Trump’s crowd is full of honest and decent people – but the Republican’s invective has a chilling effect on fans of his one-man show

This is what greets you when you arrive at a Trump rally: two 18-wheelers parked outside the sports stadium where the Republican nominee will be speaking, placed end-to-end so that nobody can miss them. The front truck, painted white, has “The Donald for President” scrawled across its side, above the slogans: “All lives matter”, “Build the wall”, and “Keep Mexican dope in Mexico”.

It is a relatively gentle introduction to Trumpworld, a scattering of antagonism for the gathering crowd. If only the same could be said about the yellow truck parked right behind it.

“Hillary for prison”, it says beside a picture of Hillary Clinton behind bars. Another image of the Democratic presidential candidate has her brains spilling out of her skull with the caption: “Concussion wired”. Bill Clinton is seen laughing above the words: “Just realized if Hillary wins … I get interns”. A final shot of Hillary has her pointing at her husband and saying: “Bill! Monica gave you what?”

A couple of hundred feet away, in full view of the trucks, thousands of supporters patiently line up to hear their idol. Many of them have been here for hours. Many have small children in tow, including Jillian Major, a school food provider (“I’m a lunch lady”) who has an eight-month-old son in her arms and her daughter, 10, standing by her side.

What does Major think of the flood of revelations about Trump’s sexual indiscretions? I ask, trying to keep my voice down so that the girl won’t hear. “Hillary Clinton’s still married to Bill,” the mother replies, unflustered, “and he had oral sex in the White House, so she can’t say anything.”

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Isn’t she worried about the impact on her daughter of potentially having someone in the White House who brags about groping women’s genitals? “I’ll teach my own daughter to be independent and stand up for herself; that’s my job, not the president’s.”

A column of men and women stomp past heading for the front of the line, a confidence in their step as they march by sporting Harley-Davidson leather jackets. Who are they? Where are they going?

“We’re Bikers for Trump, and we’re going to join the VIP line,” says one of the club. “We ride for Trump; they make sure we get in.”

After only 15 minutes in Trumpworld, already the incongruities are overwhelming. Bikers in the VIP line, coming to support a real estate tycoon who lives in a $100m gilded penthouse. A mother absolving Trump for his self-proclaimed sexual predation as her 10-year-old daughter listens in. Thousands lining up to Make America Great Again in the shadow of an 18-wheeler covered in crude sexual references.

As the bewildering 2016 presidential election draws to a close, some basic questions are left hanging in the air. After we have spent months watching the impossible happen, of hearing the defense of the indefensible, of observing American values – one after another ­– fall like bowling pins, it’s time to ask: what has this sometimes maddening, bizarre, gruesome, hilarious, shocking, scary Trump phenomenon been about? More urgently, once the pall of this most baffling of presidential elections has cleared and 8 November fades into the background, what will the Donald have left behind?

Some of the answers to those questions come easily, shared freely by Trump’s supporters as they wait in line. Conspiracy theories are one aspect of the destruction wrought by Hurricane Donald likely to be with us for a long time.

Here’s Vjekoslav Grgas, a Croatian American, standing dutifully in the non-VIP line. In five short minutes, he rattles off a litany of horror stories. Did you know that three men were assassinated at the Democratic national convention in July to cover up the fact that they were the source of the WikiLeaks dump of hacked Democratic emails? Or that the liberal financier George Soros bankrolled several US foreign policy disasters, and that Hillary Clinton personally pocketed 99% of the donations to the Clinton Foundation following the 2010 Haiti earthquake? In a rare note of discordance with the Republican nominee, he even adds that Trump was wrong to finally admit last month that Barack Obama is an American, as the US president’s birth certificate was obviously Photoshopped.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘Trump’s going to say what needs to be said’: supporters cheer at the rally. Photograph: Jessica Kourkounis/Getty Images

Other elements of the Trump phenomenon are more difficult to tease out. Phrases are thrown out from the line with such repetitive frequency that they take on the blandness of cliches. One of the VIP Bikers for Trump, John Hearl, is among many at the rally who says he likes the reality TV star because unlike career politicians, Trump “speaks his own mind”.

“Trump’s going to say what needs to be said, and if that offends somebody, well then, they just have to understand the goal of all this.”

Which is?

“America first.”

A little further ahead in the VIP line stands Carole Urban, wearing a sequined hat in the colors of the American flag. She says she is also looking forward to hearing Trump speaking, because “he’s down to our level. He’s not like past presidents who prepare a beautiful speech but it’s not coming from the heart. He speaks it like it is.”

Beautiful speeches from past presidents. Is she referring to Obama?

She pulls her shoulders back and with a note of indignation says: “When I first heard Obama I was elected, I thought he could improve our country. I voted for him in 2008. I was so disillusioned in him – after four years, he helped ruin this country.”

Was part of that disillusionment to do with Obama’s “beautiful speech”, as she puts it?



She shrugs a second time. “Yes, I was angry about his oratory. The way he was speaking, it touched my soul, it was so beautiful. A black person, everyone says, but he’s actually mulatto. I thought he could do a great job helping American people, but it didn’t happen like that.”

When I ask Urban about how, as a woman, she feels about Trump’s self-confessed sexually predatory behavior, she gets indignant. “I’m sick and tired of this being brought up. Words come out in the wrong way at times; you put your foot in your mouth. I don’t think Donald Trump is remotely derogatory to women.”

To follow Urban’s train of thought: Trump is loved by his supporters not just because of the content of what he says, such as his seemingly endless ability to insult anyone from Mexicans to Muslims to African Americans to women. It’s also the way he says it. It’s the language he uses: unscripted, unpolished, and not infrequently unintelligible. He is the antithesis of the fancy, considered Obama, with the Harvard law degree and the “beautiful speech”.

The contrast is worth exploring. Here is Obama speaking on the campaign trail at a similar end-game stage in the 2008 election: “Hope! That’s what kept our parents going when times were tough. It’s what led immigrants from distant lands to come to these shores against great odds and carve a new life for their families in America; what led those who couldn’t vote to march and organize and stand for freedom, that led them to cry out: ‘It may look dark tonight, but if I hold on to hope, tomorrow will be brighter.’”

And here is Trump speaking tonight at the rally, reproduced verbatim: “Bikers love me. I will see these bikers, oftentimes on Harleys, not always, but a lot of times. I feel so safe with these bikers. A lot of times they don’t want to come inside, they just want to make sure I feel safe. I love you guys, I love you guys.”

Or this on his rival: “Hillary lied. No, no, no, she lied. She’s a liar. And she lied and she lied. She lied. It’s so important we vote in November so that we get rid of these liars, these incompetent people, the Hillary Clintons.”

So what if Trump’s diction is less than perfect? There are no rules on how a would-be president should communicate with the people, nor are there minimum standards of rhetorical prowess for the White House.

What seems apparent is that Trump has given his followers the license to emulate him in throwing caution to the wind and saying things that previously were considered unacceptable. Trump has also opened a new era in American politics in which it doesn’t matter what you say or how you say it. Be as offensive as you like. Speak your own mind.



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Inside the sports stadium, the impact of the Republican presidential nominee’s anti-oratory is all around us. Many are wearing “Hillary Clinton For Prison” T-shirts. Others have shirts that say “Proud member of the basket of deplorables”, a reference to the Democratic nominee’s unflattering description of half of Trump’s following. A third T-shirt design scattered among the crowd has the face of Bill Clinton superimposed on the famous 2008 rainbow-colored Obama poster, with the word Hope replaced by Rape.

As the rally gets rowdier, whipped into a half-frenzy by the warm-up speakers, “Lock her up! Lock her up! Lock her up!” chants fill thestadium.

The former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani comes on to introduce the main speaker and immediately launches into a story about locker rooms, turning the candidate’s excuse for why he bragged about grabbing “pussy” into a joke. Then he turns his comments on Clinton, adding: “I’m going to get down off the stage with you into the basket of deplorables. Because unlike Clinton, you speak the truth. You’re for real, she’s a phoney.”

There’s a disconnect between the ugly schoolyard name-calling coming from the speakers and the outward appearance of their audience. Yes, there are the usual smattering of patriotic followers in costume of the sort that frequent any Republican event: women robed in the Stars and Stripes; men posing as Uncle Sam with crooked top hats like wonky chimneys on their heads. But most Trump supporters wear the unassuming uniform of middle America: jeans, checked shirt and jacket.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Until Trump and his surrogates get to work on them, the thousands filling the arena come across as a genial bunch intent on enjoying themselves for the night. Photograph: Dominick Reuter/AFP/Getty Images

Most, too, are in work, and their median income is in fact above the national average. Until Trump and his surrogates get to work on them, the thousands filling the arena come across as wholly unexceptional: a genial bunch intent on enjoying themselves for the night, rather than die-hard fanatics baying for Clinton’s blood.

It’s the children who are the most striking. There are lots of them peppered around the stadium, from toddlers in diapers to wide-eyed teenagers taking it all in.

“I think Trump will bring back jobs,” says Ben, aged 13. “And he’ll close the borders down to Mexicans and illegal immigrants so that less young people like me die of opioid addiction.”

It’s a hefty thought for a 13-year-old. Does Ben know of anyone who’s died of a painkiller overdose? “No, I don’t know anyone personally.”

The crowd is at it again, raising a deafening cry of: “Lock her up! Lock her up! Lock her up!” – a powerful civics class for a middle-schooler.

Ben reacts to the chant: “I think Clinton lied in front of federal Congress and continues to lie about her emails. She’s unfit to be president.”

Trump enters the auditorium and the atmosphere rises to another level. Before he arrived it was already electric; now it’s like one of those static balls that make your hair stand on end.

The candidate launches into his routinely un-beautiful speech. “If you’re talking about Crooked Hillary, what about the crooked media? CNN is a disgrace. CNN is a disgrace.”

A huge boo erupts from the stadium floor as the crowd turns towards the media compound where reporters and camera operators are penned in for the duration. Trump’s invective has an immediate and chilling impact among the crowd. Men and women who only moments ago were pleasantly talking to us, sharing generously their reflections on the state of the nation, are now jabbing their fingers in our direction and spitting: “CNN sucks! CNN sucks! CNN sucks!” The hatred is intimidating.

“I’m telling you, folks, they are so dishonest,” Trump continues. “Without the media Hillary Clinton couldn’t be elected dog-catcher.”

He pauses, strutting up and down the stage like Mick Jagger in a business suit. He looks elated.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Donald Trump: ‘Without the media Hillary Clinton couldn’t be elected dog-catcher.’ Photograph: Christopher Dolan/AP

“Unshackled” is how he later describes his mood. But better than that would be “unbothered”. Donald Trump seems no longer bothered about the election, whether he wins or loses. He no longer cares about his perceived humiliation at the hands of CNN. Perhaps all he cares about is the adoration he is feeling right here, right now, in the Trumpworld bubble, surrounded by his adoring devotees.

And then it dawns. Trump is not just an enabler of his people. They enable him, too. This is a never-ending feedback loop of paranoia, hate, fear and envy that drives them – good, honest, decent people – down to the muddy bottom.

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“Is there any more fun to be had than at a Trump rally?” Trump says, before launching into his favorite dialogue with the crowd that by now comes as second nature.

“We are going to build a…”

“Wall,” boom the Trumpistas.

“Who is going to pay for the wall?”

In the split second before the inevitable answer comes from the crowd, I turn around to look at Ben, seated a couple of rows behind me.

“Mexico!” shouts the 13-year-old. The boy is smiling, and clapping gleefully.

Before Trump departs for his private jet and Fifth Avenue apartment modeled on Versailles, this unlikely man of the people has a final word for his presidential fans. “You’re going to look back on this rally for the rest of your life,” he tells them. “This is a movement like you’ve never seen before and you will never see again. Believe me, it will never happen again.”

His point is clear: the marvel of Trumpworld can never be reconstructed by anyone other than the greatest political real estate developer of them all, Donald Trump. His one-man show is reaching the end of its run, but its impact may endure in a coarser, darker discourse even if he does lose on 8 November.