Skip to Content
Talkhouse home
Talkhouse home
Film

How Filmmaker and Street Photographer Jay Giampietro Saw Manhattan’s MAGA Midterms

While many New Yorkers celebrated Democrats retaking the House, Trump stalwart were having their own party at Fox News HQ.

8:01 AM EST on November 7, 2018

The streets were mild on Election Night 2018, and the lack of anxious Democrat screen watchers in Times Square forced me to spend most of my time a few blocks east, in the holding pen outside of the Fox News studio.

With jittery spotlights careening between the clouds and the tall buildings on 6th Avenue, security personnel nearly outnumbered the shallow crowd, who were waiting for something to cheer about as they jockeyed for position in the background of the anchor desk inside the building in front of them. MAGA hats were in surprisingly short supply and there was a tired energy to the trolling routine of the few costumed Trump supporters wandering around the pen.

I find Trump’s America to be extremely tweaked, overwrought, slyly amusing and grotesque. Hopefully these images reflect that.

Abe voted
Tea party
Opinion done right
Alien victims
Head games
Patriot actor
Hillary named him
Worst starburst
Too many stripes

Stay in touch

Sign up for our free newsletter

Related Stories

Three Great Things: James Ashcroft

The director of the new dark thriller The Whisper Man, which is now on Netflix, opens up about books, fashion and parenthood.

Ember Knight and Tristan Wheeler Talk About Being Evil

The filmmakers catch up about world building, shoestring budgets, and the Ember Knight Show.

August 27, 2026

Life Won’t Look Anything Like You Thought It Would

Writer-director Sophia Silver, whose debut feature Over/Under is out now, on filmmaking, motherhood and embracing unpredictability.

August 26, 2026

The Things That Echo: What Four Films Taught Me About Becoming

Writer-director Phyllis Toben Bancroft on women, the strange, non-linear nature of becoming and her anthology film Echoes.

August 21, 2026

Feeding the Babadook in the Basement

The Apology writer-director Alison Star Locke offers up a very personal take on "special needs moms in horror.”

August 19, 2026

“Noble, Upstanding, Nauseating Liquids”: On The Lost Weekend

In an excerpt from his forthcoming cinematic memoir, filmmaker Tony Gault considers Billy Wilder's Oscar-winning classic through the lens of his own personal history.

August 14, 2026