TRUMP RALLY ASHEVILLE
Today was my first ever Trump rally and probably the last. I’ve always wondered what a Trump rally must be like and this was my chance because this rally was only 15 minutes away in Asheville.
I really wasn’t that interested in the rally, itself. While I watched it later on North Carolina PBS it wasn’t Trump’s presence or speech that I was interested in, I had heard him before, always the same. In fact when I watched his speech on PBS later in the evening I fell asleep. In 2016 I was shocked by his wild rants, but now they make me drowsy.
It was the people who come to a Trump rally that interested me. I arrived at 12 ready to photograph the costumes people were wearing, almost as if I were photographing a Halloween party.
People had been lined up starting with April Owen’s and her nephew the day before. I wasn’t allowed anywhere near the thickly packed line outside the Thomas Wolfe Auditorium. There were fences on both sides of Heywood Street with the rally goers cordoned off on the far side. I followed the line along but at the corner of the Heywood Hotel the fences ended and from then on I could walk right through the line, photographing not too obviously, right and left.
But an odd thing happened, everyone was super friendly and most were eager to be photographed. We joked about the heat and the length of the line. Everyone was in a good mood. In fact, it seemed that that was why they were here and willing to stand for hours in the hot sun, they were having a good time in line and were going to have a great time once they got in. And it occurred to me that if they had driven very far that many were probably going to have a vacation in the mountains at the same time.
Everyone was so friendly and happy. It might have had something to do with the bright red MAGA hat that I was wearing. I was one of the tribe and welcomed in. I never saw any protesters or even disgruntled Democrats. They had all stayed home. Some people posed to show the front of their MAGA shirts and then turned to show me the back.
Once I was accepted in the tribe everyone was smiling and super friendly. Everyone was obviously a very good person and thought of themselves that way.
But what astonished me a little was the vitriol that people were expressing for the liberals. They called Kamala Harris names that they, as very nice people, would never call anyone to their face, calling her “hoe” a euphemism for whore. They wished all kinds of violence on Biden and Harris, often in the name of Jesus.
What I was getting was a lesson in tribalism, just by putting on a red MAGA hat I was one of the good guys. If I had put on a Harris/Walz hat I would have been reviled as being the enemy and no one would have let me take their photograph. I might have been chased away. Here I was, not being able to understand how anyone could idolize Trump, discovering that these were all perfectly pleasant, rational, friendly people on a summer holiday.
BILLYBABA’S WANDERING 