Harris and Trump say America tanks if they lose. So why the exuberance at their rallies?
Shortly after entering the stage 91 minutes late for his rally in Atlanta this week, Donald Trump did what he couldn’t resist: going off on a tangent. This was clearly going to be an evening at improv.
He marveled extensively at what Elon Musk’s SpaceX rocket booster was like pulled out of the blue by mechanical arms upon his return. All that fire and smoke. “The coolest thing I’ve seen in a long time,” he told his audience. “Was that crazy?” Talk about the red glow of a rocket.
A day earlier in Erie, Pennsylvania, Kamala Harris bursting with energy and a dazzling smile on stage, and so did the thousands who saw her. No tangents.
She delivered a scathing critique of her opponent and refined the art of looking in disbelief at the man half the country might vote for. If she had held up a sign, ‘WTF’ would have been the expression on her face. Her audience was on a sugar high.
If next month’s election is the ultimate battle between good and evil, as we are told by both parties, why are all these people from Georgia and Pennsylvania dancing in the room and having so much fun?
Harris’s rhetoric is existential; According to her, the country’s foundation is in danger of crumbling on November 5. Trump’s always provocative words have become even darker, sometimes even with violent undertones.
But in a country sick of what American politics has become, thousands were marinating in it. Enjoy it. Make it a date night. Cocooned in it.
The Harris rally on Monday and the Trump rally on Tuesday took place on different planets, to use Trump’s phrase for the world each candidate offers on November 5. Trump looked forward by looking back, promising a return to the country “you were born in.” Harris was fiercely forward-looking.
At both events there were chants of “USA, USA” and love for America was in the air. But which America?
For U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds, who warmed up the crowd for the late Trump, this is the country where boys grow into men — “masculinity is necessary” — and girls become strong women who get husbands. Trump added as he spoke: “Transgender insanity will immediately disappear from our schools” if he wins.
For Harris, it is the country where people “have the freedom to love who you love openly and proudly.”
During the Trump rally, 31-year-old Jonathan Cordero, a former Bernie Sanders supporter who now supports the Republican, was asked whether he recognizes that Democrats are also patriots. He said yes, and compared patriotism to religion – different religions all dedicated to a deity.
“A person who believes in, say, Islam or Hinduism is completely committed to that belief system,” he said. “Same concept here: If someone is for Harris and chants ‘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 get into the Erie Insurance Arena wrapped around a city block. Once inside, people had more than two hours before the first speaker addressed them.
Many were on their feet for much of that time, dancing as an energetic DJ spun a club mix heavy on female artists like Katy Perry, Whitney Houston, Beyonce, Madonna and Taylor Swift.
People danced the Cha Cha Slide in their seats when the DJ asked. “Wow, we’re already halfway there!” the crowd screamed as Bon Jovi’s “Livin’ on a Prayer” came on with those lyrics.
Before the speakers started, Robert Cabaniss, a 28-year-old music artist from Pittsburgh two hours away, and his companion on a fishing trip showed up to support a strongly Democratic friend at the rally.
Although Cabaniss himself is not a pure party loyalist, he still supports Harris because “she fights for all of us” and in his eyes she is the only person who is running.
“It’s like, man, has he outgrown his shoe size yet?” he said about Trump and his “spoiled talk.” He continued: “I’m still waiting. It’s as if Peter Pan hasn’t grown up yet.”
As for Trump’s 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 about 90 minutes away from Buffalo, New York, after learning about the rally online. They waited in line for two hours before getting their seats, and Cox had no complaints about that.
“I’ve been having conversations with people all day, and I love it,” she said. “The camaraderie.”
The room was tense as Harris walked out and began a half-hour speech in which she discussed the touchstones of her campaign — her plans, biography, patriotism and the “brutally serious consequences” of calling Trump an “unserious man.” has come to be called, winning.
In a twist for her, she let the audience watch a video of Trump musing on the big screen use the military to suppress “the enemy within” – the political opponents, researchers and resistant bureaucrats he labeled as more dangerous than Russia or China.
“You heard his words coming from him,” she said. “He’s talking about the enemy in there, Pennsylvania. … He considers anyone who does not support him or will not submit to his will as an enemy of our country.” A lustful boos washed over the room.
Her rally goers were excited the entire time. Then she weaved through the crowd on the floor, shook hands and talked for twenty minutes.
“I think she’s great,” said Luther Manus, a 97-year-old veteran of World War II and Vietnam, as the arena began to empty. “And it is something, because what we had, we no longer need.”
The suburban setting outside the 2,800-seat Cobb Energy Performing Arts Center put a damper on the carnival hawker atmosphere that traditionally accompanies an outdoor Trump rally at a fairground.
But the usual merchandise was on display, such as the T-shirts that read “I vote for the thug and the hillbilly,” a reference to Trump’s criminal conviction and running mate J.D. Vance’s 2016 memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy.” .
“I just want to be around people who feel the same way I do,” said Lydia Ward, a 33-year-old makeup artist, mother of two and longtime Trump supporter. “I’ve never been to anything like this before. The weather is great, and we were able to get a sitter and make it kind of a date.”
The average attendee invested a whopping eight hours in Trump’s event, from joining the lineup at the home of Atlanta’s ballet and opera companies to watching him leave the stage as the 1978 song “YMCA” Village People sounded.
A screen above the stage flashed slides that few seemed to pay attention to. Some slides contain dystopian threats about the consequences of a Harris victory, targeting an America overrun by violent migrants. “Kamala’s border plan: Make America Haiti,” one shouted as a dog made its way through a litter-strewn street. “Kamala is responsible for a broken economy, a broken border and a broken world,” said another.
Whether it was because he was tired during his third event of the day or because he simply felt chilly, Trump was a bit calmer and shorter in his remarks than in some recent speeches, clocking in at 70 minutes. But he covered his bases.
He excited his audience with one-liners. He joined MAGA supporters in telling them his rich friends are “boring as hell,” even though one of the richest in the world, Trump supporter Musk, clearly fascinates him.
He mocked Harris for being married to a teleprompter and not knowing what inflation is ( she does ). He tapped into the sensation of group transgression, as when he said that among Democrats, “It’s all about…” The crowd finished the sentence.
A hearty ovation greeted one of his newer lines on immigration: “The United States is now an occupied country, but November 5 is Liberation Day.”
“I like the excitement,” said Kay Bomar, a retiree from Ringgold in northwest Georgia. “You can talk to these people about what you feel and they tell you what they feel. You can say what you think here and you don’t have to be afraid to offend someone because he feels something different.”
Cordero, a former Bernie Sanders supporter, plans to vote for Trump for the first time. “There is similarity,” he said. ‘Not in the literal sense, but in the sense of the energy they induce in people. They are very concerned with change.”
Cordero, who lives in the Atlanta suburb of Marietta and works in technology and advertising, turned out to be part of history.
“I’m Spanish,” he said. “I’m Puerto Rican, and there are people who would say that Latin Americans don’t like Trump, or that Latin Americans shouldn’t support someone like Trump. But I don’t agree with that statement.
“I think Trump has really reached all kinds of people this time by simply saying we’re going to get the economy to a good place. We are going to make our country safe again.”
Harris got under Trump’s skin in the debate by noting how his crowd can thin while he is still speaking. Some were released on bail on Tuesday evening, about 25 minutes into his much-delayed speech. Most of them stuck around.
Among them were Julius Adams, a black student with a collector’s disability, and his wife, Tanya Young-Adams, who delivers pizzas for Papa Johns and is white.
He is confident that Trump will continue to deport the immigrants who are “causing problems” even if he does not carry out the promised mass deportations. She is convinced of Trump’s plan to exempt tips and car loans from taxes.
“We have disabilities,” she said. “We can barely make ends meet buying groceries. And I have a car payment and gas is outrageous.”
Trump and Harris gave their supporters a night away from that kind of routine. In both Erie and Atlanta it was a welcome-to-the-tribe celebration, a performance and a chance to let loose.
The election results will show which exuberance turned out to be more rational.
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Thompson reported from Erie, Pennsylvania, Amy from Atlanta and Woodward from Washington.