On the Wednesday before Burning Man 2017, President Donald Trump surfed into Reno, Nevada on a wave of outrage following a speech in Phoenix the previous night where he’d sided with white supremacists and claimed that protesters who sought to pull down Confederate statues were “trying to take away our culture.”
The casinos and motels of Reno were already filling with those of us on our way to the desert for the most logistically challenging of world festivals, stocking up on bicycle locks, water bottles and leopard-print thongs, so the standing joke as Trump arrived in town was that the President must also be on his way to Black Rock City. “He’d probably turn up in the desert still wearing his suit,” smirked a taxi driver in midtown, before changing his tune. “He would definitely go though. He’s not afraid of anything. You’ve got to give him some credit for that.”
The Collected Works of Kevin EG Perry 