The NPR Politics Podcast - Step Inside A Trump Rally

Episode Date: March 25, 2024

The presidential campaign is heating up, and candidates are hitting the road to convince people to vote for them. Today, we take a look inside a Donald Trump rally — the sights, the sounds & the scenes — and talk about who still is motivated to attend a political event for a candidate who is & remains well known. This podcast: White House correspondent Deepa Shivaram, political correspondent Danielle Kurtzleben, and senior political editor & correspondent Domenico Montanaro.This podcast was produced by Jeongyoon Han & Kelli Wessinger, and edited by Casey Morell. Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi. Listen to every episode of the NPR Politics Podcast sponsor-free, unlock access to bonus episodes with more from the NPR Politics team, and support public media when you sign up for The NPR Politics Podcast+ at plus.npr.org/politics.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Support for this podcast and the following message come from Autograph Collection Hotels, with over 300 independent hotels around the world, each exactly like nothing else. Autograph Collection is part of the Marriott Bonvoy portfolio of hotel brands. Find the unforgettable at AutographCollection.com. Hi, this is Mary in Seattle, Washington, where I just spent six hours whaling all of the teak on our 37-foot sailboat. This podcast was recorded at 1.10 p.m. on Monday, March 25th, 2024. Things may have changed by the time you hear this. I will be in the cockpit having a coffee and admiring my handiwork.

Wow. I was like expecting bookshelf, like something, and then we just went full boat. My handiwork. Wow. I was like expecting bookshelf, like something, and then we just went full boat. That's so impressive. That's very impressive. I'm pretty jealous, not going to lie. Yeah, same. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast.

I'm Deepa Shivaram. I cover the White House. I'm Danielle Kurtzleben. I cover the presidential campaign. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. All right, so today we're going to go on a field trip of sorts as the election heats up. Both President Biden and former President Trump are obviously on the road. They're holding rallies to gin up support for their campaigns.

And the events that Trump holds have always been a bit different. Danielle, these Trump rallies have been going on on and off since the 2016 campaign. I'm curious, why did you want to go deep on one now? Right. Yeah. So like you said, I've been I've been covering campaigns since, gosh, I first became a reporter in 2010. So my first campaign I covered was 2012. So I've covered a lot of campaign events. Right. But since I came back from maternity leave last fall, I have been covering Trump rally after Trump rally. And I keep coming back from them and leave last fall, I have been covering Trump rally after Trump rally. And I keep coming back from them and saying, look, there's a lot of stuff to report on. I'm doing my regular stories.

But I think people just need to experience what these are like. These are so singular. And I'll be honest. I've been telling all of my friends, no matter who they support, no matter what their politics, you should go to a Trump rally if you have the opportunity. Because first of all, a Trump rally is a way to understand the strength of the bond he has with his crowds, which is so tight, I would argue that it's near unbreakable. It is wildly strong. It is a personal bond. But the other thing is that to see a Trump rally is to understand a very fundamental truth of American politics right now, which is politics as an identity. And I have never, ever seen a candidate other than Trump that has had this kind of an identity pull over his crowds, like over how they dress, how they talk, what they think. They follow him. It is not just politics. It is I am a Trump voter and I am here hanging out with all of my other Trump voters. And so, yes, the viral comments, all that stuff,

of course it matters. I do not want to diminish that. But my argument is there's so much more to understand about politics by seeing and experiencing one of these things. And just for context, Domenico, I mean, most people, most voters are not necessarily experiencing this campaign or Trump's campaign in person. I mean, this is a unique perspective to be at one in person rather than seeing, you know, clips on Twitter or something like that. Yeah. And most people, frankly, aren't experiencing the campaign.

They can shut themselves off from it if they don't want to think about politics. Most people don't have the kinds of relationships with other people of different political stripes to really understand the arguments. They might get into an argument with a family member or something who believes something differently than they do, liberal or conservative, and then sort of maybe shut themselves off and don't have a further understanding of it. But I think Danielle's right that when you're awash in it at a Trump rally, there's a very different sense and understanding of why there's such a deep connection with Trump. So let's get into what you saw, Danielle. You went to the start of the

line at this event where people were waiting to get in. What did it look like? So for context, this is Rome, Georgia. It was a couple of weeks ago. Rome, Georgia, by the way, is in northwestern Georgia. It is in the heart of Marjorie Taylor Greene's congressional district. So this is a very, very far right part of America. This is a very red place. So with that context, the rally was to be held in the sort of civic arena, multi-purpose place that has concerts and sporting events. And people were lined up outside starting overnight. People were lined up. I got there at 630 in the morning and I was a latecomer. But yes, like there are, for example, some people who try to make it to as many Trump rallies as possible. The first person I met was a woman named Sharon Anderson. She's a part of a group called the Front Row Joes. And this is a group of people, they have shirts, they say Front Row Joes. Trump often calls them out at his rallies.

And this was her 50th Trump rally in her life. And when you go to any Trump rally, you can see a whole flock of Front Row Joes at them. And there are different groups of people like this who try to go to multiple Trump rallies. But one I also wanted to pull out was Lauren Tucker. This was her first Trump rally. And when I met her, she was maybe 20th in line, but she had one of her kids with her. They were both sitting in like little camp chairs and he had an iPad and he was playing on it. They had clearly been there a while.

And I asked her, why was it important to her to bring her kids along? This is something that A, they're going to remember and B, this're going to remember, and B, this is going to be talked about for years. For the next hundred years, this is going to be talked about. And my kids will be able to say, hey, I was there. My mom took me to that. I saw that man. People want to bring their kids into this lifestyle. Another thing this woman said was, all the people here in line with us, it's been like a family. They were so welcoming. And there's very much a sense among Trump voters at their rallies that they are among their own, right? That they are part of a similar flock. And you can even see it based on

what they're all wearing. Everything you're describing is, one, as someone who covers Joe Biden, so different than a Joe Biden rally or any other political rally that I've been to. And two, I'm like, you know, we're in our Taylor Swift era's tour. This is how people talk about concerts. Yes. This is how people talk about fandom. Like when you are part of a, you know, you really love this one soccer team or you really love this one artist. Like you show up really early. You're wearing the merch. You meet people who are also fans. Like this is not giving political presidential candidate. Right. Absolutely. So I talked to this one woman who sells merch at Trump rallies. Her name is Amber Johnson. And she told me that before she sold merch, she used to travel around and sell things at fish concerts and dead and company concerts. And this has kind of the same vibe. But I've been

thinking through, OK, what separates Trump fandom from other fandoms, especially non-political fandoms, so like Taylor Swift or Fish or even a lot of sports fandom? And it's I mean, the merch is a thing that I really land on. Right. Because when I go to a Trump rally, I often walk by these tables and look at what is being sold. And in addition to the plain old Make America Great Again hats, you have a lot of really confrontational merch. I talked to a 16-year-old. Her name was Carly Godfrey. She came with her grandmother, and they were wearing the same shirt. And it said, I'm a Trump girl. I make no apologies. And so I asked her, wait, do you feel like people want you to make apologies? And here's what she said. Being in high school, so some people are

like, why are you doing that? I mean, a lot of people, this is going to sound really sad, but a lot of people don't stand for black. But I do. I always will. Like there's very much this feeling of you're going to probably get up in my face for being a Trump supporter. And that's part of our identity is that we get pushback. That reinforces that I'm right in being a Trump supporter. To me, that like you see it on the merch, but that very idea is so central to the Trump identity. I mean, I want to add one more thing. One quote that really struck me at this rally, it came from Representative Barry Loudermilk. He is a Republican congressman from

Georgia, and he was talking about some work he did on a committee that was trying to shift blame away from Trump regarding January 6th. And he said this. You know, doing what is right isn't easy. And sometimes it's not popular, but it's always the right thing to do. And people will always try to stop you from doing what's right. To me, that is it right there. To me, that is the fundamental, one of the most fundamental things that makes the bond between Trump and his supporters so strong is if you try to argue with me, it proves that I'm doing the right thing. I think going to these kinds of rallies, talking to people who are staunchly pro-Trump really helps you understand why you don't see movement within polling or otherwise to see why or how Trump's supporters move. I also think that this is an example of why it's likely that Trump still has a strong base of support and his election numbers aren't very

different. His polling numbers haven't really changed very much. When I'm talking about his favorability ratings, a majority of people don't like Trump, but significant number, 45, 46, 47% say they do have a favorable opinion. And you haven't seen that move very much. And it's why when you look at 2016 versus 2020, Trump got 46 percent in 2016, 47 percent in 2020. And why that's likely to be the same kind of outcome in 2024. OK, we're going to take a break. And when we're back, we're going to focus on the message of these rallies. All right, and we're back. Domenico, let's go back to the way beginning here in terms of how a Trump rally starts.

Here's what folks will hear in that room. Ladies and gentlemen, please rise for the horribly and unfairly treated January 6th hostages. Oh, say can you see by the dawn's early light, what so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming? I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. All right. So for context here, that is the national anthem being sung by people who were imprisoned for their role in attacking the Capitol on January 6th. And then, of course, you hear a former President Trump there saying the Pledge of Allegiance. What does that all mean here? You know, this is a potentially insidious technique that Trump is using because, you know, national anthems are the kinds of things that you can use to boost nationalism, to unify when there might be, you know, wedges of disunity that could appear. It's like the USA chants at a hockey game or at a Trump rally, which are often used to shout at the press,

for example, because of criticisms or questions that have been lodged toward Trump or investigations that have happened. And this is a really different turn than we've seen, you know, in past years, obviously, you know, one is January 6th happened after the 2020 election. But the fact that he's been able to turn what happened on January 6th, what everybody saw on television with people climbing the walls of the Capitol, the siege that took place that was inspired by Trump, you know, it's quite the turn that he's been able to do to try to keep his base together because it is definitely a huge vulnerability of his, the fact that he inspired what happened that day and the kind of violence that took place.

And just to add there, you will notice that in the introduction, that ladies and gentlemen voice, it calls the people that attacked the Capitol, it calls them hostages. Once again, the campaign is reframing itself, its supporters as victims. Again, they're forever embattled. And these guys, these people who were put in jail for attacking the Capitol are the victims here. That is a wild rhetorical turn. It is wild. And this goes back to the 16-year-old

you talked to, right? Like, I will always stand for the flag even if other people don't. Like, I'm patriotic, but they're not. I love our country. They don't. I'm, you know, going to stand up for what I believe America is and everyone else has a trash idea of what this country is. And it is like that huge, huge, huge division, you know, the idea of us versus them that keeps coming up that rhetoric of who is them? What does that mean? And, you know, to sort of back up a little bit, this isn't exactly new in elections or campaigns. But, you know, I want to hear from both of you on this, this division that comes up from that kind of rhetoric. It is uniquely Trumpian. Yeah. And this has been an identity of Trump's the entire

time, you know, that he's been around. I mean, you know, using immigrants to say that they are, you know, changing the culture of the country is the point that he's trying to make, that there is this, you know, very strongly held white grievance, cultural grievance that Trump knows to play on as there's a demographic change that's been taking place in this country. One that, by the way, the right can't do a whole heck of a lot about, even if you shut down the border today. A majority of kids are non-white in this country. And that's something that is a huge threat to the cultural identity of a lot of whites who feel like they've been left behind, the culture has changed for them. And it really stems back to President Obama,

the first black president being president. And he's talked about this previously about the kind of country that he was pointing toward versus the grievance that kind of built up underneath that. To add on to that, this wasn't at this Rome rally, but a week after that at a rally in Ohio, Trump really hammered home that sort of us versus them division, especially regarding immigrants. For example, during one part of the speech, Trump went off on a tangent about illegal immigration. If I had prisons that were teeming with MS-13 and all sorts of people that they've got to take care of for the next 50 years, right? Young people that are in jail for years, if you call them people. I don't know if you call them people. In some cases, they're not people, in my opinion. But I'm not allowed to

say that because the radical left says that's a terrible thing to say. They say you have to vote against him because did you hear what he said about humanity? I've seen the humanity and these humanity, these are bad. These are animals, okay? And we have to stop it. And once again, there's his rhetorical armor of people are going to argue against me, but I'm right. Like that is his go-to tactic all the time. Yeah. And I mean, look, in a lot of ways, this is, as you guys have both pointed out, very similar, if not the exact same rhetoric from 2015 and 2016, that we are using very racist things to describe immigrants, to describe people who are not white. And this has been going on for years. I'm curious, Domenico, if we can kind of wrap this in here. The political messaging in the years that Trump has been speaking like this and using this strategy from 2015, let's say, to now, has that changed? I think it's very similar to what we've heard from Trump in previous years. I mean, his inauguration speech, let's remember, was about American carnage, something that was very different from what a lot of people were seeing in the

country. But Trump has taken this dark vision of the country, often with violent rhetoric attached to it, that he's continued to do. I don't know if we can, from a data standpoint, say it's ramped up or not, but he certainly makes it a consistent feature of all of his rallies, especially when it comes to migrants who've come to the country. Clearly, January 6th, as we noted, happened after 2020. So it's something that he talks about quite a bit more in talking about that. And I think that some people would point to the fact that he's sounded more curious about authoritarianism and how to implement a stronger presidency, at the very least least within the United States.

One thing I would add as far as how he has changed from 2016 and 2020 is that now he has been indicted four times. Now he has the 2020 election behind him, which he says he won. He, of course, did not. We can say that a million times and we will. And also January 6th, as Domenico pointed out, like three things that he sees as data points for why they, them, the deep state, whoever is against him. And I really think that while he has always had grievance at the center of his political identity, now he has more things that he points to and that his supporters can point to as reasons you should believe that the world is against him. This does a lot to deepen his affection with his base. But remember, the

primaries are over. And now we're looking at a general election. We've got a long time to go, seven and a half months until a general election, until election day, I should say. With a general election happening, very different kind of audience. Independents certainly see his actions very differently than Republican voters do. And it's going to be interesting to see how this sort of changes the dynamic as you start to hear Trump more and more

and become part of, again, the mainstream of news that we're going to have to hear about because he's been so out of the picture for the last few years when it comes to his campaigning. He's going to be much more front and center the way he was in 2016 and 2020. And does that change the calculus at all for some of these folks who might be upset with President Biden for various policy positions? And do they see Trump as an urgent enough threat to say not vote for a third party?

We're going to leave it here for today. I'm Deepa Shivaram. I cover the White House. I'm Danielle Kurtzleben. I cover the presidential campaign. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.