“I am a Trump lady. I love Trump. He’s a real man,” said Carol Simone, 69. “He’s going to make us be good again.”



Watching the second presidential debate at Chickie’s and Pete’s in Bensalem, Pennsylvania, Simone wore two “Trump-Pence” stickers, one on her black vest, another on her straw cowboy hat.

“We desperately need him,” she said. “We need him to build a wall to keep Isis out.”

Bensalem is in Bucks County, theoretically a swing part of a swing state. Obama won 50% of the vote here in 2012, while Romney got 48.8%. Trump dominated here in the 2016 Republican primary, winning 56.6%.

On Sunday night, Chickie’s and Pete’s didn’t feel like it could swing. It felt it would go Trump.

The bar had partnered with a local conservative radio station called Talk Radio 1210 WPHT. Chris Stigall, the host of a local morning show, whipped up the crowd.

“I want to thank you deplorable people for coming out tonight,” Stigall shouted into a microphone just before the debate.

There were huge cheers, not least from Simone. She was there with her husband, John Simone, 63, and her daughter, Brandi Girmscheid, 39.

“I don’t even vote,” Grimscheid said. “I’m just here to watch the crazy people.”

Simone said she had brought her daughter to the bar – located in Parx casino, in the far right-hand corner, near the one-cent slot machines – “to teach her something”.

“To learn more about politics. To learn more about the goodness in the election,” Simone said.

As the debate began (Chickie’s and Pete’s was showing it on the Fox News channel) there were loud boos for Hillary Clinton.

“Trump!” a man shouted near the Guardian’s ear.

When Donald Trump walked on to the stage there were cheers.

“Trump!” the same man shouted. “Trump!”

The man was Peter Cruciata. He wore a light brown golf sweater.

Hillary Clinton got the first question in the debate. She had hardly spoken when Cruciata shouted: “Boo! Get off! Go home!”

When it was Trump’s turn to speak, Cruciata continued the theme. “Keep going! Don’t stop!” he said. “Don’t give her a chance to talk.”

Cruciata, 69, said he had special reason to be upset.

“Her husband ruined my life,” he said. “When he signed Nafta, I had a big factory which took me 30 years to put together. Because he signed Nafta, I had to shut it down.”

At this point Cruciata broke off to shout at one of the television screens: “Get out of here, you lowlife.” Clinton had started speaking again.

“She’s no good,” he said. “She’s gonna follow her husband’s steps and she’s going to follow Obama’s steps. The country needs a change. It needs to go back to how it used to be.”

Asked about his factory, Cruciata asaid: “I used to do sweaters.” At this point he began to get drowned out by a man wearing a green camouflage sweater, who also seemed to dislike Clinton.

Tino Malave signals his support. Photograph: Adam Gabbatt/The Guardian

The former secretary of state had been talking about Trump’s tax returns. As she speculated that Trump may not have paid federal income tax, the man in the camouflage shouted: “Benghazi!”

His name was Fred Smith, 51. He said he didn’t mind if Trump hadn’t paid income tax.

“Not at all. I own a company. I know how it works – I haven’t paid it either,” he said. “Not for 13 years.”

Smith, who said his company did “design and contracting”, had specific complaints.

“She’s a globalist. She’s a new world order person,” Smith said, alluding to a conspiracy theory which suggests a secret elite power is conspiring to rule the world.

“This is America. We have a constitution. I am a constitutionalist. Donald Trump is a constitutionalist.”

When Trump’s comments about grabbing women’s genitalia had just been raised, Smith said, “I could care less.

“If I looked in your cellphone, if I looked in mine, if I looked in hers” – he pointed at a woman sitting nearby at this point – “we’re all guilty.”

I said there was nothing like that on my cellphone.

“I don’t know what kind of men you hang out with,” Smith said. “You wanna hang out with me.”

The crowd grew louder as the debate progressed. The bar seemed to be doing good business. Simone was still at the bar, drinking cabernet sauvignon.

“Donald Trump is winning,” Simone said. She didn’t mind about Trump’s comments about fame bringing entitlement to grope women either.

“A man is a man and they all say things like that,” she said. Simone’s husband, John, who had a small ponytail and sat next to her drinking a beer, similarly dismissed the remarks.

“He does say things like that!” she said. “I don’t like it but I understand it. I know he’s got all he wants with me.”

The crowd got louder as the debate progressed. Whenever Clinton began talking there were boos and jeers and shouts, usually of “Benghazi” or “emails”, but sometimes just swear words.

Cruciata, the man who used to do sweaters, was among the most vocal.

At one point Trump said “everything” Clinton had done related to foreign policy had been “a disaster”.

“Everything! Everything!” Cruciata shouted. “Even marrying Bill!”

Trump carried on criticizing Clinton.

“You’re gonna cry tonight!” Cruciata shouted.

Clinton, responding to Trump on foreign policy, said she would not send American troops to Syria.

“You should go yourself!” Cruciata shouted. “And get killed!”

Smith gave him a high-five.

Finally, Trump and Clinton were let go by the debate moderators. Cruciata, through an impressive range of insults, looked spent. Simone, in her words “a little bit drunk”, made for the exit. Smith, after many fist pumps into the air, sounded hoarse.

“He opened a can of whoop-ass on her,” he said. He added that he didn’t believe in polls, but that Trump may have won some new voters by “sticking to the issues”.

I asked Smith what his favourite moment was.

“There were so many,” he said. He thought for a second.

“Oh! When he said she should go to jail.”