Death Tripping

On the road in rural Wisconsin, the author knocks on the doors of houses that bear the darkest American symbols and flags, behind them finding guns, ammo, and a modern philosophy of civil war

- By Jeff Sharlet

"The thing to worry about is meanings, not appearances.

-Michael Lesy, Wisconsin Death Trip, 1973

CECIL, WISCONSIN-I went back twice to find out what the coffin meant, but though cars came and went in the driveway, nobody ever answered the door. Halloween in June, or a sign? Kitsch, or a warning? I'd been driving for a week, since the first night of the January 6th hearings, listening to them on the radio as I counted the flags. Not the American ones but the Trump ones. Trump 2024, two years ahead of time; and the red, white, and blue of the Confederacy, the yellow "Don't Tread on Me" Gadsden. There are so many now. There's new folk art too: hand-painted "Fuck Biden" placards, homemade "Let's Go Brandon" billboards, and DIY "Never Forget Benghazi" banners. The cities and towns still ripple with rainbow pride, their numbers are greater, but on many country roads the ugly emblems tick by like mile markers.

What was the coffin though? I was visiting friends in Cecil, Wisconsin, when we drove past it. They let me out to make a picture. "Careful," they said, and, "We'll come back for you," because they didn't want to linger. They sped away, leaving me in the green light. I made my picture. I waited. I read on my phone, on Twitter, that Wisconsin Republicans had blocked an effort to repeal a dormant 1849 law making any abortion-including for rape or incest-a felony. My friends returned, we fled. The next morning, the ruling came down: Dobbs v. Jackson, which overturned Roe v. Wade, and Wisconsin became the only "blue" state in which abortion is now effectively illegal.