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Strategically placed on Interstate 40 just west of Knoxville, equidistant from two Buc-ee’s travel centers, the Tennessee Trump Superstore sits at one of the busiest trucking junctions in the state. The lot is owned by William “Bill” Hays and was, until four years ago, the home of Cupid’s Outlet, an adult novelty store managed by a trans comic that specialized in “romantic gifts & more.”

Recently, the store gained notoriety for a new sign: “Going out of business. Everything store wide 50% off.” In a viral Reddit thread on the forum r/WhitePeopleTwitter, commenters mocked the retailer’s apparent sagging fortunes with references to Donald Trump’s Jeffrey Epstein connections and business failures. “If they sold children’s clothes they would be 100% off,” one commenter noted. “Donny’s track record of bankrupting companies remains intact,” wrote another. Was this fair? A local news story claimed that the Trump Superstore owner was merely retiring and moving to Florida, not necessarily giving up on the (maybe?) still-lucrative MAGA merch business. In a Knoxville Facebook forum, commenters accused Trump critics of bad-faith attacks, for making hay out of a single 80-year-old Tennessee man’s decision to retire.

Having visited the near-empty Trump Superstore this past weekend, I can report that the notion that this store is closing merely because of a man’s retirement is “FAKE NEWS.” The truth is, the owner isn’t retiring. Trump gear just isn’t selling like it used to. Indeed, the store’s employees seem to have lost faith not just in the venture but also in the president himself.

When I arrived in the parking lot on an August Saturday afternoon, I immediately saw a pink Cadillac, a vestige of the Cupid’s Outlet. It was raining, and there were no customers. The few vehicles scattered in the parking lot, I learned, belonged mostly to Bill Hays, who describes himself as a “car guy.” In addition to the pink Cadillac, they included a yellow Volkswagen, multiple white Cadillacs, and a Brinks armored truck with a Trump sign on the side. The armored truck was on sale for “somewhere around $10,000,” Bill told me. When I asked if the pink Cadillac was for sale, he said no. “I’ve owned it for 12 years. I’m not selling it.”

To get inside the store, one follows the multiple “Open” and “Entrance” signs to the back, next to a small brick outhouse labeled “Democrat Superstore.” (Get it?) Just inside the door, there was a flimsy mannequin with the face of a much younger, slimmer Trump, wearing a red “Trump 2028” hat, a dark suit, and a signature red tie. The price tag read: “Trump statue, $2,999.00” (50 percent off, though!).

There, I met Dan, an affable middle-aged fellow with gray tufts of hair, who was bustling around with a vacuum. I asked if they were keeping busy.

“No. That’s why we’re closing,” he straightforwardly answered. “We’re not busy anymore.”

The word superstore might conjure up a shop at least the size of Walmart, if not Walmart Supercenter. But the Tennessee Trump Superstore was the size of a small house. According to Zillow, the building is 2,386 square feet, with one and a half baths. The store featured a wall of stickers, racks of T-shirts, a small table with onesies, and, in a glass case next to the cash register, an American flag lighter and a fake $100 bill with a photo of Trump in the aftermath of the Pennsylvania shooting, fist raised, blood gushing.

I examined a wall of Trump-themed hot........

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