Dean Balsamini, a New York Post reporter deliberately wore a MAGA (Make America Great Again) cap around the liberal enclaves of Manhattan Brooklyn, NY and was severely criticized.
“I may as well have been wearing a Red Sox hat at Yankee Stadium,” Balsamini wrote of wearing the hat made famous by then-GOP candidate Donald Trump. “The mere sight of my cap nearly caused a riot at the historic Stonewall Inn on Christopher Street — site of the 1969 riots that launched the gay rights movement.”
“You come into a gay bar — THIS gay bar — with THAT hat!” one woman shouted.
Servers at Soho’s sceney La Esquina were rather in awe-struck by Balsamini’s pro-conservative fashion statement.
“Oh my God, do you see that? Is he serious? Is he kidding me?” a waiter said.
“My companion and I were quickly shunted to an out of sight table near a back wall,” Balsamini wrote.
“At Sylvia’s soul-food restaurant in Harlem, my server, Patrick Bros, admitted after my meal that he was taken aback by the hat, but figured, ‘whatever,’ Balsamini wrote.
He was sure more anti-Trump tripe to come.
“Don’t talk to him!” Balsamini said and one man shouted as he was on his way at 125th street near the Apollo Theater.
“Hipsters and trustafarians along Bedford Avenue in Williamsburg either did a double take, shot me a death stare or a snarky remark,” he wrote.
“Take off that stupid f—ing hat!” Balsamini says one “skinny-jeans-wearer sneered.”
Balsamini recalled, “At high-end chapeau peddler Goorin Bros., I overheard a salesman tell his colleague, ‘I’m losing my sh–!’ as I walked in. When I asked him to hold my hat while I admired a fedora, he grimaced.”
“I’m surprised nobody’s knocked that hat off your head!” Balsamini says one of the two women said as they crossed the path near Central Park.
“On the sidewalk near Lincoln Center, I spotted comedian Chris Rock and asked him to join me in a selfie. He raised his palm, and kept on walking,” Balsamini said.
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