest thing I did for the documentary. Marching through downtown Detroit flanked by young men carrying AK-47s while they played Pokemon Go, jamming with the Juggalos in a field in Ohio, and helping an online dominatrix find the perfect camera angle to film herself on the toilet, all made quite an impression.
Between the contributors of the three very different episodes, it feels like I’m seeing many versions of America, with little in common except geography.
The preppers and the patriots see a country that’s speeding towards collapse; the cam models see a place of ever-expanding opportunities to boost their profits and their self-esteem; the voluntary families of the final episode just hope that it’s a place where, if they’re lucky, they can find something like home.
Everyone is searching for their dirty little slice of the American dream.
Kevin McGahern’s America is a three part series starting Tuesday 4 October at 9.30pm on RTÉ2
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