In fast-growing, robustly conservative McLennan County of a quarter-million people, a Central Texas county where 61 percent of us subscribed to four more years of ratings-mad, crowd-obsessed real-estate tycoon and marketing dynamo Donald Trump, even after mismanagement of a pandemic contributed to hundreds of thousands of American dead and left his cherished economy reeling, the Gaineses by sharp contrast did what they do best: skirted politics and accented the positive, the inclusive and the compassionate. They showcased a very different sort of American nostalgia, this Waco-themed complete with a Katy Ballpark wiffle ball diamond, named for the stadium that stood at that spot for much of the 20th century, and a somewhat faithful (but only somewhat) reconstruction of Second Presbyterian Church, once upon a time at North 13th Street and Jefferson Avenue, built in 1894 and now resurrected at Magnolia as a generic house of worship, sanctuary and contemplation.
Expanded right on through our pandemic times to the tune of $10.4 million, the site now conjures up one of those idealized versions of Americana into which screenwriter Rod Serling often transported weary, emotionally wounded characters in episodes of "The Twilight Zone," along the way offering heartbreaking lessons on the perils of slipping too deeply into bygone days. (One might argue Serling's terse screenplay for "Seven Days in May" is more appropriate lately. In my book, it's required viewing for every American.) Yet the Gaineses' vision of America is compelling at best, innocuous at worst. Leaf through their upscale seasonal magazine, Magnolia Journal, and one finds thoughtfully articulated "manifestos" by renovation expert-turned-lifestyle guru Chip Gaines, mixing Texas masculinity and boisterous hospitality with rare humility and nuance:
"We believe everyone deserves a seat at the table and everyone has a story worth telling. We believe in human kindness, knowing we are made better when we all work together. We believe in courage, cartwheeling past our comfort zones and trying something a little bit scary every day. We believe that failure needn't be a negative thing; rather, we learn from our mistakes and fail smarter next time. We believe in doing good work that matters and, in choosing that, nudging others toward doing the same. We believe that newer isn’t always better and that it’s time for the pendulum of trend to swing back to the basics. We believe in unearthing beauty, however hidden or subtle it might be."
In the same vein, Joanna Gaines, proud of her Korean heritage, welcomes multiculturalism and more in her new children’s book, “The World Needs Who You Were Made to Be,” which “shows the beauty of celebrating our differences and taking care of one another.”
Such Magnolia manifestos and storybook morals seem wildly incongruous in the Age of Trump, an era of xenophobia and self-delusion and deceit that began well before their popular series "Fixer Upper" first aired and is likely to outlast even Trump's embattled presidency.
As power couple Chip and Joanna Gaines seek to lure back an estimated 30,000 shoppers and gawkers who each pre-pandemic week since 2015 have swarmed Magnolia Market at the Silos, their internationally popular brand sits uneasily alongside that thunderingly touted with success by the nation's reality TV show president, beaten for re-election in 2020 by a greater margin of voters than he himself garnered in 2016, yet unwilling to abandon the world stage without the most desperate, even embarrassing of legal fights and cheap shots. As chamber members considered expansion of Magnolia Market and some openly pondered how they might further piggyback on the presumed resumption of its commercial success, it was nonetheless impossible to ignore the news headlines of the moment: The president's undisciplined and unprepared legal team was striking out in one federal court after another in attempts to invalidate broad swaths of the American electorate through conjecture and conspiracy theory rather than hard evidence of election fraud.
For all the local malcontents who in recent years have blamed the Gaineses for everything from traffic congestion downtown to spiraling property values to sometimes saccharine and arguably even naïve views of societal tolerance and acceptance, the wholesome vision offered by Chip and Joanna certainly includes more opportunities and more pride than when Waco was readily identified with the deadly 1993 Branch Davidian siege 10 miles east of town and rock guitarist-turned-apocalyptic cultist David Koresh's hold on trusting followers right to the fiery end. Whatever else, the Gaineses have spurred a downtown revitalization that only a few years ago seemed a long shot, even though city officials, civic leaders and chamber boosters earlier laid the foundation for such a comeback. Yet in only five seasons of their hit TV show "Fixer Upper" and their home-furnishings-cum-good-times marketplace extravaganza, the Gaineses have without question made it easier to pursue entrepreneurial dreams in Waco or sell a home (if one really wants to leave now that things are getting interesting). The attitude by many is that the Gaineses' success lifts all boats.
Certainly, the Gaineses and their staff have done their bit. During a casual survey I took of the place during the torrid summer of 2018, a Magnolia Market at the Silos employee dutifully resupplying foldout maps and directories of Waco offerings politely asked if I needed suggestions on where else to go while in Waco. She not only suggested such local attractions as the Texas Ranger Hall of Fame & Museum, Waco Suspension Bridge and Cameron Park — the 414-acre municipal park, complete with two rivers, amazes first-time visitors — but she even suggested places one might rank as local competition: The Findery just down the street and Spice Village over at RiverSquare. That summer the Magnolia momentum continued unabated, as any visitor to Magnolia Market, its insanely popular bakery (and those cupcakes) and the nearby breakfast-and-lunch eatery Magnolia Table could testify: I saw license plates from Wisconsin, Florida, Illinois and California. And if you wanted to add a touch of politics to the mix, Joanna Gaines talks about folks who sit down as strangers at what might be called communal tables at either Magnolia Table or the Silos and leave better acquainted with how other folks live and believe.
Trip Advisor testimonials confirmed the huge appeal, such as the woman who during a road trip from Kansas City to Galveston to embark on a cruise ship talked her reluctant husband and teenage son into stopping off at Magnolia Market: “And it did not disappoint. I loved that there were so many things to do and see outside while you waited. The fellas played some soccer, photo-bombed people trying to take pictures of the Silos (sorry y’all), I sat on a swing and chatted with some other people visiting, went to the garden. Just awesome all around. I got my shirts, a mug and a popsocket and we were out pretty quickly.”
Most visitors offered similar experiences, even if noting high prices and crowds. One of the few to grouse was a man from Alabama whose wife not only had Magnolia Market at the Silos on her “bucket list” but hoped she would meet Joanna on the grounds. After dismissing the parking, the merchandise and the lines and getting into an argument with his wife, he wrapped up his review by noting: “Oh, well, I am in the doghouse for deciding to leave the wife in line and finding a place to sit.” (For the record, he thoroughly enjoyed his later visit to the nearby Waco Mammoth National Monument, which President Obama declared part of the National Park System in 2015 at the urging of city, Baylor University and local philanthropists. No word on his wife’s reaction to the place.)
And whatever else, the Gaineses do seem more disposed to charitable endeavors than some reality TV show pretenders, including the most famous of all, ordered in 2019 to make $2 million in restitution for illegally using charitable funds for political purposes. One example of the Gaineses bolstering their reality TV image with genuine reality: turning over the pristine Magnolia grounds to what some might label the motley congregation of Church Under the Bridge, whose open-air Sunday gatherings include many of the poor and the homeless as well as students from nearby Baylor University inquisitive about Christianity in action. When inexhaustible Pastor Jimmy Dorrell and his congregation faced temporary displacement from their longtime site on South Fourth Street beneath roaring Interstate 35 because of long-term highway construction, the Gaineses offered Magnolia, otherwise closed on Sundays. Another example: When funding dwindled at a critical point for The Cove, a startup nonprofit offering homeless students a place to study, freshen up and even get counseling, the Gaineses rode to the rescue with sufficient funding to bridge the difficulties. And the list of charitable efforts by no means stops with these.
When Amy Gaston, Magnolia's director of local marketing initiatives and events, described the old wooden church reimagined and reassembled on the expanded Magnolia grounds — and to standards less than acceptable to local landmark preservationists — she spoke of it as a place of sanctuary and solace. Indeed, it offers what many abandoned churches offer: a powerfully iconic symbol of what each of us imagines the Christian faith can and should be, not what it too often is, especially in these turbulent days when religion is hopelessly mixed with politics and corruption to the point of undermining its use as any sort of moral or ethical compass in American life.
"The original plan was to essentially pick up the building and move it to the [Magnolia] grounds because we felt like it could really be this beautiful anchor to the new portion of our grounds," Gaston explained. "But as we got in there, we realized that a church built in 1894 has a lot of damage to the foundation and roof and all that. Our team has worked really hard to preserve as much of the history and original pieces as we can, but the structure itself is new. If you go in it, you'll notice the wainscoting, the railings, the pews, the floors are all original to the property. They were just deconstructed piece by piece and then laid over a great new foundation."
Built in a Queen Anne style and one of the oldest church buildings left in Waco, the original structure over the years also housed a Seventh-Day Adventist congregation and then Waco Community Church members led by radio evangelist German P. Comer, "The Dixie Fireball," known around Waco for wearing red suits and driving a red Thunderbird and breaking out into "God Bless America" with little to no provocation. The Waco architect who bought the church building in 2009 with notions of turning it into a wedding and events venue eventually surrendered the idea because of steep renovation costs. He was happy to sell it to Magnolia, he told the Tribune-Herald, because he feared homeless people slipping into the crawlspace come winter would set it ablaze.
"We get a lot of questions about it: 'Why would you put a church on the [Magnolia] grounds? Are you going to hold services? Is Chip going to be a pastor?' Some really random questions like that," Gaston said of the church, full of masked visitors just days before Thanksgiving. "But really the purpose of this building and this moment is that Jo wanted a place on the grounds where people could come by and rest. I think we can all relate to that in this season where it's busy and crazy and inundated with messaging and things and all the hard parts of being a human right now in 2020. I think it's just a beautiful representation of who we as a company hope to represent, people who are both local, Wacoans to be sure, and then people who come to experience our great city."
Some visitors reportedly mistook the six small shops now open and lining the way to the church for short-term rentals, an understandable notion given how Magnolia's success has swept Waco up into a tourism boom the past few years, raising attendance numbers at picturesque Cameron Park Zoo and sparking guided tours of the city. One of the less enviable tasks the City Council now faces is regularly passing judgment on property rights and neighborhood integrity — specifically, who prevails when a homeowner wants to turn some property into a short-term rental abode to supplement income and neighbors rebel at the thought of strangers and traffic loose in the neighborhood. The Magnolia shops actually showcase collections curated by Joanna Gaines, including one stocked with books by the Gaineses. Still, one could likely find tourists happy to briefly lodge amidst this bustling, resolutely homespun American marketplace.
The wiffle ballpark was touted as a further salute to times past. Chip Gaines envisions it as a loving tribute to the old baseball park where Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig, among other greats, once played, Gaston said — "a really fun nod to just the good old days, right, like how do we get back to just simple living, and we felt this wiffle ball field was a great way to do that." Again, along with idealized religion and lifestyle commerce focused on turning the American Dream into reality and transforming house into home, the ballpark adds to the feel of small-town nostalgia, evoking sportsmanship, hardiness and heroic athletes large and small.
Left unmentioned was a visit by Republican President Theodore Roosevelt to the original Katy Park just weeks after its opening in spring 1905. The president was bound for a reunion of his Rough Riders in San Antonio. His address to Wacoans heartily complimented all Texans, rejoiced at the coming together of veterans from warring sides of the Civil War that had ended precisely four decades earlier and even offered insights into leadership. The latter are worthy of repeating in present times of governmental gridlock and political cowardice and mounting problems left unaddressed:
"In public life there is no peculiar genius or brilliancy required so much as we require certain humdrum, everyday, commonplace qualities. You need in the first place the quality of honesty. Unless not merely the public man but the average private citizen is honest, and I do not mean merely technically honest, I do not mean honest to the extent of keeping out of the penitentiary, I mean genuinely honest — unless he is that, the abler and the more courageous he is, the more dangerous he is. You must have honesty first, but that is not enough. The honest man who is a coward is of no earthly use to himself or anyone else. Together with honesty, hand in hand with it, must go courage. You men of the great war know that it was not enough that a man should love his country. You need to have honesty as the first trait, and courage is equally indispensable, and these two qualities are not enough. In addition to honesty, in addition to courage, we need the saving grace of common sense. If we have these qualities combined in the average man, we can be certain that the problems before our nation will be settled, as I firmly believe they will be settled, aright for future generations."
Gaston also touted the upcoming Magnolia TV network, referring chamber members to the Gaineses' Magnolia Journal for details. Series include "Restoration Road" in which Waco-based Gaines friend and carpenter Clint Harp "hits the road in search of incredible historical structures in need of restoration while exploring their origins and dreaming of their future"; "Inn the Works," in which engaging Lindsey Kurowski and her team "set out to renovate historic Oak Knoll Lodge in California and bring it back to its former glory — all while simultaneously learning the ropes of running an inn"; and "Self Employed," in which Fort Worth entrepreneur Jonathan Morris "travels the country to share the inspirational stories and challenges of small-business owners along with their journeys to building their dream jobs." And we're promised a return of "Fixer Upper," the reality TV show "that started it all" in which the Gaineses with resourcefulness and humor renovate and freshen past-their-prime dwellings in the Waco area. (The Gaineses initially decided to quit the HGTV show after five exhausting seasons of transforming homes all over McLennan County.) Many of the new programs focus on what the Gaineses describe as "the work of builders and designers as they unearth hidden beauty and make worn things new again."
When I asked Gaston about the continuing impact of the pandemic and what tips Magnolia might offer other businesses in surviving its economic burden, she was appropriately humble:
"For us, similar to everybody else, with the pandemic and closures and then the reopening, we've had a steady climb back to where we would want to be. Traffic is currently down about 30 percent, but I would guess that's pretty common across the board. But what we're really encouraged by is our guests' willingness to just experience us differently. If you've been by our property, we have our mask signs up and obviously we have extensive cleaning, hand sanitizers, all the things the state recommends, and then of course all the things that all of us are trying to do to go above and beyond to keep, really, the core of our community safe. We recognize we hold an incredible responsibility to do our part in keeping Waco safe because at the end of the day that's really what matters to us."
For those respectful of our nation's past, cognizant of its present and hopeful for its future, the Magnolia credo — perhaps best summarized by a slogan marking a Magnolia Table food truck, "The Good Ol' Days Are Still to Come" — raises legitimate questions about the powerful slogan "Make America Great Again" upon which Donald Trump campaigned and won the highest office in our land. Bolstered by Trump's reality TV image via the long-running series "The Apprentice" of a shrewdly successful if merciless ("You're fired!") entrepreneur in real estate, marketing and development, the MAGA brand was warmly embraced by a massive segment of Americans beginning in 2015. Many were anxious, fearful, even resentful about the nation's fast-changing demographics and the alleged dismantling of traditional values and tenets, many of these cherry-picked from the Constitution, Bill of Rights and Old Testament, even as other constitutional articles, amendments and biblical verses were conveniently ignored or discounted. Early in my interviews and discussions with local Trump supporters, tough, unflinching immigration positions were regularly cited as good reason to support this dynamic, charismatic if unorthodox maverick; yet as his actual presidential policies of separating desperate brown-skinned immigrant mothers and children at the border and incarcerating them in kennels under sometimes squalid conditions became too horrible for even Trump apologists to defend in polite company, many shifted to citing the robust economy as good reason to continue supporting Trump. After 2018, this was regularly invoked as full justification in forgiving other transgressions, constitutional and otherwise.
All this ignored the fact the economy Trump inherited in 2017 had already experienced strong job gains and steady economic growth for several years under his predecessor — the nation's first black president, one whom Trump beginning in 2011 worked to delegitimize by tweet and on cable-TV news by claiming Barack Obama was foreign-born and possibly not even Christian. Many Americans also ignored the gutting of governmental regulations by executive fiat to goose the U.S. economy to further heights under Trump, notwithstanding the fact some regulations ensured clean water, clean air and workforce protections. Example: the 2019 announcement that the Environmental Protection Agency under Trump would snuff an Obama regulation crafted to prevent occurrences such as the 2013 fertilizer plant explosion that blew a quarter of the town of West off the McLennan County map, complete with 12 first responders literally blasted to smithereens. (Three others were also killed and hundred injured.) I remember the mayor of West, who served as a volunteer firefighter the night of the explosion, telling me in November 2019 of the EPA decision: "I guess what I'm upset about more than anything is that, if like me these people had gone to 12 funerals in eight days, then they might have asked themselves, 'Did we do enough?' Look at the memorial [to the blast victims], look at those names, look at those people who died. If after all that they can say they did enough — well, I want to hear that. If they have a quarter of their town blown up, destroyed, I want to hear them say they did enough."
The cruelest irony is that this presidential blunderbuss never grasped that smartly, boldly and consistently rallying a stunned and confused nation to common resolve in resisting a deadly virus was critical in preventing more devastation to the economy than was necessary. One can only imagine how much goodwill and cohesiveness Trump might have inspired — and how much he might have invigorated his re-election bid — had during the Fourth of July holiday period he skipped self-glorification and fireworks at Mount Rushmore and resisted dismissing COVID-19 as a serious health threat on the South Lawn of the White House and instead masked up and braved the environs of some pandemic-ravaged hospital to help serve up lunch and encouragement to medical personnel emotionally, physically and mentally drained from working with patients suffering COVID-19 agonies. Imagine had he shut up long enough to hear out staff concerns and grief, then offered evidence of appreciating the frustration they experience daily when skeptical Americans dismiss COVID-19 as little more serious than the flu, when Americans ridicule neighbors for wearing masks. (And Trump has made such dismissive comments himself.) In weekly public health briefings since spring, city and county leaders as well as local physicians spend much of their time scotching infectious conspiracy theories and addressing malignant complaints about masking mandates and COVID-19. Only Wednesday, as many Central Texans set off for possibly perilous Thanksgiving gatherings with new local cases and hospitalizations exceeding state and national rates (and Texas itself setting a record high number of new daily coronavirus cases at 14,648), Dr. Marc Elieson of Baylor Scott & White Hillcrest Medical Center in Waco expressed weariness at frustrated messaging:
“There is certainly mask fatigue in the community. I was at the grocery store yesterday and, while there were a lot of people there and it was very crowded, I counted at least six people who had no mask on whatsoever, not to mention the countless people who kind of had it hitched just below the nose or even below the chin. It’s still an issue and it frightens me. Someone recently asked me: ‘You talk about masks and using masks and social distancing. When are people going to finally get it? What [else] can be said?’ My answer was: ‘I have no idea.’ We’ve said it, we’ve tried to be clear, we’ve tried to be helpful. The governor has even made a state mandate that we are to wear masks and to restrict some of our activities, but we’re still not there as a community and consequently we’re seeing this huge surge and people are getting sick and some people are dying.”
And, finally, to touch briefly on the other major crisis of 2020, imagine the president’s electoral prospects had he called activists from summertime city streets to the White House to discuss racial injustice and, given his considerable influence on Republicans and law enforcement, cobbled together something in terms of useful legislation, something demonstrating the qualities he touted in his 1987 book, “Trump: The Art of the Deal.” Instead, his ego demanded that he echo the very sentiments he originally encouraged in his most loyal base. And so positions hardened and civil strife continued, incurring more damage and costing more lives on both sides of this uniquely American conflict on race, equality and justice for all.
"Examining my posh surroundings — Italian bed linens, French table linens, Chinese duvet, Korean TV and, yes, Mexican tequila ($14 for a shot of Patron Silver) in the minibar, er, 'private bar,' I came across the Gideon Bible in the nightstand with a note on 'TRUMP HOTELS' stationery: 'If you would like to continue your spiritual journey, we also offer the followings [sic]: Talmud. Quran. Gita. Avesta. Tripitaka (Pali Canon). Shri Guru Granth Sahib. Book of Mormon. Kindly contact Housekeeping should you wish to have one delivered to your room.' Sure enough, minutes after my call to housekeeping, a pleasant woman arrived with a copy of 'The Glorious Qur’an' in Arabic and English, along with a brown prayer rug and a compass pointing in the 'direction of al Kabaa' in Mecca."
It's interesting also to ponder the dueling campaign messaging that dominated Trump 2020 yard signs: Some read, "Make America Great Again," others read, "Keep America Great," raising questions about the success of Trump's first term even as he stumped hard for a second. Complicating matters: Trump in 2016 never exactly defined when American greatness was so unquestioned and so utterly unproblematic. Was he referring to the post-war era of the late 1940s and 1950s? Some of us who are white might well agree it bristled with optimism and opportunity; those who are people of color and remember the worst of Jim Crow segregation laws might say otherwise. Was he referring to the 1920s and even '30s when many Americans pressed isolationism to prevent being swept up in another world war — one that nevertheless ensnared us in 1941 when, thanks to our neglect of global matters till late in the conflict, the Axis powers were far harder to dislodge and vanquish, especially after their dispatching of our naval fleet in the Pacific and their overwhelming of Europe and Asia? Perhaps the American greatness to which Trump referred is the period before the nation's first black president. Yet Barack Obama, whatever else, did stabilize the battered economy handed to him in 2009, for which he received no credit or no thanks from Trump in 2017 or beyond. Like the Gaineses to a degree, Trump may well have avoided too much specificity about what actually qualified as "good times" in a nation where inequality has been an issue from the very start.
In the final analysis, strategies heavily rooted in turning back the clock to some fractured, incomplete ideal of past times may work if it comes to refurbishing your home or office or adopting a certain lifestyle, but as practical policy such strategies too often fail to acknowledge the complications that some of us, all things considered, care not to revisit. Worse, they offer a limited, even unworkable range of options for dealing with present and future complications. Surely the issue of manufacturing in the United States proves this, given latter-day automation advances, labor costs at home and abroad and the economic realities of price-per-unit in a competitive global marketplace. Bullying corporations by tweet and press conference is not a sustainable policy, even if President Trump occasionally seemed to manage it for a time. Nor is simply building a border wall by violating the Constitution's Article I powers and then walking away from immigration and economic realities about certain jobs left wanting. Even right-wing Republican Congressman Bill Flores acknowledged as much in his Central Texas district well before Trump's election. As the retired oil and gas executive remarked at a local immigration forum in 2014: "If you talk to farmers around here, they’ll say it’s hard to get laborers, or get laborers legally, because they can’t get visas. If you talk to people in road construction here in Waco, they’ll tell you, ‘I can’t get enough laborers and I’d like to import laborers, but I can’t do it legally because I can’t get the visas.’ And if you go to the hospitality businesses in Bryan-College Station — the hotels, the restaurants — they’ll tell you they can’t get enough people.”
The
notion of passing political judgment on phenomenally successful reality TV
stars and the themes they champion in their programming and marketing might
seem a fool's errand had our nation not gone off and elected one of them
president of the United States. Perhaps it's one more thing about which
Americans must now be more vigilant.
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