What I Learned at a Trump Event in the South

When our Nashville couchsurfing hosts warned us getting around the city on Wednesday might be difficult because the President would be in town, my foreign friend immediately asked if we could attend.   I said we’d have to get tickets and they probably would be sold out already.   She googled and had free vouchers in hand within five minutes.

Oh.   Okay.   Let’s go, then!

You see, tensions are running high in America right now.   I have many friends and family who are avid Trump supporters.   They are very frustrated with many things in life and feel like Trump has the answers – finally.   I have many other friends and family members who are avid Trump detractors.   They are very frustrated with many things and life and feel like Trump is an absolute nightmare who is in the process of ripping America to shreds.   What strikes me most about both camps is their general reluctance to listen to anyone who doesn’t agree with them.   And to make snap judgements based on weak data — something they heard on Fox News or the Daily Show.

Because I think the U.S. is flooded with divisive hearsay, I really looked forward to standing in line and actually engaging with “the Trump supporters” as talked about in liberal media.   I looked forward to watching Trump speak with my own eyes, in person, from start to finish — not just whatever snippet conservative or liberal media chose to play.   I looked forward to watching the protesters demonstrate with my own eyes, seeing what their messages would be and how they were conveyed — not just the distilled version people get from their ratings-driven news source of choice.

On the way to the venue, I played a little profiling game I enjoy.   When abroad, it’s usually, “guess which country that person is from.”   On the Trump day, it was “guess whether that person is an attendee or a protester.”  My foreign friend rolled her eyes at me, while I tried to convince her that her lack of knowledge about American clothing brands and styles and cultural appearance choices made the game impossible for her, but not for me.   She maintained my conjecturing was bullshit.

The Big Reveal

Well, friends, the whole event was an absolute clusterfuck.   My eyes-on-the-inside informed me that security was ”˜a shitshow.’   The venue’s max capacity was 9,700.   Despite handing out 40,000 tickets, despite people having been in line since dawn, despite a line so big it snaked its way all over downtown Nashville, they never actually managed to fill all the seats.

I stood in line for hours in the springtime cold, furiously texting my smarty-pants  boy-crush on my Nokia for updates from the internet.   ¹I know, I know”¦ get a smartphone already.   No thanks!   Trump came, spoke, and left all while the herd outside trickled slowly forward.

Did we fail?   Well, not completely.   While I didn’t get to see Trump, and while I was so cold for so many hours that I fell ill for the next two days, I did get to interact with and observe my fellow attendees.   And I did get to see the protesters.

The Things I Didn’t See

By the end of the day, the crowd feature I found most riveting was the lack of smartphones.   Not the actual absences of said devices.   Everyone seemed to have them.   They were certainly the dominant time-keeping device.

A few times, Fox News alerts would come in and someone would read one out, gaining murmurs of approval from those standing near.   On two occasions, fake news alerts were read out and applauded.   How do I know it was fake news?   They were things like, “Hey guys!   Listen to this!   Trump is going to make cuts to the State Department, the EPA, and the New York Times!   It’s about damn time!”   (In case you don’t know, the New York Times is not funded by the government and is therefore uncuttable.  I mean, maybe billionaire Trump is friends with fellow Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim who owns 17% of the New York Times Company and Trump plans to call in a favor and get Carlos to slip his own business interests into a noose or something.  Or maybe Trump owns 16% of the New York Times Company and plans to leverage his minimal shareholder power to vote it into an early grave.  But for sure there is no way for Trump to use his presidential power to “cut” the New York Times.)

So yeah.  A few fake news updates.  But no one was zombied out on their phone.   No one was playing Candy Crush or cruising Facebook newsfeed.     No one was texting continuously, snapchatting, or scrolling through emails.

I don’t know if this says anything about the crowd or not.   One possible explanation: we were all pretty damn cold, standing there shivering on the coldest day of the week in the final throes of winter.   Not being a smartphone user myself, I have no frame of reference.   Where does the urge to maintain a comfortable skin temperature supersede the urge for a dopamine fix?

But hang on.   The real reason I was so stunned?   No one, with the power of all the information that can be had in the world in their pocket, was trying to figure out what was going on with the event we were all hoping to attend.   No one was looking up livestreams to see what was going on inside the building.   No one was reading local news updates.   No one was monitoring Twitter reports from those on the inside.   I know this information was easily available, because I was seeking it.   Every 20-30 minutes, I would check in with my smarty-pants boy-crush, and he would give me the latest updates.  But when people wondered aloud about what might be happening, I was the only one who had information to volunteer.

Even more shocking: when the speech began and we were all still trickling forward on the sidewalk, not a single person pulled up the live stream of the speech on their phone.   No one tried to hear the speech we’d been standing in line all day to see.   No one.   Not one single person.   Not one.

Perhaps “seeing a president” was the only goal for many people?   To be sure, when someone said the president’s motorcade might pass near our part of the line, 30% of those waiting began sprinting in the direction of the reported possible contact point.

Other Things I Saw

• Short Stack – I’m not a tall woman, but I’m toward the top-end of ”˜average’ at 5’7.” Usually it’s only when I’m in Asia or Australia that I regularly tower above others.   In line for the Trump event, I was in the 90^th  height percentile.   Interesting!   Didn’t get out into any other Nashville crowds, so perhaps this is just a regional thing?

• Patriots Gone Wild — a fascinating feature of my section of the line was a young man (18? 19? 20?) wearing nothing but red-white-and-blue flag boxer shorts, cowboy boots, an American-flag hat, and a red cape wrapped around his shoulders. The max temp for the day was in the 50s.   He had to be freezing his balls off — literally.   I started my, “Why are you naked?” inquisition by saying, “Hey!   Wow!   You forgot your pants!   What happened?”   He shrugged, saying he wore what he wore because he just “felt like it.”   Okay, then!

• Angry Zealots — It seems like a stereotype  about the average Trump supporter is that they tend to be religious — specifically Christian. So it struck me as rather odd that a few evangelicals saw this crowd of eager attendees as a perfect target for their proselytizing.   A handful of preachers stood at intervals with electronic bullhorns, their screams about the need to be saved pouring out miserable speakers.   A few times, the crowd commented among themselves that they agreed with the messages, but thought the zealots were preaching to the choir.

• Sweet Innocence — Given the likely Christian orientation of the crowd, I was stunned when a joke I made with a slightly religious reference confused the very-sweet woman with whom I’d been swapping small talk for hours. I was explaining to those around me how I’d figured out how much daylight remained, then showing them how to extend your arm and count thumb widths between the horizon and the sun, adding 15 minutes each time.   Then I joked, “Or you could just look up sunset time on your smartphone.   But when the apocalypse comes, the thumb trick will be a handy skill to have!”   In all seriousness, the very-sweet-woman said to me, “What’s the apocalypse?”

• ”˜Merican Meanies – It’s not just Trump supporters who let fly scathing and unfounded judgements about others.   In fact, just recently I’ve been shocked twice by a group of SJWs (Social Justice Warriors) who perpetrated the most ironic version of intolerance possible.   The most disappointing thing to me about my country is the angry entitlement that serves to divide us.   So I was not surprised at the event line’s hateful engagement of the protesters who walked silently by carrying signs.   Nor by ridiculous under-the-breath, baseless, seething comments about groups of passing protesters, like, “Not one of them has a job!”   (Huh?   Are you assuming that because they’re here on a weekday before 5 p.m.?   ”¦Like you?)  Yeah, not surprised, but always disappointed.   Am I wrong that America used to take pride in fairness?   Perhaps that was always a tenuous cultural value that has now melted waaaay to the periphery?

The title of this post is “what I learned”¦.” but I suppose that’s a bit click-baity since I don’t think it’s fair or possible to extrapolate solid conclusions from a single anecdotal experience.   So I guess I didn’t learn anything!  I did get a pretty healthy dose of observations to add to my arsenal from which I might fairly derive future conclusions.   But for now”¦ can we all just have a little bit more integrity?   Please?

Happy Travels! ♣

A note on perspective: why does this post seem to vacillate between neutral-ish and aimed at the left?  Those interested in the kind of travel information and perspective I offer tend to lean left.  If that’s not you, thanks for being here and sorry to semi-disclude you, yo.