Would you like it if I told you that they were nutters? Because I can do that. I can tell you that I stood in line for over two hours, queuing to get into Donald Trump’s rally in New York, and a lot of people there were insane.
I can tell you about the woman I spoke to who wore a bright blonde wig, a denim TRUMP VANCE cap with a bedazzled American flag, and a little bow tie. She’s from the city and has loved Trump her whole life; back when she was eight years old, she met someone who was his limousine driver. She’s loved him ever since.
Oh, and she hates immigrants. She thinks that, right now, America’s “the worst it’s ever been”. She blames the “socialist, communist system”.
I can tell you about the woman I met after that, who played with her “Defend Liberty – 1776” bracelet and explained to her friend that big pharma companies only sell TV ads so the media can have enough money to keep lying about Trump.
I can also tell you that I saw an “I’m voting for the felon and the hillbilly” jumper, and overheard a man saying that “Obama is the puppet master; he’s pulling the strings”. Does it make you feel better, me telling you all that? Do you feel safe in the knowledge that, well, every society’s bound to have some nutcases, and of course America can rustle up a few thousands of them on a sunny Sunday?
That’s what I was hoping to write anyway. I wanted to play a one-woman game of “spot the lunatic” and keep winning.
That’s not really what happened. I stood there for hours that felt like days and, mostly, everyone around me looked normal. There was a young woman who asked her mum if, after the event, they could go and get some Shirley Temples. “I’ll get you anything you like, darling,” she said.
There were a couple of young Jewish guys who kept trying and failing to find their friend, until one of them had the idea of waving his torah up in the air. There were couples, young and old, people of all ethnicities, and more polished white women in their 30s than you’d see at a farmers’ market.
I spoke to Johnny, a 23-year old who’d come over from New Hampshire with a couple of his friends, and he told me his only presidential vote so far had been for Joe Biden. Something changed when Robert Kennedy Jr got on the scene, though; he “started talking about a lot of things that I resonated with, like making our food systems healthy”.
So when RFK decided to back Trump, Johnny got on board. His cap read “MAKE AMERICA HEALTHY AGAIN”.
A middle-aged woman near him also had one of those, in a light olive colour, to match her tasteful jumper. They liked that Tulsi Gabbard, a former Democrat, had jumped ship. It’s nice when people from different parties work together, was their conclusion.
“We’re one big family”, a blonde woman in her 30s said at one point. Later, as a Latina woman walked past shouting “fuck Trump!”, she and her boyfriend pointed out that she didn’t exactly look American, did she? Then they talked about something else.
The queue sometimes moved, but mostly it didn’t. Most people were wearing Trump merch and comparing caps, models and fonts, as if they were waiting for a band.
“This is like a rock concert,” a woman whispered to the person next to her. “Trump is the biggest rock star there is.”
Inside, the show had started and those lucky enough to get in were laughing as a comedian mentioned “a floating island of garbage, I think it’s called Puerto Rico”.
We weren’t the lucky ones, in the end; the people I queued with for most of the afternoon got stopped yards away from Madison Square Garden. Full capacity has been reached.
Some people left. Others kept asking, again and again, why they couldn’t get in despite having registered for tickets and waited for hours.
I nearly broke at that point, watching them all. I wanted to ask them why they couldn’t see they’d got cheated, and were lining up to get cheated again on November 5.
I kept my mouth shut because the queue taught me one thing; even seemingly normal people can be too far gone for anyone to do anything about it. I’d listened to people talk about Kamala Harris having no relevant experience and about the importance of voting for the one candidate who isn’t a liar, and it had felt like being on a bad acid trip.
For a moment, I tried to hold on to the barrier and look at the screen showing the rally. I had to really crane my neck to see Rudy Giuliani, because there was a bin lorry in the way.
“I’m not gonna do conspiracy but I’m not not gonna do conspiracy…”, he began saying, and I realised I’d had enough, and left.
