I really wasn’t supposed to be there—standing behind Trump at the Ohio rally. My cousin’s wife came down with the flu, so he asked me along. I’m not sure if he knew my opinions—I pretty much keep that to myself in this little town, no matter how much it pains me—or if he did, perhaps he just wanted me to suffer. With relatives, it’s always love-hate.
Yes, good ol’ Tommy is a Trumpkin, like many folks here, MAGA cap and all. During the campaign he filled his yard with 13 Trump/Pence signs—one for each of the original colonies, he’d say. Breaking our unwritten rule of no politics at family gatherings, he’d go on about Trump this and Trump that. No matter the absolute idiocy of his talk, I’d bite my tongue. It sometimes wasn’t easy.
When Tommy asked me to the rally, I thought he meant as part of the audience, and I suppose he thought that too. So, I said, why the hell not? I despised the Trumpkins—well, those not related to me, at least—so I thought it might be a good laugh. And they’d never detect me as the enemy: With my pot belly, my grizzled face, and a MAGA cap from Tommy, I’d fit right in. It doesn’t take much to make me a redneck.
When we arrived and showed our invitations, we were led to a room off the stage and joined a line of a dozen or so other Ohioans—the first indication something else was up. A young woman came around and engaged us in conversation. I let Tommy do the talking, and he was happy to effuse about Trump. Then we were sent again through metal detectors and asked to sit and wait.
After the young woman gave us a pep talk, telling us we basically just needed to stand and look fondly on Trump, she led us out onto the stage and onto risers behind the podium. The hall was already packed, and when the crowd saw us file out, they began wildly clapping and cheering. Tommy and I found ourselves in the front row, almost directly behind the podium, and we looked at each other in disbelief. He was ecstatic; I was nauseous.
Then Trump walked out onto the stage, and the Trumpkins went totally wild. What a pompous ass, I thought, bracing myself for an hour or more of this misery. I realized that up to now, all I had heard were sound bites of Donald Trump, and I wondered if I could handle a full speech—with him literally within spitting distance! He started out, “Oh, I love the state of Ohio. I’m thrilled to be back here with so many great patriots.”
It wasn’t long before he got to the stupidity. Bragging about the tax bill, he said, “Remember I said we’re going to be saying Merry Christmas again, and I said I was gonna give you a big Christmas present.” He turned back to us to get our response, and I tried not to look disgusted. Tommy nudged me to applaud. I reluctantly obliged.
Continuing with his stream-of-consciousness, mostly of erroneous claims, he moved on to steel: “And we’re saving the steel, and a lot of steel mills are now opening up because of what I did. Steel is back—it’s gonna be back—and aluminum is back too!” What? No mills are opening up! And you’re already changing your mind on the tariffs! This is complete bullshit.
And then on to sanctuary cities and MS-13: “Hillary wouldn't have liberated those towns. We liberated those towns, and the people are cheering. It is like a war. It is like if you got liberated as a country. It is crazy. So we are doing a great, great job. We are loving it. We are making tremendous progress. Today I'm calling on Congress to stop funding sanctuary cities so we can save American lives.” I was growing more and more furious.
“And on November 8th 2016 Ohio voted for the 45th president of the United States,” he bragged, spreading his arms and basking as the crowd went wild, including those surrounding me, stomping their feet, waving their signs, shouting “Trump, Trump, Trump!” I was finding it more and more difficult to feign enthusiasm, looking, I’m sure, very much out of place. I truly was sick to my stomach.
“It’s much easier, by the way, to act presidential than what we’re doing here tonight, believe me. And I said with the exception of the late great Abraham Lincoln, I can be more presidential than any president that’s ever held this office. That I can tell you.” Good Lord!
“We have done more than any first term administration in the history of our country. We have. You take a look at what we’ve done: regulations, tax cuts, federal judges … If Crooked Hillary got elected, you would not have a Second Amendment, believe me. You’d be handing in your rifles." The crowd then began chanting: “Lock her up! Lock her up! Lock her up!”
He rambled on, and then it was the Russia investigation: “It is one great hoax. No, Russia did not help me, that I can tell you, OK? And by the way, folks, just in case you're, like, curious, no, Russia did not help me. OK? Russia. I call it the Russian hoax, one of the great hoaxes.” This is a bald-faced lie, and these people are buying it!
Next he was on to North Korea: “Well, I’ll tell you, we did a great job on the Olympics. President Moon of South Korea said, ‘Without Donald Trump, the Olympics would have been a total failure.’ It’s true, true. Might as well say it; nobody else is going to say it, right?” For God’s sake, did the president of the United States just say that? What a delusional, narcissistic jerk!
“That Washington, D.C., they’ve got a lot of evil there, but we’re getting it out, step by step—a lot of evil. A lot of bad people. A lot of fake media—look at them. Fake, fake media.” The crowd began booing. How can these people believe this crap? I was shaking at this point, and very, very angry—angrier than I think I have ever been.
And then it just happened. I couldn’t help myself. I was livid. I shouted out, “You, sir, are a jackass! A goddamn jackass!”
Trump heard me, everyone on the risers heard me, Tommy heard me and turned to me, shocked. The crowd below didn’t seem to hear me, above the din. Trump stiffened, bristled, and began to turn toward me, but then thought better of it. He started to stumble over his words, lost his line of thought, and then fell back on his old standby: “Oh, Crooked Hillary … Thank God, we don’t have Crooked Hillary.” The audience started booing, giving him a minute to regroup.
The people on the risers soon came around from their initial confusion—How could one of our own (wearing a red MAGA cap!) say such a thing?—and were about to attack when two Secret Service agents rushed in from the wing, grabbed me, and walked me offstage. Tommy, angrier than anyone, followed. Trump, on seeing me restrained, regained his nerve: “Oh, we have a traitor in our midst! A traitor! Get him outta here! Get him outta here!” The crowd started booing again.
I think Tommy would have strangled me if the agents hadn’t surrounded me. They gave me a stern lecture, but they couldn’t hold me—I was just exercising my First Amendment rights after all—so they walked me to the exit and, thinking Tommy was in on this, told us both to never come back. Tommy wanted to abandon me, to let me find my own way home, but finally told me to get in his car. “I’ll never forgive you for this goddamn stunt!” he barked. Our drive home was fast and silent. He dropped me off at my house without a goodbye.
It wasn’t long before all the relatives and then the whole town knew about my “stunt.” I was fully expecting to be tarred, feathered, and run out of town on a rail. For a while, the telephone didn’t ring, and family gatherings went on without me. Of course, not everyone in town was angry at me, but I think all thought they needed to ostracize me. For anyone who breaks the rules, small towns can be lonely places. The silent treatment went on for a month or more.
But then things started to change; people in this town started growing a spine. At first it was late evening phone calls from friends and relatives, telling me how proud they were. Eventually we began to realize that there are more like-minded folks here than we ever knew, and we stopped holding back. Last Friday morning I walked into the local diner and was greeted by applause. Yes, some of the patrons still gave me dirty looks, but we don’t worry about them anymore.
Maybe there is still hope for small town America.