The 'MAGA Makeover' is Over, and Its Replacement is (Even More) Terrifying
Fascists are using fashion to normalize radical perspectives and groups into normie society.
I can’t cruise very far into my local Altar’d State store before running into a curved, frosted glass block wall that obfuscates much of the retailer’s boho-chic stock. According to the fashion chain’s head, Aaron Walters, this wall is engineered to produce a “pause moment” in shoppers.
I am indeed forced to pause long enough for a friendly young sales associate to greet me on a steamy September weekday morning at the last indoor mall in Austin, Texas. Altar’d State is mostly empty but for a couple of cheerful employees.
I’m here to evaluate just how aggressively Jesus-y the in-store shopping experience is at this self-described “faith-based” retailer. I mosey around for a couple of minutes fingering maxi dresses and miniskirts before spying stacks of colorful, cloth-bound boho-chic bibles for $65. The bibles are present but not conspicuous, piled behind the glass wall—sorry, the “pause moment”— amid a rack of cozy jackets I can’t imagine wearing anytime soon.
To be fair, I can’t imagine wearing much of anything from Altar’d State anytime soon, or ever, because like many retailers, they’ve moved their limited plus-size selection online.
I make my way to the back of the store, just before the prodigious sale section, before I am confronted with oversized sweatshirts screaming in block letters, “JESUS IS KING” and “MAKE HEAVEN CROWDED”—a line associated with dead MAGA icon and Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk. We have a bit of a hiding-our-light-under-a-bushel situation here, I think.
On my way back to the front, I paw through a few sweaters that would fit me, many patterned with big cats, a design that’s usually a guaranteed Andrea-trap. But at $78 each, I am not at all tempted, even if it wasn’t nearing 100 degrees outside at 11am.
However, I can imagine being tempted. I was once an enthusiastic member of the very demographic Altar’d State hopes to court: young and thin and filled with the word of Christ and #blessed with disposable income to spend on mall-grade get-ups.
Because I can recall this version of myself, my brain scrounges up a bible verse: Matthew 4:19. The King James version: “And he saith unto them, Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.”
“Follow me,” I think. “And I will make you vendors unto straight-sized women.”
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