I’m not a very political person. I follow politics and, of course, plan to vote this November, as every American should. But I don’t usually talk about or post about things that are happening in the political world.

Last week, Donald Trump came to High Point University. When I first heard the news, I was mad. How could our school allow someone who preaches hate and bigotry to speak on our campus which, supposedly, supports diversity and equality? I was ready to protest along with so many other students. But then I changed my mind.

Every time I’ve talked to people who are Trump supporters about why I dislike Trump, they also tell me that media portrays Trump in a bad light and that he actually isn’t as bad as the media says he is. But let's be honest, every reason to hate Trump has come from Trump's mouth himself. There are so many videos and paper interviews where hate spews straight from his mouth, as well as tweets and Facebook posts from his account.

The media isn’t to blame, Trump himself is.

So instead of protesting, I decided to go to the rally so that I could see, in person, how bad he really is.

My friend and I were planning on going later, around 11:00 am, but ended up getting there at 9:30 am instead because the venue was filling up. It was pretty much full by 10:00 am and we ended up getting seats in the very back.

I felt out of place.

I’m sure there were a few people there like me, as not a fan of Trump, but if there was, I didn’t see them. The crowd was full of people with signs and shirts with the slogan “Make America Great Again" printed on them. I was surprised at how many people I knew there that I didn’t think would have been Trump supporters.

Before the rally, there was an announcement that was made that said while Trump supports freedom of speech, anyone who protested or did anything seen as "protesting" during the rally would be removed. The announcer then said to not get physical with any of the protesters, to which half the crowd booed in response. The voice told the crowd to wave up a sign and yell, “Trump! Trump! Trump!” until a police officer came to escort a protestor out of the venue.

This scared me.

First of all, it was so contradictory. “You have freedom of speech, but…” There shouldn’t be a but. Either way, we have freedom of speech or we don’t. The announcement sounded like something you would here in a dystopian novel. Like political propaganda from Big Brother or President Snow. And the fact that so many people were mad that they were told they couldn’t get physical with a protester just shows you how violent Trump supporters are.

Trump himself wasn’t the scariest part of the rally. The way the fans acted were. When Trump himself came on, he was an hour late and only spoke for 20 minutes. His speech was on immigration laws and keeping our country save and immigrant-free. And, of course, the wall was also a big part of his speech. Trump also spent a lot of time bashing Hillary Clinton and President Obama. I get that it's a political campaign and saying bad things about your opponent is inevitable, but he did it way too often. He compared Clinton to a drug dealer and made a joke about her not being able to "take the heat."

Trump also said he wanted to fight for equality, but everything else he said made his statement contradictory. Another thing that bothered me was when Trump said immigrants are trying to make us give up our traditions and that we need to keep our traditions by not letting in any immigrants.

I'm sorry, but immigrants aren’t trying to get rid of our traditions. They are just trying to share theirs with us. Immigrants are trying very hard to assimilate but Americans don’t want them to. Trump also referred to all refugees as terrorists and said that they will worsen our quality of life.

Like I said, Donald Trump himself wasn’t even the scariest part of the rally. It was the fans. It wasn’t really anything they said or did, it was just the energy that came from them. You could feel hatred and bigotry. You could feel that they were ready to fight anyone who wasn’t a Trump fan.

It felt like what I can only assume a Hitler rally would have been like. The way they idolized Trump like he was some sort of God. It scared me. It made me sick. Physically sick.

I regret going to the rally. It wasn’t worth it. I should have listened to my initial thoughts and went to the protest instead. But now that I have seen Trump in person and have seen how bad he is without any media “bias,” I can now have a retort whenever people say the media twists Trump’s words to make him look bad.

I’m not going to try and tell anyone who they should vote for. Everyone has their own opinions, beliefs, and ideas. Let's be honest, there really aren't any prime choices this year. But do you really want someone leading our country when all they do is belittle women, make fun of handicapped people, make false generalizations against mexicans, Jews, and Muslims, and threaten to take away basic human rights? Do you want someone who lies and steals money from innocent people? Someone who promotes violence and hatred? Someone who acts just like a leader from any dystopian novel ever written? Instead of “Making America Great Again,” which is basically repeating history-- something every history class told us

not to do-- we should be Making America Better.