One thing is for sure t is making folk heroes out of "the squad".
‘It Makes Us Want to Support Him More’
Amid a convulsive week in American politics, at one of the darkest rallies Donald Trump has ever held, his base showed up in force to tell the president he’s done nothing wrong.
PETER NICHOLASJUL 18, 2019
RACHEL JESSEN
GREENVILLE, N.C.—Before the rally began, I wanted to know why they’d come.
In the heavy, humid hours, I walked up and down the line winding through a parking lot at East Carolina University to interview some two dozen people who wanted to see the president. Many didn’t make it inside. About 90 minutes before Donald Trump took the stage, police announced that the 8,000-person basketball arena was full and those still waiting would have to watch on an oversize TV monitor set up outside. Rather than head home, they stuck around for a tailgate party of sorts.
Some cracked open beers and lit cigars, sitting on folding chairs in front of the TV. People walked by in shirts that read in trump we trust and fuck off, we’re full. Earlier, in the 100-degree heat, a four-member family band called the Terry Train entertained the crowd with a song mocking CNN.
Lying Wolf Blitzer and Lying John King. Don Lemon lies about everything … Erin Burnett, can you hear us yet? We’ll give you a story you can never forget. It built to this refrain:
CNN sucks!
The event itself would soon turn into one of the darkest of Trump’s political career, with the president road testing a new enemy and eliciting from the crowd a fresh, frenzied three-word chant:
“Send her back!” But even before he appeared, this week in American politics had been a convulsive one. Trump tweeted racist attacks on four Democratic congresswomen of color—including Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, the target of “Send her back!”—and the House, in turn,
rebuked the president in a party-line vote.
Trump’s coarsening of political debate always leads to the same question: Did he go so far as to alienate even some of his own supporters? Did his blowing past the boundaries of acceptable discourse render him unelectable? That his base showed up in force last night, parroting his attacks on the congresswomen, once again showed that, for these voters, the answer is no. (Whether the suburban white women and independent voters who were part of his 2016 coalition feel the same is far from certain.)
Talking with the rallygoers, I couldn’t find one who faulted Trump for demonizing the freshman representatives, all four of whom are American citizens, calling on them to leave the United States and return to the “totally broken and crime infested places from which they came.” A few conceded that Trump occasionally fires off an inappropriate tweet, but said his accomplishments in office overshadow any offense. If anything, they said, his language springs from an authenticity they find refreshing. None of the people I spoke with considered his comments about the congresswomen racist.
“He’s not always the best at how he handles his emotions,” said Christian Carraway, 32, of Greenville, sitting on a folding chair outside the arena and waiting for Trump to appear. “He’s a very emotional guy. Passionate. But I like his policies and I think he has good intentions.”
All seemed to accept Trump’s slight reformulation of his original tweets. Trump’s initial messages had a hard edge: “These places need your help badly, you can’t leave fast enough.” Amid an uproar over his comments, Trump reworked the argument a bit: He now says that if the congresswomen want to leave, they’re welcome to do so, but they’re also free to stay.
It doesn’t appear that Trump’s supporters inside the arena, with their “Send her back!” chants, believed his message needed any softening. One thing was certain: When Trump stepped behind the podium, he looked out at an audience that was fertile ground for continued attacks on the four representatives—a crowd that believed the congresswomen may have deserved what they got.
