Editor’s note: With Donald Trump taking the lead in the Iowa over Ted Cruz, it appears his path to the Republican presidential nomination seems more plausible than ever. With this in mind, we published this firsthand account of the Trump rally that took place in Macon on Nov. 30, 2015.
When I found out that Donald Trump was going to be in Macon there were several things that ran through my mind. The first thing I thought was, "Why?" and the next thing was, "That's hilarious." So, I registered for my ticket (it was free) and prepared myself for a night of ridiculousness. I put on my feminism T shirt, handed my friend my melanin shirt and went off to the rally.
Immediately, I realized that this may have been a mistake. For starters, I was surrounded by Confederate flag waving, "America is a Christian Country" believing, gun-owning conservatives and to make matters worse, they were drunk. They weren't belligerent drunks but they were drunk enough to make me feel slightly scared. Anyway, we went through security, found our seats and got mentally ready for the event.
The opening prayer began and never have I heard such an aggressive prayer. It was full of sweeping claims about "America being off track" and needing to "return to God." To be fair, the prayer was probably average and the aggressive touches were most likely from the guy behind me shouting "AMEN!" The speeches following the prayer were even more "yikesy." One guy informed us that it "gave him great pain that the leader of the free world [Obama] was at a climate change summit and said that it was the biggest threat facing us." I'm sure he was implying that this was not, in fact, our biggest threat. Amidst the crowd’s applause I suppressed my hardcore eye rolls and chose to scoff. To top off the night’s incredible opening acts, Herman Cain gave a final introductory speech. He informed us that Trump was a good person, and probably said some other stuff, but to be honest I quit listening. I started to wonder how much he was paid to be there. And then I wondered if it physically hurt him to say any of the bull he was saying.
Finally, the opening acts were finished and there was still no Trump. Instead, I had to witness off-beat clapping and people dressed in head-to-toe Confederate flags. Overall, the environment was quite scary. There was no way to know whether the people there really believed every word of this nonsense, or if they were like me; casual schmucks that needed a good laugh. Not knowing the exact thoughts and intentions of the people around me was uncomfortable and frightening.
After waiting for a good 5 minutes, His Highness Donald Trump finally arrived. The announcer yells, "Please welcome the next President of the United States, Donald Trump" and I rolled my eyes. Of all the things he could have started with, he chose to start by telling us he was not a racist. To prove it he had his black friend come up and verify that he was not a racist. He proceeds to boast about his meeting with African American pastors (which he describes as "full of love", but was not an endorsement by any means) and continues to claim that he is what's best to close the racial divide. To no one's surprise, I rolled my eyes.
The rest of the night was about as ridiculous as I expected. He mentioned ISIS about 8 times, did an awful Obama impersonation about 5 times and bad-mouthed every other candidate. What confused me was his lack of solutions. He pointed out countless problems with the way the government was run and the solutions proposed by other candidates, yet never actually introduced his own plan. Trump would say, "REPEAL OBAMACARE IT DOES NOT WORK!!!" and the crowd would cheer. No one was asking how or what he would replace it with, they were just cheering. The cheering was accompanied with a "USA" chant and added to the atmosphere of ridiculous.
I guess none of it was really surprising (or informative) but I did learn something. Trump’s toupée looks worse in person.
A liberal in a den of conservatives
