Being alone, brown and non-American at a Trump rally

“Wear red, don’t utter a word, go with a white friend” – I kept repeating to myself as I finalized the plans, half expecting to get assaulted and fully expecting to get racially abused.

The understanding behind the above three precautions, reached after conferring with several of my well-wishers, was this: the red would camouflage me as a supporter (I was told I should pair it up with the right merchandise), keeping my mouth shut would prevent people from knowing I didn’t speak American, and a white friend could probably protect me if things got really bad.

Given my identity and the fact that I inexplicably ended up taking none of the precautions (the only conscious decision was to not wear the merchandise), I was a sitting duck at the latest Trump rally in Green Bay, Wisconsin. This rally was to be the first after Mueller report and Trump planned it to escape WHCD, so fireworks were expected. I was scared and anxious as fuck, but happy that I would get the real picture – what’s the worst that MAGA rallies have to offer, and how accurate is the media-driven fear surrounding them? – even if it came at the cost of losing a tooth or two.

Alighting the free-on-Saturday public bus a few hundred metres from Resch Centre, the venue of the rally, I saw a sea of white people, far greater in concentration than I’ve seen anywhere in America. The heads shaved, the beards long and the paunches large – the age demographics among the 10,000+ crowd were clearly in favour of older people. A teenage girl’s t-shirt said, “Raised Right”, which I thought was a brilliant pun. A vast majority was wearing MAGA merchandise. “Should have listened”, I thought to myself.

Queue outside Resch Centre

A loudspeaker alternated between blaring some of Trump’s most quotable quotes – “Is there any place that's more fun than a Trump rally?” – and a female voice that touted his support for first and second amendments. There were also calls for protestors to stay in the zone allotted to them. I didn’t spot protestors, though.

I walked towards the venue expecting the t-shirt slogans to get bolder. My eyes were on the lookout for “Fuck the immigrants/Go back to your country motherfuckers” or some more colourful variation of it, but almost to my disappointment, none such were to be found.

To join the queue, I had to pass by innumerable people, but was mighty surprised at having got no askance looks. I was scared that someone might push me out of the queue to replace me, but the queue culture turned out as strong as anywhere I’ve seen. The merchandise sellers were almost all black or latino, and everyone in the queue chatted away merrily with them. The topic of discussion among those at the rally was anything but politics. All I heard was the usual drivel about vacations, family and friends.

Before I could double check that I wasn’t at an Obama rally, I got confirmation that this was indeed a Trump rally: there was a wearable button featuring Hillary’s caricature saying, “Life's a bitch, don't vote for one”. Then, someone handed over a pamphlet to me which claimed that Trump had saved US from the greatest force in the world, the “British Empire”, and that US should collaborate more with Russia and China.

There were other, more pleasant confirmations too: a black merchandise seller, when asked to sell a MAGA cap for $5 instead of $10, retorted, “this is Donald Trump, man, not Bernie Sanders. There ain't nothing free here.”

About my resolve to keep quiet so as to not give away my accent? A few minutes into standing in the queue I felt safe enough to shed that pretence. I talked to several people around me, told them I was Indian, though stupidly maintained the cover that I was only a tourist and not there to take away their jobs. I am absolutely certain, though, that telling them the truth would have made no difference whatsoever.

The crowd management was pretty good, and it didn’t take me more than 45 minutes to be inside Resch Centre. I was a tad surprised to find that alcohol wasn’t being served for the day, and I’m not sure whether this is a protocol followed for all political rallies.

Inside Resch Centre

I have to say that the atmosphere inside was radically different from what it was outside (picture below). The first speaker I heard was a black woman – not Candice Owens – who belted out the usual tropes of “No Collusion”, “Fake News” etc. The crowd chanted “Lock Her Up” and “Build The Wall” as if to bring the roof down. The moment the speaker mentioned Obama and Biden (probably in regards to the Iran Deal), the chant switched to “Lock Him Up”, and I’m curious to this day about which of the two men they wanted behind bars (I’m hoping after due process). Maybe they should have just chanted “Lock Them Up”, but alas.

After surveying the fast-filling venue, I picked a corner seat to avoid being in the middle of supporters, and soon a mother-daughter duo took their seats next to me. I was positioned in a way such that Trump would have his back to me. There was a small contingent of people, very close to the podium, who were standing. Undoubtedly these were the apostles to Jesus Trump (I make that analogy hoping that there’s a Judas among them). For some reason, only Rolling Stones songs – some interesting history here – played every time there was a hiatus between two speakers.

One of the speakers was a Republican Congressman from Wisconsin – probably Mike Gallagher – who also happened to be a veteran. Of course, he started off by calling America the "greatest country in the history of the world", after which cum-cleaning machines had to be called in to deal with the collective orgasm of a 10,000 strong crowd. He thanked Sean Duffy, another Republican Congressman from Wisconsin, for being a “great catholic” because he had “done his duty” by producing seven kids. Planet Earth grumbled in disagreement.

The last speaker before Trump was his son, Don Jr. My greatest dilemma at this stage was whether to rise up and applaud the prick’s entry, which I hadn’t done for any other speaker till then, but of course this guy was different. I chose to do none of that, and faced no consequences at all.

Jr’s first act was to get people to chant “CNN sucks”, after which he spent considerable time talking about “collusion delusion”, the “devil” called Iran, and exhorting people to vote in 2020. Next, he attacked AOC for not being able to name the three branches of government before entering Congress, at which the old couple sitting right behind me laughed hard and called her “stupid”, though gave up on naming the three branches after several close attempts between themselves. The woman in the couple continued mumbling “we need to” or “we need that” at literally everything Jr pulled out of his ass. I wanted to turn around and say, “we need to….know the names of all three branches of government”, but decided against it.

For some reason, all of the speakers before Trump targeted Biden variously as old, inefficient, swampy, Obama ally etc. Maybe this signals who Trump considers the greatest threat, though Trump himself did not attack Biden much when he spoke.

There was a long break between Jr.’s departure and Trump’s arrival. I got chatting with my neighbour, the 20-something daughter in the mother-daughter duo, and told her about my nationality while still – stupidly – maintaining my tourist cover. She was a Green Bay resident, at her first Trump rally, and said she didn’t follow politics though could not have missed the chance of “being in the same room as the president”. I think she could have skipped the part about not following politics because that last bit made it obvious.

Trump entered at about 7:15 PM. It seemed everyone in the crowd wanted a piece of him. I was more nervous this time about not rising up and applauding, but nevertheless stuck to my guns without inviting trouble.

He began by congratulating Sarah Sanders, standing a few feet away from him, on being “the best” press secretary, and invited her to say a few words. In a (not at all unbelievable) show of pettiness, he commented that he wouldn’t want her becoming “too popular” as soon as she yielded the stage.

Trump asked, “By the way, Saturday night, is there any place that's more fun than a Trump rally? Can you imagine Sleepy Joe, Crazy Bernie…” and I had to grudgingly agree with him because this craziness was indeed a lot of fun, and I would never attend a rally by either of those two folks simply because they’re too predictable.

I thought he brilliantly killed two birds with one stone when, talking of Warren, he said that, “…it was found that I had more Indian blood in me than she did. And then it was determined that I had none, but I still had more.”

During his 80 minute speech, there was collective jeering when Trump brazenly lied – even by his standards – about Democrats killing babies after birth, and attacked India and other countries several times over trade, which made me want to sneak out of the room.

My neighbour, who took me for a Trump supporter, offered a MAGA poster to me which I promptly refused. Later on, I accepted one offered by her mother, sitting next to her, more out of courtesy to an older person than anything else, and placed it by my side.

After the end of the rally, I rushed out quickly to avoid the crowds and stood in a short queue to get popcorn. Right in front of me were two brown guys who talked loudly in what sounded like Arabic (but was probably a close cousin). I was a tad scared for them but nobody seemed bothered. I’m not sure whether their MAGA caps were meant to be a camouflage. Regardless, I don’t think there was any threat to them.

I stopped by for about half an hour at a restaurant across the road from Resch Centre to get some food. The place was crawling with hundreds of people stepped in the most interesting MAGA merchandise – one lady walked in wearing a cap saying “D.E.P.L.O.R.A.B.L.E.” in shiny alphabets – and some of the reporters who had been covering the rally. A cocktail of Trump supporters drunk on alcohol and his lies, mixed with “fake news” reporters – this was the ideal setting for a showdown. But no, nothing at all even here. Folks were nice enough to offer me their glass of water while I was looking for one.

I left the place feeling stupid for having wildly overestimated the risk. Surely the media-created narrative is not an accurate representation of reality, which is not to say that my account is entirely accurate either. I think what helped most was the absence of protestors at the rally (at least I didn’t see any) coupled with the fact that the rally wasn’t in a southern state (although I’m sure the rally had people from the south too). The point is, you should check things out for yourself.

There was, though, one piece of truth in the whole saga – there’s no place more fun than a Trump rally.