On March 28th, 2019 President Trump made his third visit to our city, this would have been my second rally if I had gotten in. The first rally I attended was on the eve before the November 2016 election. I mainly went because I wanted to see if Trump rally's were how they often were depicted in the news media. What I found was totally the opposite. There were thousands of people of all ages and walks of life. There was only a half dozen protesters stationed across from the convention hall it was held at. A float with the Statue of Liberty and Trump signs went up and down the street that people cheered on every time it went by. Everyone was so in tune with each other even the protesters couldn't help but smile at the jubilee of everyone. The first time I went my brother and I are about half way across this bridge which was approximately two, three blocks back from the entrance to the rally. This venue is smaller than the venue of his last visit but they had so many people they opened up a second section as thousands of people continued to pour in. Being a convention hall there was very little seating and people stood for hours being entertained by Ted Nugent until the president came on stage. Which Nugent's visit was a bonus surprise, there was no indication that he'd be there.
The first thing I heard approaching the area was loud speakers blasting out Wild Horses by the Rolling Stones, that pretty much set the mood for me, you really do have to feel that way when deciding to go to one of his rally's because you know you are going to spend hours waiting to get in. I've always been a bit of an activist and politically inclined since my early twenties. That came at the behest of a gentlemen and his wife who can be seen in this short video on the counter protest rally held a couple blocks from where the Trump was being held, he's wearing a hat, glasses and holding an American flag in this video.
Opposing rally held during presidential visit in GR
That picture pretty much sums up the crowd who attended the counter protest rally. That rally started at five, the news report done at six o'clock is all of one minute forty seconds and starts out with the reporter reporting that the crowd had nearly doubled. The baby Trump balloon probably never felt so under exposed...and probably explains why most the protesters opted to take off for the arena instead...at least if they mixed in with the Trump supporters they actually might appear to even be a crowd. For the most part, as seen in the pics below that didn't work out so well for them either.
My friend shown in the video and his wife we've spent some countless hours on politics. I was pretty naive about the state of what even politics was about back in the day. When I was nineteen they talked me into signing up for a trip to Memphis, TN with Acorn, that was back in the day when Acorn was pretty much a still a ground roots organization that held meetings and organized a platform agenda to put forth at politically rallies, which is what we were going to Memphis to do, demonstrate at a democratic convention to get their agenda heard. There was thousands of people from all over the country who showed up. We even broke through the police barricades...back then though things weren't quite as crazy in life and breaking through the barricade wasn't considered a possible life or death situation like it would be today. It was a great two day event that Acorn had set up political speeches at a convention hall and lined up buses to take people to various tourist attractions in between the busy schedule of events. I had taken a van ride down there that took fifteen hours and had a lot of older people who seemed to have to go the bathroom a lot, which meant a lot of pit stops and I always seemed to be in the back of the van, by the time they had all gotten out of the van I could have gone to the bathroom half a dozen times. Needless to say someone in that crowded van must have been sick because I started to get sick. That's what I was doing by the time my friends had come across me, sitting in the auditorium feeling like I was coming down sick. They told me there was a bus going out to see the Elvis mansion and I should try and get on it. We walked outside and they said just wait here on this corner and a bus will come and take you on a sight seeing tour. That plan went about as well as when I ventured down to the local cafe to get something to eat. The place was crowded except this little two person table in the back where I sat down at. The next thing I know these two workers come over and tell me it's their break time and I am sitting at their table...and the look on their face was a and if you don't get up and give us back our table look you won't like it so I forfeited the table. So I am standing there waiting for the bus only the bus pulls up from the other direction, down the block and opposite the corner I was standing at. Which basically meant that everyone lined up behind me ran to get on the bus and whereas I was first in line I became last in line, so last in fact if my friends hadn't grabbed a hold of me and pushed me through the crowd and onto the bus I'd never made it...and being I got the last seat on the bus that isn't a understatement. The sight seeing tour was great and visiting the Elvis mansion has been a highlight of the many adventures in life. I got a ride back with my friends though, one stop for breakfast was all we made and I was home in a little over two hours after that.
Though I have to admit I've voted more democrat than republican in my life when I went to register to vote there was just something I couldn't quite overcome despite the strong political roots and activism on the democratic side of the equation so often talked about and participated in between my friends and I. The gist of the whole thing was that democrats were for the people and helping people. Mostly through social programs but were often fought against by the republicans who were behind the corporate fat cats who didn't want to be taxed to support programs. I don't know, back in the day welfare was far different then it was today. My mom often made me go to the welfare office with her to fill out forms because she couldn't read or spell. I swore when I became an adult I was never going inside a welfare office again. I mean I literally went hungry during spells in my life while watching people on welfare eat really well. Back then they got their rent, utilities paid, medical through medicaid and food stamps. I admit it was pretty hard watching them all eat so well and have plenty of leftovers to feed their pets while I was so hungry, as a matter of fact my friends and I have a long standing joke about that. They quite often would invite me to dinner just because they knew I struggled. One day she called me up and asked me if I wanted to come over for some cream salmon on biscuits, I told her I'd pass on that one, her husband didn't even latch onto that idea, he quipped you know it has to be bad when I wouldn't even eat it. Anyway when I went to register I chose to register as a republican and I've stayed a republican since, I just couldn't come to grips with giving more of other people's money to people who, up until Clinton, didn't have to do a thing to live fairly well. I've never professed to them my feelings or how I registered despite the fact if it hadn't been for them I wouldn't have given a lick in life about politics. It would be decades before I declined to sign a petition she had for a proposal a democratic state senator was pushing. We debated the issue for a few minutes but I'd come a long way from that naive uniformed person. It all boils down to class warfare. Democrats are no less guilty then their republican counterparts. They live behind fences and security and expect you to live in an environment they wouldn't live in themselves, they want to throw freebies at people, no different then the vast majority of conservative Christians republicans, as long as it's not in my backyard here let's hand out some hot dogs at a food pantry. If we keep them fed they'll never notice we're selling them out.
Anyway, back onto the subject of the Trump rally. As I got closer I could see the cops in their riot gear, sirens flashing everywhere. Sort of hyped up the not so hyped up crowd of about a hundred protesters. I admit a hundred was more than the first rally of half a dozen but until you got on top of it to see the vast majority of people weren't behind the protesters it did give you a ut oh moment wondering if you were walking into trouble you so often see on the news. That moment though ended up being short lived as you can see.
Later in the evening when I went around to the front of the arena the protesters had grown a tad bit more...
but it was nothing concerning considering that within minutes they had become surrounded and almost lost in the crowd of Trump supporters who had gathered out front of the arena to watch the rally on a large screen television placed out front.
!
I guess you could say it was sad, biggly, hugely disappointing day for protesters. I walked about a half block pass the entrance where people were lined up, turned the corner and there was no end in site for the end of the line....
The line continued on until it crossed the street and went up one side of a building, around, then back down the side of the building....
()
It continued on that trend around all the buildings to the left in this photo until it reached as far as you can see in this photo at an intersection that you can only turn left or right, at that point the line went back up the hill again and straight down a main avenue. The distance in a straight line without having to curve around all those buildings would have been one point two miles, so that's quite a massive line.
Needless to say I dropped all prospects of getting in at that point. As I made my way back toward the front of the arena I couldn't help but stop to tell people just how far back the line really was, save a lot of foot work going around buildings trying to find it. People were so grateful I decided I would go back up towards the starting point and stand there letting people know the quickest route to the back of the line to save them some time. On my way I decided troll the crowd so I could show to people that not everyone going to a Trump rally looked like toothless hillbillies who lived in trailer parks...
Okay, scratch that idea, someone already beat me to it. I guess I will have to settle for a "The People Of Trump" photos. I do have to admit though that this guy is the epitome of the good nature of people I have encountered at both events I attended, this is the kind of jubilant nature of people involved. The sheer enthusiasm, energy, happiness coming from over twenty thousand people is like nothing I've ever experienced, it's like magic that just draws you in. I've been to concerts of some of the biggest names in rock music and never felt like we were all part of a huge gigantic family before. No matter how much someone tried to destroy the atmosphere like this one kid who walked up and down the street with a small amplifier on a dolly with fuck Trump blaring loudly it had no baring on the mood. People acted like they barely noticed him. So who are some of the people of Trump.....
There's the women for Trump, no pink pussy hats for us....(two women wearing light pink hats you can't see "women for Trump because of the glare)
The handicapped for Trump...
The young people for Trump...
The upper and middle class...
The union guy, the harley guy, the cowboy....
and the brave...
During the televised speech outside the auditorium I positioned myself near a tree where there was a cop on the other side the tree a couple feet away, I thought that to be good position since for one there was a cop there and two I was up on a ledge where this guy was positioned below me on the walk and there was a lady sitting on the ledge next to him and in front of me. I figured if anything happened between the protesters and Trump supporters I'd be elevated above them and near a cop where no one would cause trouble....or so I thought. A protester walking a bike by in front of the woman sitting in front of people was screaming in people's faces who were sitting on the ledge. When he got to the women in front of me he wouldn't stop screaming in her face. Finally she looks over at the cop and said, "hey this guys bothering me", but the cop didn't do anything. The guy kept screaming in her face so this guy standing there said to the cop, "are you going to do something about this guy?", the cop still ignored the situation. Finally the guy told the protester to leave the woman alone. The protester started poking the guy in the chest, so the guy pushed him away and told him to stay out of his face, the protester came back at him, the guy shoved him backwards, he came towards the guy again and that's when the cop finally decided jump down and intervene. The funny things was he took hold of the protesters shoulders and turned him a bit away from the other guy, patted him on the back like they were buddies while jerking his head towards the crowd like I know how you feel buddy type situation while coaxing him on his way. I mean really, it was rather discussing and disturbing to say the least since the protester started the whole thing. Outside of that, that was the only trouble I saw there, somewhere along the way four other people ended up getting arrested but I was no where near whatever was up with that....and I am glad, it was just to perfect of a evening to have it ruined that way.