"Talk about the wall!" screams a lady a few rows behind me. Donald Trump ignores her request and continues his speech. Trump is on his best behavior today. More shouts reign down from the rafters. "Crooked Hillary! Say Crooked Hillary!" pleads another spectator from across the auditorium. The Donald struggles mightily to resist his audience's pleas. When his fan's break into an impromptu chant of "lock her up," Trump diffuses the hostility. He raises his hands and motions for the crowd to quiet down, "You know what were gonna do, even better? We're gonna beat her on November 8th. We're going to beat her. That's even better" he responds.
As Trump continues his diatribe, his fans holler out one-liners, imploring their candidate to respond in his usual brash manner. Finally, twenty minutes into his speech the Republican nominee cracks. Trump invokes the name "Hillary Rodham Clinton" as he talks about special interest groups, the crowd boos. The Donald's eyes light up, he leans in closer to the mic. "Hiilllarry Rodddhamm Clinnntoon" bellows Trump in a deep gravely voice. More positive reinforcement from the peanut gallery, the audience claps and hollers in approval. "Croooked Hilllary" he adds. The crowd goes crazy. The gloves are off. The Donald Trump Show has arrived in Scranton.
I arrive in Scranton, Pennsylvania on July 27. The drive up from Washington DC takes me about three hours. Trump comes into town riding high a week after the RNC. Famed political pollster Nate Silver predicts that if the election were held today, the GOP nominee would win.
Today, the Democrats prepare for the third day of their convention one hundred and twenty-five miles away in Philadelphia. The DNC prepares for President Obama's address tonight, and a host of speakers tomorrow, including the little-known father of a fallen American soldier from Maryland named Khizr Khan.
It is two hours before Trump is scheduled to speak and there is no doubt that the king has arrived. “We Do Metal Roofs Supports Trump” reads a white and blue advertisement posted at my first right turn into town. It’s 12:30 on a Wednesday afternoon and traffic is bumper to bumper. A middle aged black guy wearing a red “Make America Great Again” hat walks back and forth between the stalled cars peddling Trump hats and T-shirts.
The Lackawanna College Student Union, a 3,000-seat community college auditorium, hosts the event. A temporary barrier blocks off the street in front of the venue. A police officer waves traffic around the impediment. A huge bus bearing Trump’s image and some of his most memorable and provocative quotes sits on the blocked off street. A group of the candidate’s supporters donning his paraphernalia poses for a photo in front of the bus.
By 1 PM every vacant parking space within a half mile of the auditorium is filled. Some Trump fans who lack the motivation and/or the agility to walk more than ten minutes, even park in blatantly illegal spaces, conceding an inevitable citation. The Scranton meter maids swarm the area like hungry lions. After 15 minutes circling downtown I am able to find street parking across the street from a Goodwill store in a neighborhood of dilapidated brick houses.
The 91-degree weather mixed with a healthy dose of oppressive east coast humidity drenches my gray shirt in sweat. The line to get inside the venue stretches around the building and spans at least four full city blocks long. I take my place at the back of the line. Almost the entire crowd is white. Many are elderly. A large percentage of the spectators wear some form of Trump gear. Vendors move up and down the line peddling everything from T-shirts, hats and buttons to pretzels and cold water bottles.
The campaign gives away way more tickets to their events than the venues can hold. Thousands of people are left wandering around cities like human billboards in their Trump gear. Hillary Clinton blitzes the swing states with TV ads. Trump fills towns with walking zombies sporting his gear.
At the benign end of the merchandising spectrum are the red “Make America Great Again hats” and the generic white “Trump 2016 shirts.” However, vendors sell plenty of gear for more hostile Trump supporters.
One of the more popular buttons reads “Hillary for Prison.” A multitude of people wears T-shirts with the same slogan. Some other provocative slogans on the memorabilia sold are “Girls just Wanna Have Guns”, “Hilary Sucks But Not Like Monica!” “Trump 2016: Finally Someone with Balls,” “Bomb the Hell out of ISIS,” “Hilary’s Lies Matter,” “Feel The Wall” and “ KFC Hillary Special: 2 Fat Thighs 2 Small Breasts…Left Wing.”
Generally, the spectators in line act pretty subdued. Most people engage in small talk with the group they came with. Others introduce themselves to the folks around them and engage in quiet political discussions. I don’t hear any vitriol or bigotry.
A man selling comic books approaches me. “Take a look at this,” he says, passing me a homemade yet well-drawn book of his political observations. I quickly scan the pages. The main characters of the story are Obama, Hillary, her husband Bill, and Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid. The book depicts Bill as a sex-crazed maniac and a pathological liar. The former president appears throughout the story in his boxer shorts, with an exaggeratedly long nose, and accurately red face. The illustrator draws Reid as half-man half-Rhinoceros. I politely decline to buy the book and pass my copy to a group of three elderly ladies with thick Minnesota accents standing behind me.
It’s way too hot for vocal opposition. A grand total of three protesters pickets the event. They stand quietly on a lawn across the street from the venue.
The event opens with a bunch speakers that Donald Trump would almost definitely categorize as "losers" if they were supporting anyone else. Among the orators are Eric Trump's semi-articulate prep school buddy, a local clergy member who also works as a long-distance trucker and the rambunctious head of the Pennsylvania Republican Party. The keynote speakers of this nondescript bunch are two mouth-breathing local congressmen Tom Marino and Lou Barletta, who feed the crowd fifteen minutes of red meat.
The wait begins. Trump's scheduled speaking time passes. Still no sign of the guy. The room permeates with anxiousness. The AC isn't working so well. The air inside the auditorium fills with tension and body odor.
(The story is continued in The Day Before it All Fell Apart: My Afternoon with Donald Trump. Part 2)
