By Claude Brodesser-Akner | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

I was nervous. I was going to my first Trump rally since he'd been elected president, and I wasn't going to play my usual part. Typically, we political reporters are penned up behind barricades, urgently attempting to fact-check the president while trying to avoid eye-contact with the thousands of supporters who cheer as he hurls insults at the press.

But not tonight.

My plan was simple: Instead of focusing on parsing the President's words, I would be in the crowd to watch how they were received by the people who consider him their messiah. Whether what the president said was true, half-true or a gross-exaggeration I'd leave to someone else for a change.

Like the president, I was more interested in how his base responded, and to what. I wouldn't interview anyone; I'd just listen to what they were saying to each other, and to Trump.

Here's what I saw, minute by minute.

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3:37 p.m. - Deplorable Me

Arriving at Mohegan Sun Arena in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., five hours before the start of any show should put you near the front of any line.

But not for those hoping to board the Trump train.

He wasn't scheduled to take to the stage until 7 pm, but by 3:30, a line of rain-soaked Deplorables, four Deplorables wide, snaked around the parking lot. We were all part of an endless multi-sectioned 'Don't Tread On Me' snake.

"Don't be that guy -- the guy without a MAGA hat!" shouted a vendor hawking MAGA hats. "They're gluten-free!"

This, of course, provoked peals of laughter from our line. Nothing is more indicative of a snowflake than being gluten-free.

An older married couple in front of me stopped short as an impromptu merchant passed by, selling buttons, $10 for 3.

Trump Space Force. Trump as Rambo. Trump smiling above the words 'Mr. President.'

She settled on a "Deplorable Me" yellow minion, evocative of the fictional yellow creatures that populate the "Despicable Me" film franchise.

The guy next to me selected a Trump Space Force button, and promptly affixed it to his hat.

"We need a President with NO foreign policy," her husband was saying. "That's what I wanted to tell Paul Ryan and all his cronies: 'Who made us big brother of the world?' Screw that."

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4:11 p.m. - Stand Your Ground

A few minutes later, a trio of older ladies gathered to lament that Pennsylvania's stand-your ground law didn't allow them to shoot trespassers hunting illegally on their land.

One wore a T-shirt that read "Shove gun control up your..." with a picture of the Democrats mascot finishing the sentence.

Get it? "Ass?"

"I asked the cops, 'What should I do about them huntin'?" she said to a girlfriend. "He says to me, 'Drag 'em back on your house and then shoot 'em. We'll come and bag 'em.' "

I suddenly regret going with the camouflage shorts.

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4:03 p.m. - Guardians of the Galaxy?

A young guy walking next to me in line is blasting Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Fortunate Son."

Hearing this CCR classic, an older gentleman remarks that he's impressed a Millennial is playing such a famously anti-elitist Vietnam War protest song from 1969.

The kid stops for a second, confused.

"Uh, yeah" he says, "Actually, this is the soundtrack to 'Guardians of the Galaxy'?"

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4:58 p.m. - Building anticipation amidst...nothingness

There's a science to maintaining anticipation and interest even when nothing's happening, and Trump's rally have it down to a science.

There's now still two more hours to kill before POTUS arrives, and a couple of short speeches by a Congressman and GOP governor candidate aren't going to fill them.

That's where the Trump rally's signature move comes in: The endlessly expanding barricade.

At most shows, when you're inside, you're inside. Not so a Trump rally. You never truly stop waiting in line.

Sections closest to where the president will stand are constantly being cordoned off and then, suddenly, POOF!, opened, leading to a mad rush to get to a space within MAGA hat throwing distance.

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5:26 p.m. - Hatburn!

The five o'clock hour of this Trump rally is reserved for patriotic calisthenics.

A prayerful convocation. Recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance. The singing of the Star-Spangled Banner.

Each requires removing your ball cap with cheetah-like speed.

When a Korean war veteran arrives at the podium, baseball caps come off so fast people get hat burn.

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6:08 p.m. - Trump's love of 'Sympathy for the Devil' freaks me out

Trump has played The Rolling Stones' classic "Sympathy for the Devil" at his rallies for years now, but it was only tonight I realized that one of its lyrics especially macabre:

I shouted out

Who killed the Kennedys?

When after all

It was you and me

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6:22 p.m. - I finally get why Trump plays Puccini

Even if you don't know much opera -- and I know I sure don't -- you'd know "Nessun dorma" from Act III of Puccini's Turandot if you heard it. Pavarotti basically blows you out the back wall with his pipes.

And as Trump always includes it in the set list, as he did tonight, I decide to plug its lyrics into Google translate.

Set, stars! Set, stars!

At dawn, I will win!

I will win!

I will win!

I can see maybe why Trump likes it.

Tonight, as they play it, an aide installs the presidential seal onto the podium, to great applause.

And when it's quickly followed by The Beatles' "Revolution 9," the crowd goes from befuddled to energized:

But if you want money for people with minds that hate /

All I can tell is brother you have to wait

I wonder what John Lennon would make of this scene.

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6:48 p.m. - This Playlist Could Do With Some Variety

Trump's rallies always feature the same narrow playlist, so it's safe to say you're going to hear the same Guns and Roses, Elton John, Aerosmith and Frank Sinatra songs over and over again.

But as evening progresses, the volume on the P.A. gets LOUDER. So by the the third time you hear "Sweet Child O' Mine," I literally cannot pray hard enough for the thunder and the rain to quietly pass me by aigh-yigh-yigh.

And for regular attendees, this can get especially tiresome.

One mom is excited that they are playing Sinatra's "I Did It My Way" yet again, but her daughter literally cannot roll her eyes hard enough.

Still, it is something of a relief to know that despite anyone's politics, our children are all united in thinking us total idiots.

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7:02 p.m. - Trump is in the house

When the president arrives, the applause is thunderous. The Mohegan Sun Arena holds 10,000 people, and it's pretty much full except for a fringe of seats near the rafters.

But his biggest applause lines are what I am after, and pretty soon, a pattern emerges.

Respect -- and the lack of it.

Respect the crowd has not been shown, that America has not been shown, and that he has not been shown.

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7:03 p.m. - 'We are respected again'

The biggest applause lines always emphasize the idea that the lack of respect shown Trump is the same sort of elitist snobbery that the working class has had to endure.

"We are respected again," says Trump, and the applause and cheering is thunderous.

A line about how the U.S. is "crushing ISIS" gets almost as big a reaction.

But then he closes his opener with this fireball.

"The forgotten men and women of the U.S. are forgotten no more," said Trump.

The crowd roars so loud, I feel my eardrums begin to rattle a bit.

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7:08 p.m. - The first 'fake news' attack of many

Trump loves to relive the night of November 8, 2016, but there seems to be a clear political purpose for doing so.

Pundits on the left label it narcissism, but what it really does is serve to stoke the crowd's sense of aggrieved status.

"We won the state of Pennsylvania," said Trump. "But the fake news refused to call it."

Lusty boos erupted, and the crowd began to chant, "CNN sucks!"

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7:12 p.m. - The first protestor is ejected

It's almost become a tradition that a protester must be ejected, and only 12 minutes in, the first one is.

"Get 'em out!" Trump says, almost reflexively.

Fun fact: When you hear people chanting, "Trump Trump Trump!" and holding up rally signs, it's because that's how they've been instructed to notify law enforcement that someone in their midst needs to be tossed.

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7:24 p.m. - The first 'Lock her up!'

This part of Pennsylvania is coal country, and as coal cannot compete with cheaper, clean energy it's fallen on hard times.

But tonight this isn't cast as a harsh but unavoidable economic reality; it's framed as a needlessly punitive tactic championed by his defeated 2016 rival, Hillary Clinton.

"Remember when Hillary Clinton said 'We're going to close you down?'" asked Trump, refering to Clinton's infamous March 2016 gaffe in West Virginia.

"Lock her up!" roared the reply from the arena. "LOCK HER UP!"

The irony is that Clinton, often accused of being a liar by Trump, was now being assailed for having told the truth: Coal was on its way out, and she wasn't going to prop it up.

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7:43 p.m. - The first reference to 'animals'

"Remember when I referred to MS-13 as animals," asked Trump. "They are animals!"

Wild applause ensue.

"The only thing they understand--" said Trump.

An African American woman in a blue MAGA T-shirt interjected loudly, screaming "is a bullet in the head!"

Even more cheering follows this.

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7:53 p.m. - 'You can't fix stupid.'

Everyone likes to feel smart, but at Trump rallies, the bar is set low because his adversaries aren't merely wrong, they're "stupid."

When Trump blasts the policy of "catch and release" for unauthorized immigrants arrested for offenses unrelated to their immigration status, a man in a Q-anon hat bellows, "You can't fix stupid!"

A few minutes later, at 7:59 Trump picks up on this theme, saying that it's not the fault of China "that our leaders were absolutely stupid."

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8:17 p.m. - American pride has been restored!

Trump rambles a lot, but he knows how to return to a theme.

And as he ambled to a close, the president insisted that America is "apologizing no more."

Big cheers for that one.

What his repealing of the Iran nuclear deal, his scuttling of the Paris accords and the moving of the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem is about, he insisted, was "restoring American pride."

"It’s only going to get better," Trump said, because now, "our hearts bleed red, white and blue."

As he walked off the stage, the crowd certainly seemed to believe him.

Looking around, I saw a man with an actual red-white-and-blue beard, and I had to admit I could see why.

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Claude Brodesser-Akner may be reached at cbrodesser@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @ClaudeBrodesser.

Photos by Aristide Economopoulos. Find NJ.com Politics on Facebook.