Dreams of chaos in crowds. Breaking news of a man screaming “death to Jews” while gunning down a synagogue. “I support the president”, says a family member as I depart. American flags line small town mainstreet. Lines at gas stations. Sidewalk vendors sell the popular paraphernalia of Trump, law enforcement and the military……...blue American flags.
Most cars turn towards the airport. Pedestrians hawk red hats to a traffic line stalled among field and forest, stretching past the airport. Yelling men wearing lanyards direct the creeping procession, around a bend, out of airport sight into a vast cornfield. The crop has just been harvested and the soil a bit too damp for small tires.
The roving vendors are ever present, waving red this and that around a fleet of short yellow school buses. The thick human and machine traffic slows the bus to a walking pace…...and my phone is in the truck. All the passengers laugh when I ask the driver for a ride back to the field. It’s now so slow that I ask to be let off, making the long round trip on foot instead. When I finally join the entry line it’s a quarter-mile long, stretching along a chain-link fence protecting yet another desolate farm field.
The rest of the environment stands in stark contrast to the surrounding emptiness, as the lively red-clad line stands under a picture perfect autumn day. A retired postal widow stands next to me, who has driven two hours here by herself just to pass the time. I soon lose interest in conversation because she is missing the listening half of communication.
Not a protester in sight, with the closest possibility being a sign visible in a departing vehicle, “Trump Smokes”. The third word of the sign can’t be clearly read through the window. “They say we’re the party of hate!”, yells a man walking by in an American flag shirt. Hat and button vendors continually stalk the line. The widow buys a “CNN Sucks” button, then says, “I actually like CNN.” Someone leans out of a full bright green church bus waving a……..blue American flag.
An elderly black man sings the slurred words to “God Bless America” while waving an upside down American flag. It suddenly strikes me that among these thousands of people this likely drunken man and most of the salespeople are the only non-whites in the entire crowd. The one visible exception is an Asian woman accompanying an old white man. Even spotting a non-white cop or security detail is a difficult task. Somebody steps up to flip the old black man’s flag upright. “I gotta remember to hold it right”, he yells in a mumble. “LADY LINCOLN’, he exclaims to a woman dressed as the Statue of Liberty.
Gazing back down the line, it stretches even further than the point where I’d first entered, still a quarter mile further, past the airport entrance and down the road. Thousands came before me and thousands remain behind. The front of the line approaches a square aviation hangar, passing under a green awning labeled “Helipcopter Lab”. Inside are a half dozen metal detectors staffed with uniforms from a number of different federal agencies. The scene is monitored by no shortage of expressionless spooks wearing black suits and earpieces. Even at this checkpoint, everyone but the spooks seem to retain an atmosphere of pleasantly controlled excitement, preparing for the arrival of their political Messiah, Orange Man.
The checkpoint exits into a secure area that has reportedly been prepared for up to 20,000 people. The borders are two hangars, high chainlink fencing and several dozen buses and dump trucks parked bumper to bumper. A hundred some people line up at a tent in the middle of the lot selling snacks and drinks starting at $2. Outside food and drinks were confiscated at the checkpoint, but it is a small price to pay for seeing Big Orange up close and personal.
The stage is inside “Hangar Six”, several times larger than the “Helicopter Lab”. Hangar Six is said to hold up to five thousand people, with the rest destined to view the event from two Jumbotrons outside. Surprisingly there’s still room for me inside, as I follow a line of people entering the huge open back door of the hangar, passing under yellow tape that’s being lifted up by a man wearing a lanyard. A large, rather lightly populated press box and risers dominate the best viewing space, right in the middle of the floor. The main stage sits just inside the second hangar door, under a tightly hung oversized American flag.
Outside behind the stage are VIP bleachers under a wide blue banner reading, “Promises Made. Promises Kept.”. An fenced off elevated walkway to the stage separates the general admission crowd from the VIP bleachers. Inside the hangar, there’s zero available space between the press box and the stage, with those who occupy the area standing firmly shoulder to shoulder.
This setup has been engineered for the maximum benefit of the cameras, causing much discomfort and inconvenience to the public. Sunlike lights at the top of the press bleachers make the VIP bleachers and the areas to the rear sides of stage the absolute worst places to be, with everyone there either wearing sunglasses or using signs to block the migraine glare. A third of hanger floor space remains behind the high press box, which blocks view of the stage.
The only familiar face is a high school classmate and neighbor, a busty blond former cheerleader. I squeeze in near the wall between the stage and press box as the town mayor takes stage. “I am here at the invitation of Congressman Bost”, he carefully begins. And so begins a procession of politicians to warm up the physically uncomfortable crowd, some of which have been at the airport since daybreak.
“WE ARE GOING TO HAVE A RED TSUNAMI!!!”, a woman screams so loud that the floor vibrates. Nearing a state of exhausted delerium, the crowd alternates chaotically between wild energy and its at ease state of low murmur. Stacks of paper signs are passed hand-to-hand, including, “Drain the Swamp”, “Jobs Not Mobs”, and “Finish the Wall”. The politicians depart the stage to a chant of “USA” and “Promises Made, Promises Kept”, saying that the president will arrive in a “few minutes”.
But the stage remains empty for an hour as two floor-to-ceiling towers of speakers blare a short repeating playlist that doesn’t quite fit together. The full orchestral opera “Time to Say Goodbye” plays right alongside “Eye of The Tiger”, only adding to the delirium, which could have only been intentional. “WHO PICKED THE MUSIC”, somebody yells, drawing a chorus of laughter.
“Air Force One is wheels down”, a crackly voice interrupts, followed by a man and woman arriving on stage to throw out hats and t-shirts. Another crew of two arrives to stick a presidential seal onto the podium and adjust teleprompter height before leaving the stage empty again. An anxious silence is broken by yet another round of “Time to Say Goodbye” and “Eye of the Tiger”. A man appears on stage to adjust the teleprompters again, back to the way they were before the last group adjusted them.
Everyone knows we’re getting close when the bleacher crowd stands to point, as they have a wide view of the building’s exterior. Finally a different song…..”Proud to be an American”, then “Please welcome the 45th president of the United States, Donald J Trump!”.......
The Orange Messiah in a long bright red tie strolls onto the stage runway, stopping every few steps to turn and wave to the crowds closest him. “YES, MY PRESIDENT!!!!”, screams the big young man next to me, possibly soiling himself. Organically the crowd begins the loudest chant yet, “USA, USA”, like a squealing pack of bulldogs after their owner has returned home from a long day out.
Orange Man lies to his pack within the first few opening moments, “......and with what happened early today, that horrible, horrible attack in Pittsburgh, I was saying maybe I should cancel (this event). And then I said to myself, I remember……...a friend of mine, great guy. He headed up the New York Stock Exchange on September 11th. And the New York Stock Exchange was open the following day.”
Smartly, the New York Stock Exchange was closed for a week after September 11th, and still lost nearly 700 points when it finally did reopen six days later. But the Orange Man’s red bulldogs just squeal louder. ““WE LOVE YOU” is shouted from someone in the crowd every few moments, sometimes followed by Orange Man pointing and saying “Thank You”. A man nearby waves a Halloween Trump zombie doll high above his head.
“We have to bring back the death penalty”....wild cheers.
“To those who seek our destruction, we will seek THEIR DESTRUCTION!”, and the pack goes wild.
“I'm not making you fair trade deals. I'm making you unfair trade deals, in our favor", YESSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!
“......military to the border”, YEAHHHHHHHH!!!!
“The sixth branch of the military, the space force”, WHOHOOOOOOO!!!!
“We proudly confirmed the newest member of the United States Supreme Court, Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Boy, oh, did they treat him horribly”, BOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!
“.......Hillary”, LOCK HER UP, LOCK HER UP!!!!!
“We trust in God”, the loudest screams yet.
Orange Man’s pack apparently cheers anything he says. The caravan in Mexico is three times as big as it really is…..no problem. The wall in North Korea has alot of electric current going through it…..sure thing Mr President, let’s do that here. Screw China, yeah, lets bust them up. Protecting your pre-existing conditions. The foolish and very stupid press. Putin is my good friend but if I boxed him I’d do just fine(yeah right). We are helping to bring up black people in America, like Kanye West, great guy. We put our embassy in the true capital of Israel.
It’s surprising to notice that this is all on the teleprompters, because Orange Man always appears to be giving an impromptu speech. This would lead one to believe that the glaring factual errors are not at all off-the-cuff mistakes, but rather a deliberate attempt to further dominate the media cycle with endless fact checking and political confrontations.
After an hour the president exits the stage ever so slowly. Three Secret Service agents appear like wasps on the other side of the low perimeter fence as I position myself to take photos just a few feet away from their boss. Apparently my lack of enthusiasm and constant notetaking during the event had drawn their attention. The three of them are staring me down within arms’ length, ready to pounce, while dozens of other people on the perimeter are largely unattended by security. The agents lose interest as soon as the president has passed.
With the exit of VIP #1, there is little official concern for the many thousands of ordinary people left behind in the secured area. Along with the departing media, we’re all forced back through the two small ordinary doorways in the Helicopter Lab, a crush of humanity moving at a snail’s pace through a risky choke point. Most people choose to walk the long distances back to their cars in pitch blackness rather than wait several times longer for the yellow busses stuck in the mess.
“There are more of us than them, and we’ve got the bullets, but hell, all you really need is to put them under water for a minute”, says a male voice in the darkness as Air Force One roars to takeoff behind us. But above all else today, one comment by the Orange Messiah stands out most, “This is going to be an election of common sense”.
I climb back into the truck imaging today’s scene played out in the beginning of some future action movie about the collapse of the United States, the most violent event in human history. The Orange Messiah stands among massive blue American flags, his swastikas of the day, declaring war to a sea of snarling red.
'There’s got to be something better than this going on during Halloween weekend', I think to myself, driving off to attend a bonfire hosted by the other end of the political spectrum.