At a rally in Wilkes-Barre, attendees cheer the president’s record on taxes, immigration and ‘putting America first’

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

Donald Trump’s campaign might still be under investigation over alleged collusion with Russia; his former campaign chairman might be up in court; but as far as his many overjoyed supporters are concerned, the president is doing a fantastic job.

At a Trump rally in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, this week the overriding emotion was jubilation. As they see it, Trump is cutting their taxes. He’s keeping out the immigrants. He’s putting foreign leaders in their place, all while fulfilling that oft-quoted campaign promise: winning.

“A-plus,” was the verdict of Suzie DeFranco. “A-plus-plus.”

DeFranco had travelled from Bangor, about 60 miles south-east of Wilkes-Barre, to see Trump. She was draped in a Trump “Make America great again” flag and accompanied by her husband, daughter, and a friend.

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“The tax reform,” DeFranco said when asked what she was most impressed with.

“I’m going to end up with like $300 extra this year because of what he’s done. No other president has given me a dime. Thank you, President. Thank you. Finally something for the working people.”

If DeFranco’s rapturous assessment of Trump’s first 18 months might be expected, given she was prepared to wait six hours to see the president, she pointed to specific areas where she felt Trump had been a success. They fitted into a theme among others the Guardian talked to: Trump is keeping his promises on taxes, on immigration, and on putting America first.

They also portray a mood among Trump’s base: one of celebration, sharply at odds with the anger and despair often seen gripping Democrats. That’s reflected in polls, too. In July an NBC/Wall Street Journal survey showed Trump’s approval rating among Republicans at a stunning 88%, the highest of his presidency.

DeFranco, 53, works in a warehouse in nearby Nazareth, and she was swift to tie Trump’s “tough” approach to illegal immigration as necessary for her wages to increase further.

“The blue collar industry I’m working in, the illegals are depressing the wages,” DeFranco said.

“They pay horrible. And they’re getting away with it because of the illegals. Who not only get paid at the warehouse, but they’re also getting taxpayer benefits where it be food stamps, healthcare – they go into the hospital, they don’t have insurance.

“So who absorbs that cost? The people working.”

It was a common theme among Trump supporters at the rally, and it’s an idea Trump exploited during the campaign. People seemed willing to overlook the fact that the wealthiest in the country have continued to make more money while wages for the working and middle classes have largely stagnated, and they blame immigrants for their own, undoubtedly real, financial struggles.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Trump waves to fans after speaking at the rally. Photograph: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images

“I like the fact he wants to build a wall,” said Bryan Trojan, 51. He was wearing a red Trump-Pence 2020 T-shirt that he had just bought from a vendor at the rally.

“Immigrants are taking away from the people that live in our country. I mean they come in and then they get here and they get government assistance, they get this, and they’re taking it away from people who really may need it here.”

Like DeFranco, Trojan – a team leader for sanitation at Leclerc foods, a Canadian company that makes cookies and snack bars – had already seen a benefit from Trump’s tax cut.

“He gave larger corporations in our country a tax break which in turn gave me a raise,” Trojan said.

Leclerc transferred its extra earnings from Trump’s tax bills to its employees, giving everyone a 6.5% raise, Trojan said. For him, that translated to a raise from $16-an-hour to $17.05-an-hour.

Some people clearly have benefited from Trump handing more money to big corporations. But not very many people. An analysis by Bank of America Merrill Lynch in April found that fewer than 45 of the 500 companies in the Standard and Poor’s 500 index had paid out extra money to employees.

Play Video 2:06 'Fake, fake, disgusting news': Trump launches new broadside against media - video

When Trump took the stage, he was everything people like DeFranco and Trojan had come to see. Combative: he continued his attacks on the press – referring to the media as “fake, fake, disgusting news” and journalists present as “horrible, horrendous people”.

It’s no secret that Trump revels in these campaign-style rallies. He has a captive audience and he knows how to work them. In Pennsylvania he spent more than an hour on stage, nominally campaigning for Lou Barletta, the Republican congressman running for Senate in Pennsylvania, but essentially just entertaining the crowd.

It’s a far cry from a year ago, when Trump was often portrayed as a hostage in his own White House. John Kelly, the retired Marine Corps general, had taken over from Reince Preibus as chief of staff and had instilled strict discipline on the president.

No longer could aides or hangers-on wander into the Oval Office for chats. Meetings had to be scheduled, the topics of the day’s meetings planned in advance. But Trump seems to have broken free recently, returning to his chaotic, pantomime-esque style of governing.

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Trump has also reveled in taking his show on the road – tearing through Europe and Asia with tours and tariffs as he claims to be muscling America back to the forefront.

That grandstanding on the world stage has gone down particularly well with his supporters.

“He’s putting America first. Whenever it comes to anything: with the tariffs, negotiating, he’s putting us Americans first above other countries, which is the way it always should have been,” said Phyllis Morgan, who was clad in a stars and stripes top and said she was in her sixties.

“He’s putting pride back in America.”

Morgan believed that if Trump had had more support from Congress he’d be getting even more done – which served as a common explanation among supporters for Trump’s failure on issues like healthcare, the construction of the wall, and his promises to revamp America’s ageing infrastructure.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest An attendee wears a top reading ‘I really don’t care, do U’, echoing a jacket worn by Melania Trump en route to the US-Mexico border. Photograph: Leah Millis/Reuters

But she was happy to focus on the successes.

“Look at what he’s done with North Korea,” she said. “I think his negotiation skills are very good.”

For David Weidow, a pony-tailed 54-year-old from nearby Scranton, reasserting dominance globally was Trump’s biggest success so far. He even borrowed Trump’s terminology to stress its importance.

“He said ‘grab ’em by the pussy’. And I get exactly what he meant by that. Grab these countries where they’re weak. Take them down if they want to think we’re weak. Grab ’em by the pussy,” Weidow said.

The Guardian pointed out that Trump was talking about women when he was recorded making those remarks, but Weidow was steadfast.

“Well, they thought so. But I took it in other ways. Grab the whole world that’s against us by the pussy bring them all down if they don’t like us, fight us. Grab them by the pussy. Get them in their weak spot.”

Others might have put it less viscerally than that, but alongside that double-whammy of tax reform and more hardline immigration policy, Trump’s pugnacious approach to the rest of the world was clearly appreciated.

DeFranco, the warehouse worker who said she would be receiving an extra $300 from Trump’s tax cuts, also mentioned what she termed as the North Korea success.

“He’s negotiating. He’s working towards peace. He stopped the missiles,” DeFranco said.

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On Monday, the Washington Post reported that North Korea was actually constructing new weapons. But DeFranco was not concerned. Instead, she echoed the “fake news” theme that had made up the bulk of Trump’s speech.

“I don’t believe anything coming out of mainstream media anymore. I don’t believe anything they say,” DeFranco said.

“And the problem here is if they ever do say something true, nobody’s going to believe them – because their track record is so bad.”

The anti-media sentiment was easy to detect at the rally, from people shouting profanities at the media during Trump’s speech, to the wariness of the crowd to talk to reporters.

Perhaps that idea – repeatedly reinforced by Trump – that the media is dishonest goes hand-in-hand with his supporters’ glowing assessment of his presidency so far.

To paraphrase DeFranco: even if what the media say about Trump is true, nobody at this rally was going to believe them.