Article content continued

“This country has been divided every day that I have been on the face of the Earth, and that is 71 years,” said Peggy Schumacher as she waited in her red “Proud to be a Deplorable” T-shirt for the mandatory security pat-down before entering the rally venue.

Like everyone else who waited for hours at this former U.S. air force base for Trump’s theatrical, floodlit entrance in his black and red Boeing 757, the former cotton-mill worker was acutely aware that this was, de facto, a whites-only event. But she was untroubled by it.

African-Americans, she claimed, are “promised everything in the world for free. They get free college, free medical and food stamps.

“My daddy did not raise me like that. What divides us more than anything, is our way of thinking.”

“This is about America,” said 28-year-old Katie Jean Harrison, who with her mother runs a company that hires out maids.

“Blacks are with the Democrats and waiting for handouts. It is so obvious. But I’m not worried. They don’t vote anyway.”

Ironically, most of the people hawking the candidate’s “Let’s Make America Great Again” ball caps and shirts outside the rally venue were black. Asked about this paradox, an elderly black man offering free “Trump for President” buttons with every $20 purchase, quietly said, “You gotta do what you gotta do.”

Primed by other speakers who praised God, Trump and the U.S. armed forces and who denounced Democratic rival Hillary Clinton’s support for gay marriage and abortion rights, as well as her dubious handling as secretary of state of what should have been classified emails, the controversial real estate developer dropped out of the sky to speak for 75 minutes in Kinston. He then took off again on a journey that was to have touched down in New England, Colorado and Arizona by Sunday night.