Shortly after taking the stage 91 minutes late for his rally in Atlanta this week, Donald Trump did what he can’t help but do: go off on a tangent. It was evident that this was going to be a night of improvisation.
He marveled widely at how Elon Musk’s SpaceX rocket booster was held aloft by mechanical arms upon its return. All that fire and smoke. “The coolest thing I’ve seen in a long time,” he told his audience. “Was it crazy?” Let’s talk about flashy things.
A day earlier in Erie, Pennsylvania, Kamala Harris was full of energy and dazzling smiles on stage, as were the thousands of people who were there to see her. Without going off on a tangent.
She delivered a searing critique of her opponent and perfected the art of being incredulous about the man for whom half of America could vote. If I had held up a sign saying “what the hell?” captured on it, it would have captured the expression on his face. His audience was very enthusiastic.
If next month’s election is the ultimate battle between good and evil, as both sides tell us it is, why are all these people in Georgia and Pennsylvania dancing at the event site and having so much fun?
Harris’s rhetoric is existentialist: the very foundations of the country are likely to collapse on November 5, according to her assessments. Trump’s always provocative words have become even darker, even with violent undertones at times.
However, in a country that is fed up with the direction American politics has taken, here were thousands of people soaking it up. They enjoyed it. They went out on a date night with her. They wrapped themselves in it.
Harris’s rally on Monday and Trump’s on Tuesday occurred on different planets, an expression of Trump to the world that each candidate offers on November 5. Trump looked forward with his eyes back, and promised a return to the country “where you were born.” Harris was firmly focused on the future.
At both events, chants of “USA, USA” (the initials in English for the United States) were heard, and love for the nation was in the air. But which United States?
For Rep. Byron Donalds, who kept the crowd entertained as Trump arrived, it is the country where boys grow up to be men — “manliness is needed” — and girls become strong women who get husbands. And after he arrived, Trump declared, “Transgender madness will be gone from our schools immediately” if he wins.
For Harris, it is the country where people have “the freedom to love who they love openly and proudly.”
At the Trump rally, Jonathan Cordero, 31, a former Bernie Sanders supporter who now endorses the Republican candidate, was asked if he recognizes that Democrats are patriots, too. He said yes, and compared patriotism to religion: different beliefs, all devoted to a deity.
“Someone who believes in, say, Islam or Hinduism, is totally committed to that belief system,” he said. “Same concept here: If someone is for Harris and they’re chanting ‘USA,’ it’s because that’s their vision of where the country should go.”
More than four hours before Harris took the stage, the line to enter the Erie Insurance Arena stretched around the block. Once inside, people had more than two hours to spare before the first speaker addressed them.
Many stood for much of the time and danced while an energetic DJ played a club mix featuring many female artists such as Katy Perry, Whitney Houston, Beyoncé, Madonna and Taylor Swift.
People danced the Cha Cha Slide in their seats when the DJ asked them to. “Wow, we’re halfway there!” chanted the crowd when Bon Jovi’s “Livin’ on a Prayer,” whose lyrics say that phrase, began to play.
Before the speakers began speaking, Robert Cabaniss, a 28-year-old musician from Pittsburgh, two hours away, and his partner on a fishing trip showed up to support a staunchly Democratic friend at the rally.
Although Cabaniss is not a fully committed Democrat, he supports Harris because “she fights for all of us” and, in his opinion, is the only adult running in the race.
“Does he wear adult shoes anymore?” he said about Trump and his “spoiled child talk.” And he continued: “I’m still waiting. “It’s like Peter Pan hasn’t grown up yet.”
As for Trump supporters, he said: “I think they love their country, but not in the right way.”
A few sections away sat Angela Cox and her adult daughter, Taylor Norton, who had driven from Buffalo, New York, about 90 minutes away, after learning about the rally online. They were in line for two hours before reaching their seats, and Cox had no complaints about it.
“I’ve been talking to people all day and I love it,” he said. “The camaraderie.”
The room was electrified when Harris appeared and began a half-hour speech in which she addressed the cornerstones of her campaign: her plans, her biography, her patriotism and the “brutally serious consequences” if Trump, whom she has come to call, wins. a “not very serious man.”
In an unexpected twist, he had the crowd watch a video on the big screen in which Trump mused about using the military to suppress the “enemy within” — the political opponents, investigators and reluctant bureaucrats he said were more dangerous than Russia or China.
“They heard his words, spoken by him,” Harris said. “He’s talking about the enemy within, Pennsylvania. … He considers that anyone who does not support him or who does not bend to his will is an enemy of our country.” Boos echoed in the room.
Those attending his rally were excited the entire time. Afterwards she made her way through the crowd, shook hands and chatted for 20 minutes.
“I think it’s magnificent,” said Luther Manus, a 97-year-old World War II and Vietnam veteran, as the stadium began to empty. “And it’s something, because what we had we don’t need again.”
It was a date night in Atlanta
The upper-class suburban setting outside the 2,800-seat Cobb Energy Performing Arts Center helped somewhat curb the carnival atmosphere that usually accompanies an outdoor Trump rally in a fairground setting.
But the usual merchandise was on display, such as T-shirts that said, “I vote for the criminal and the redneck,” a reference to Trump’s criminal conviction and his running mate JD Vance’s autobiography, “Hillbilly Elegy.” (Elegy of a Villager) and published in 2016.
“I just want to be around people who feel the same way I feel,” said Lydia Ward, a 33-year-old makeup artist, mother of two and longtime Trump supporter. “I had never been in anything like this. The weather is great, and we were able to get a babysitter, and we turned it into a date of sorts.”
The typical attendee spent up to eight hours at Trump’s event, from waiting in line at the headquarters of the Atlanta ballet and opera companies to watching him walk off stage while the Village People’s song “YMCA” was blaring. 1978.
A screen above the stage showed slides that few seemed to pay attention to. Some contained dystopian threats about the consequences of a Harris victory, which focused on an America overrun by violent immigrants. “Kamala’s border plan: turn the United States into Haiti,” one proclaimed, while showing a dog making its way through a garbage-strewn street. “Kamala is responsible for a broken economy, a broken border, and a broken world,” said another.
Whether because he was tired at his third event of the day or simply feeling relaxed, Trump used a more moderate tone and was shorter in his remarks than in other recent speeches, totaling 70 minutes. But it covered its main themes.
He made his audience laugh with witty phrases. He made common cause with supporters of his “Make America Great” (MAGA) slogan when he told them that his rich friends are “boring as hell,” even though he is one of the wealthiest in the world — Musk, who is a Trump supporter, is clearly fascinated by it.
He mocked Harris for being married to a “teleprompter” and not knowing what inflation is (she does). He took advantage of the emotion that transgressions carried out in groups give, as when he said that, in a Democratic government, “everything becomes….” The crowd completed the sentence.
One of his new lines on immigration was met with effusive applause: “The United States is now an occupied country, but November 5 is liberation day.”
“I love the enthusiasm,” said Kay Bomar, a retiree from the northwest Georgia town of Ringgold. “You can talk to these people about what you feel and they tell you what they feel. Here you can say what you think and not be afraid of offending someone because they feel differently.”
Cordero, the former Bernie Sanders supporter, plans to vote for Trump for the first time. “There are similarities,” he said. “Not in the literal sense, but in the sense of the energy they provoke in people. “They are very focused on change.”
Cordero, who lives in the Atlanta suburb of Marietta and works in technology and advertising, came to be part of the story.
“I’m Hispanic,” he said. “I’m Puerto Rican, and there are some people who say that Latinos shouldn’t like Trump, or that Hispanics shouldn’t support someone like Trump. But I don’t agree with that statement.”
“I think Trump, this time, has really reached all kinds of people just by saying we’re going to get the economy to a good place. “We are going to make our country safe again.”
Harris irritated Trump in their debate by pointing out that the size of the crowds at his rallies may begin to dwindle while he is still speaking. Some walked out Tuesday night, 25 minutes into his much-delayed speech. Most stayed.
Among them were Julius Adams, an African-American student who collects a disability pension, and his wife, Tanya Young-Adams, who delivers pizzas for Papa Johns and is white.
He has faith that Trump will follow through on deporting immigrants who are “causing problems,” even if he doesn’t carry out the mass deportations he has promised. She is sold on the Republican’s plan to exempt tips and auto loans from taxes.
“We received a disability pension,” she said. “We can barely survive trying to buy food. And I have to make car payments, and gas is outrageously expensive.”
Trump and Harris gave their supporters a night away from that kind of hardship. In Erie and Atlanta it was a tribe welcome party, a performance and a chance to let loose.
The election results will tell which of the euphoria of these rallies turned out to be more rational.
