’ll keep this short. I actually attended a Donald J. Trump political rally today, and it was surprisingly calm and orderly in my opinion. It is my estimate that 10,000 people attended the rally. When I first walked through the line people outside of the venue, I received the obvious stares and smug looks. Yet, I constantly ran into people who wanted to engage in small talk and sway me into getting their picture in the paper.
As I began to take photos and ask for names and interviews, it seemed as though an unusually high number of people refused to give me an interview or give me their name for publication. I can certainly see how people would not like their photo, which illustrates their political affiliation, plastered inside a newspaper, but I could not help but wonder if the stigmatism associated with the GOP and Trump’s rhetoric could cause people to shy away from expressing their opinions publically. This is an issue I wanted to further investigate, but time constraints prohibited me from digging and asking more questions.
There was a protest outside the venue that consisted of a coalition of roughly 30 democrats, and they were contained in an area outside the main premises. The exchange of taunts between the protesters and the rally attendees was relatively mild compared to that of a college or professional football game.
Once the rally began, it seemed to be consistent with the other Trump rallies of the last few months. The crowd greeted him with a loud roar, cheers rang throughout when he emphasized some of his familiar talking points, and anger was expressed verbally toward Trump’s opponent, Hillary Clinton.
Overall, it was an experience, and I am glad I went. Will this experience sway my political opinions? Probably not. However, it did force me to become more understanding of this cycle’s electorate.
