The Donald Trump I saw is more dangerous than ever
Dispatch from former president's Iowa rally - paid for by Substack readers
(Trump has been hitting the campaign trail in Iowa. Photo credit: Wikicommons)
I don’t remember when I realised Donald Trump was a darn good speaker.
I think it was in 2016 at the Iowa caucuses, when I saw him ignite and delight crowds large and small. The only other candidate who generated close to such passion was Bernie Sanders.
Trump was not a great orator in the tradition of John F Kennedy. His language was not eloquent, his ideas not unique.
He was not asking people to consider what they might do for the country, but rather insisting the country had failed them.
It was all about grievance, real or imagined, and it was very effective.
His rhetoric delighted the quickly growing supporters.
Ever since, I’ve tried to see as many rallies as possible, to hear him, but more importantly to talk to his supporters.
Why do they like him, what do they think of the criticisms, the impeachments and criminal charges? Does he still excite them as much?
The short answer is yes. The most loyal supporters are still very much in love with the 77-year-old former president.
They laugh at his jokes, they hiss when he mentions Hunter Biden or Hillary Clinton, they roar when he says he needs their help to send him back to the White House “to finish what he started”.
(Trump has 30 point lead in Iowa over nearest Republican rival. Photo credit: Andrew Buncombe)
That’s not to say they’re not aware of the other candidates. They say Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley and Vivek Ramaswamy would all be better than Joe Biden. But those candidates are not Donald Trump. Their time will come.
The last rally I covered in person was in November 2020, at his final event of that year’s campaign, in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
It had been the same city where he held his final rally in 2016, when he narrowly won Michigan, along with Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, on his way to securing a shock win against Clinton.
Ahead of the 2024 Iowa caucuses, Trump has been hitting the state regularly. Given I often find myself in Minnesota, visiting my in-laws, when I saw Trump was to speak in Waterloo earlier this month, a plan quickly fell into place.
And a critical part of that plan was you - the readers of my Substack.
In the six months I’ve been a freelancer, I’ve sold plenty of pieces about Trump to different newspapers, but his mere appearance alone at an event will not guarantee a commission.
But the support - financial and morale-boosting - from people who have signed up to my Substack, paid for me to see the ex-president.
After being laid off after almost 30 years as a reporter, the jolt felt existential. If I had no one to write for, how could I continue to be a journalist?
(That is a privilege, I realise, given that millions lose their jobs and whose sole focus then turns to how they will care for their families.)
Being able to write here gave me an immediate outlet and an audience.
And so, thanks again to everyone for signing on and putting up the money for the Trump trip.
Was it money well spent? I truly believe it was.
(Like many Trump believes 2024 ‘most important ever’. Video: Andrew Buncombe)
In some respects, the version of Trump we see these days is similar to the one we’ve seen before.
He is quick to dismiss the criminal cases against him as a “witch hunt”, in the same way he used to talk about being impeached.
Similar too is the way he seeks to project himself as someone taking a hit for his supporters. They’re indicting and prosecuting him, but doing so to stop “our movement”.
In other regards, he is noticeably different.
Gone - today at least - are the hours spent complaining that the 2020 election was rigged. He says instead: “Let’s just say we had a very strange night”.
His attacks on his GOP rivals take up just a couple of lines, perhaps because he leads them by as many as 50 points.
He is still willing to launch into mistruths. At one point, talking about alleged voter fraud, he curiously claims it is impossible to buy groceries without multiple forms of ID.
Overall, his barbs seem less sharp, and his jokes a little lighter. When he leaves the stage, he does so after performing a little dance.
His supporters wolf it all up, laughing and cheering. It seems some have come primarily to be entertained, and Trump is always a first class entertainer.
The mood feels somewhere between a church service and a concert. There are various “warm up acts” in the form of local party officials.
But everyone is here for one person - Donald Trump.
The Trump campaign has used a number of songs to entertain audiences over the years.
Some performers felt Trump’s message was so antithetical to what they stood for, they sent legal letters asking him to stop.
For several years, the crowd would understand Trump was getting ready to make his way to the stage when they heard Macho Man by the Village People.
The song that always denotes he has arrived and is shaking hands as he makes his way towards the podium is God Bless the USA, also known as Proud to be an American. It was released in 1984 by the country star Lee Greenwood.
It is pure American exceptionalism, but it is the sort of song that can get stuck in your head whether you want it there or not.
Everybody knows the words. I’ve been to enough Trump events or watched them on TV, that I know most of them as well.
And I'm proud to be an American
Where at least I know I'm free
And I won't forget the men who died
Who gave that right to me
(Trump supporter and mother of four Kathy Fischels agrees with Trump that Gen Mark Milley should face death penalty for treason. Picture credit: Andrew Buncombe)
How does it feel to be at a Trump rally if you’re not part of the gang?
Most of the attendees in Waterloo are wearing Trump or MAGA regalia, be it T-shirts or baseball caps. I am sure a few Democrats or independents have slipped in to see Trump, but are keeping their opinions to themselves.
And as a member of the media? Trump still rages against“fake news”, but he does so with less gusto than he used to.
I really wanted to hear what they have to say about Trump’s challenges.
During the campaign in 2016 and then during his first term, as Trump banned immigrants from Muslim countries and sent troops to the border, reporters kept asking his supporters when would they break with him.
Would it be the Mueller report? Would it be when he was impeached? Would it be when he was impeached a second time?
Was there any red line voters would not cross?
We learned, that with some exceptions, all of these incidents merely strengthened his support. His supporters eat up his claims that the 91 charges he faces across the country are nothing more than a “witch hunt”.
After prosecutors in New York and Georgia brought state charges, and then special counsel Jack Smith brought federal charges, we saw Trump’s poll numbers soar. “One more indictment and I’ll have beaten Biden,” he said.
My visit to the Trump rally came days after he’d been condemned for suggesting General Mark Milley should face the death penalty for treason over two calls he had made to China.
(There’s a danger to ‘normalising’ what Trump says as typical political rhetoric when what he pumps out is anything but normal. Image credit: Andrew Buncombe)
The calls made by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff had been authorised, and made in the final days of the administration in order to ally Chinese concerns Trump might set off a nuclear device to detract from his political defeat.
Stunningly, no senior Republicans condemned the comments, despite the GOP proclaiming to be champions of the military. What did his supporters think?
“I agree with that,” said Minor Respond, a 62-year-old military veteran. “You have a job to do, and if you cross the line, you have to pay the price.”
Kathy Fischels, 62, a mother of four, claimed the impeachments and various criminal cases were merely efforts to derail his campaign.
Asked about his comment about Milley, she said: “If he did treason for our country, then he deserves to have the death penalty.”
There is a danger to covering Trump rallies as politics-as-normal, because what Trump says is not normal
Just think about this: the leading candidate for the Republican Party has suggested the death penalty for America’s top soldier. Just a few years ago, such remarks would have marked the end of any political campaign.
Trump may appear less vengeful than he did a couple of years ago, but within his spiel are dangerous barbs.
In Waterloo, he defended again his relationship with his “friend” Putin. He also claimed the Hamas attack on Israel would not have happened if he had been president.
At an event in Derry, Iowa, his language was especially toxic.
“A vote for Crooked Joe is a vote to turn the United States into a hotbed of jihadists and make our cities into dumping grounds very much resembling the Gaza Strip,” he said.
He vowed he would tighten up immigration and apparently allow only Christians to immigrate.
“If you hate America, if you want to abolish Israel, if you don’t like our religion — which a lot of them don’t — if you sympathise with jihadists, then we don’t want you in our country, and you are not getting in.”
Most shockingly, the people who turn out to listen to Trump appear all perfectly pleasant and unthreatening.
Nobody is wearing Klan robes. Nobody is frothing at the mouth. Rather, they’re teachers and farm workers and nurses. In 2020, more than 74m people voted for Trump.
There was recent mockery of one woman at a Trump rally who had claimed that Space Force was going to correct the rigging she claimed had taken place in 2020.
“The election, I believe, was stolen but we know that. Space Force has it all, Trump has all the information, it is going to be overturned,“ said the woman, attending a rally in Washington Township, Michigan.
Democrats are foolish if they mock such people.
They need to figure out what it is Trump is offering that makes them show up to his rallies, and then offer a better alternative.
A subset of Americans will always flock to see the guy selling "patent medicine", the magic potion, the cure-all. Then, they open their wallets looking for the easy way out. Trump is a patent-medicine salesman and his followers are destined to be dissapointed.
God help us if he gets back in..