Trump rallies were never the way they were depicted. Sure, there’s always the asshole contingent (and that’s who the media focused on), but 99% were just nice, friendly people.
That thought crossed my mind (there was one other female who died in the crowd - apparently the cause is still unclear). But my impression from the video was that while many women attended the rally, it was almost all males who actually breached the Capitol. Someone should ask AOC for a headcount since she stood face-to-face with danger.
I watched the video of Ashley being shot by the police before they took it off of YouTube. She was climbing through a window as everybody else was entering the building. She was the only fatality from January 6.
On Trumps reaction to stand and stay for a second. Some people when they get hit don’t really get scared so much as mad. I’m talking about getting punched in my experience. It’s obviously a different thing to get shot but he did also get tackled. I can only assume that he’s the mad type. There was probably so much adrenaline pumping in the moment, I wouldn’t be surprised if the only word he could coherently say at that point was fight.
I don’t think it had much to do with political talent. I think if you took 20 guys and put them through that. 12-16 of them would react similarly.
Who knows. He gets to tell the story and embellish it moving forward so it will be interesting to see how he describes it in the future.
Oh for sure: you’re absolutely pumping with adrenaline at first (and it lasts a little bit too, not sure exactly how long but more than a few seconds for sure) and that kills/seriously dampens the pain and fear responses that seem like they’d be the obvious first feelings in that situation. I’ve never been shot, but have had a gun to my head (robbery/mugging situation) and have been in plenty of fistfights, and yeah, you don’t realize just how freaked out and/or hurt you are until after the thing is over.
The can’t feel anything bit is so real haha. It’s happened to me once or twice where you get hit hard enough that it shakes the adrenaline out for you though. The one time I had trouble chewing right for like a week. That guys fist was nearly the size of my face. He was 6’8” and we’d gotten into it while playing basketball. I learned a couple things that day 😂😂.
As a woman, I’d also say that 13 out of 16 women would respond with “flight” not “fight” (or cower and hide).
It’s probably evolutionary. Of course, there always outliers — the 4 flighty men and 3 (or maybe 2) fight-y women —but by and large, accurate and understandable.
To get into the rank punditry vein, it's crossed my mind that putting Trump through those New York trials has backfired politically (I'm not talking about their legal merits, just their political effects). I think these may have been the first times in his life that he's had no choice but to sit down and shut up, and I think that's a vital skill he's sorely lacked. I don't know how much one can learn to mitigate their impulses at his age, but it certainly seems like something there has changed. (It's also conceivable he's feeling older and less fiery in general, or some combination of the two.)
I just read Ross Douthat’s long interview with Vance in the NYT. The headline is “What JD Vance believes”. I still have no idea what JD Vance believes.
Sarah is absolutely right about the debate not piercing through the hyper progressive media bubble. I have considered myself pretty liberal for a long time. I vote for Democrats. I was talking to a friend who gets her news from lefty Twitter. She said that she was frustrated with all the pundits and politicians who are saying Biden should step down, because "if they would just say he is fine, people would believe them and he would not be losing." She also said she thought Democrats had a pretty good chance until the debate reaction ruined it.
I just said that I thought that is the split in the democratic party. The people who already thought it was a tough race and that Biden might not be able to pull it off are calling for a change now, while the people who thought he was doing well are hesitant to replace him.
Her reaction was insane. She just screamed at me for five full minutes about how we all just have to get in line and back him no matter what. She told me he can speak in complete sentences. She claimed that Trump is just as incoherent, and that if the standard is clear speaking then the papers should have already been calling for Trump to step down. All this highly insightful information was delivered at a scream. All because I expressed an opinion that I hold because I think replacing Biden would give the Democrats a better chance of *actually winning.*
I have never before given a moments thought to the idea that Trump Derangement Syndrome is real, but man.
Yeah, left-leaning people are absolutely as capable of political insanity as right-wingers, and in my experience they’re more prone to react to bad political developments with fear—which is counterproductive because it makes you sorta shut down—where right-wingers seem more prone to a kind of stirred-up-hornet’s-nest anger response, which is also bad but, politically speaking, at least tends to make you do *something* that just *might* help the situation. Your friend’s response sounds like an outgrowth of the fear that I just KNOW she’s been gripped by deep down: make like a turtle and hole up in your shell, shut out the scary information and pretend it isn’t real, etc. If you weren’t her friend she would have simply dismissed your views outright—call them right-wing propaganda or whatever and then, if this was online, block you and never have to hear from you again—but it sounds like actually hearing an opposing case from someone who she knows isn’t a troll really set her off.
I think about this kinda stuff a lot because I’m a left-of-center person myself, and it really bums me out to see some of the people I’m supposed to be making common cause with act like this all the time. It does actually make me feel some empathy for the non-crazy right-wing people who are always having to answer for the Jerry Falwells and Steve Kings and Donald Trumps of the world, whom they mostly can’t stand but have to play ball with. Not unlimited/complete empathy, tbh—some of their beliefs are flatly indefensible in my view—but still, I get it.
(I don’t think it’s just “TDS” though; people were absolutely losing it in the Bush years, which were worse in some ways because the people in the administration were actually competent at running the bureaucracy. Which is yet another reason I worry about Trump 2.0: his people have been working on solving their competency shortfall for years now. Having Trump again, but with his own Dick Cheney and a bunch of actually skilled/capable staffers, is a deeply concerning prospect, IMO.)
DC is clean by American standards, but there are stark contrasts in neighborhoods. There are many areas that were destroyed during riots in the '60s and were starting to come back, but there has been some backsliding. The Anacostia is cleaner than it used to be, but would you swim in it? I wouldn't.
DC is not a huge city and of course has many touristy areas and many ritzy residential neighborhoods, but the bad parts of the city are really bad, by any measure.
JD Vance is a fusion between Oren Kass style right-coded economic populism and Claremont Institute authoritarianism. He's very good at it but not an electrifying speaker, as last night's speech showed. Ezra Klein just did an interview with Oren Kass if you want to know more about that angle. The Claremont Institute approach is best understood in the first paragraph of this essay:
"Let’s be blunt. The United States has become two nations occupying the same country. When pressed, or in private, many would now agree. Fewer are willing to take the next step and accept that most people living in the United States today—certainly more than half—are not Americans in any meaningful sense of the term."
Kamala is underrated. She would hold up very well in a debate against Vance or Trump. Just watch some of her questioning of nominees in the Senate.
She's been hamstrung by the VP role having to be in sync with Biden in everything she says, and a a little intimidated by the media after her terrible Lester Holt interview. (The solution to that kind of mistake is just to go on TV more often so that one appearance doesn't define you.) Elaina Plott did a good profile of her in the Atlantic last fall, and Ezra Klein had Plott on his podcast a few weeks ago.
Meghan is right that her background was ill-suited to the BLM moment, but that context has changed a lot since then.
I've been watching Destiny since 2016. I was shaking my head when I saw the jokes he's been making on twitter but I was not surprised. Destiny is an asshole and an edge lord. If you tell him something is offensive, he'll laugh in your face. He's a contrarian who is genuinely bored by people that agree with him. He is extremely high in openness and disagreeableness. He makes disgusting jokes all the time.
He is actually incredibly principled. For example, in 2020, in the middle of his "lefty arc", a debate ensued over his casual use of the n-word. His position was that you shouldn't call people slurs, but words aren't magic, and he doesn't care if people are offended when he uses it in a joke. This led to a bit of a maelstrom in the streamer world including the publishing if his so-called "n-word manifesto". The point is, this guy is immune to social pressure, and if he is convinced of a position, he will stand his ground. If he gets attacked personally, he will get down in the mud. A not-so-concise summary of these events can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7XGOtOSWe4
Another example. He was banned from Twitch due to his stance on trans women in sports. Before the ban, he was seen as an ally of the trans community and one of the most effective debaters against "TERFs". Even to this day, he is generally supportive of medical transition, even for minors, but he thought a recently transitioned male who has gone through puberty competing against females perhaps isn't the most fair thing in the world. He got into heated arguments with TRAs. Insults were thrown around, and he was publicly pressured to change his views. But his mind was made up. The far left staff at Twitch banned him (I'm curious what the rate of trans identified persons at Twitch is). Here is a representative debate (somewhat similar to the twitter spaces he's been engaging in lately): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPss2z6ua1Y
So what is going on right now with Destiny? Has he lost his mind? Perhaps. But I think I have a sense of what is going through his head.
1. Trump demonstrably tried to subvert the democratic process in 2020, and would be willing to do so again
2. The immunity case (which he has already spent over a dozen hours reviewing and speaking with liberal lawyers about) has him freaked out that Trump would have the power of king if elected again. (For me, this is where his mind has broken)
3. Conservatives have celebrated violence and engaged in heated rhetoric for years
4. He can't stand hypocrisy and has no issue getting dirty
Destiny legitimately believes people supporting Trump are supporting someone who tried to overthrow an election. These people have tried to undermine the democratic process and are traitors to the country. These same people celebrate violence and bodily harm (i.e. Bushnell) when it happens to their political opponents. Why should he afford his political opponents the respect they would never show his side?
For the record, I don't agree with his take on the immunity case, as I see the attempts to imprison subsequent presidents a greater threat that SCOTUS nips in the bud, but given you have his beliefs on the case I can see why he's acting the way he is.
Regarding the effectiveness of the security detail, Chris Williamson did a great no-nonsense interview with Tim Kennedy here, who is definitely a subject matter expert.
It’s funny that the assassination attempt is weirdly not much of a story. It’s all surface level and obvious. A 20 year old kid shot at Trump and missed by a hair. We don’t know why he did it and will probably never know. He seized the moment for a great photo op. It will be good for him in the election. The end. The failure of the secret service isn’t the striking part of the story but it’s the only part that would really benefit from deeper investigation. The rest is all readily apparent. My Twitter feed has already moved on to talking about JD Vance.
I’m actually not surprised they want to downplay the story, it doesn’t serve their agenda. By September/October there will be some big anti Trump story that the media will be in lockstep on and this will be completely disregarded.
I don’t think the media is intentionally downplaying the story out of anti-Trump bias. It was all over the front pages. My point is more that, by its nature, the story just doesn’t give the chattering classes much to chew on.
I'm going to have to disagree with you on that one. I think they are deeply entrenched against anything remotely Trumpian, I think they see it as a threat to their power and legitimacy.
It was NOT on the front page of the Sunday times, traditional news sources only started picking up the story because they had to; the story is too important to too many people and it's just really hard to spin the narrative in a way that doesn't make Trump look good and/or the Secret Service look bad.
The shooter being dead is a huge factor in the story dying along with him. There will never be an interrogation/interview and he didnt leave a manifesto.
One thing that caught my ear: Sarah said Trump brought back in-person rallies in politics, as opposed to the mass-communication-era campaigning that she presumably is saying all occurs over the airwaves. I feel pedantic saying this, but that’s just not the case: I’ve been to a bunch of huge campaign rallies—either as a journalist or a spectator—for Trump, Bernie Sanders (during his first run for president), Obama, and Ron Paul back in the day. Big crowds (10k+ for at least a couple of them) turned out, sometimes in arenas and sometimes outdoors, and it was always a big love-fest: very communal, friendly, excited, etc. Makes sense to me, as most of the crowd is there because they already support the candidate, so they’re already thrilled just being there.
Fwiw, I was always treated well as a reporter, including at the Trump rally I attended, though of course there was some harmless-in-retrospect, ritual booing of the press—I mean, I say “of course”, but obviously that wasn’t a normal thing with other candidates in my lifetime; we’ve just become accustomed to it with him. But no individuals ever gave me any shit for being “fake news” or whatever at that rally; they were all perfectly polite and so on.
But yeah, maybe this is sort of a picayune point. I’m just saying it’s not as if Trump reinvented real-life, in-person politics or anything. I will grant you, though, he’s made the rallies his calling card in a more pronounced way, but even that is maybe an overstatement particularly in comparison to Bernie and Ron Paul, who both had lots of massive rallies.
Trump made rallies must-see TV. Part of the appeal is that there's something almost dangerous and menacing about him, yet also comical and attractive. People tune in for the same reason they watch reality shows. "What will he say this time?"
Melania’s statement, while well written, only underscores that Melania does not speak very good English and probably didn’t participate in writing it at all.
Trump rallies were never the way they were depicted. Sure, there’s always the asshole contingent (and that’s who the media focused on), but 99% were just nice, friendly people.
I had the opportunity of actually attending a Trump rally back in Spring 2022. (It also happened to be outdoors in Western PA).
Pretty tame overall and I was shocked at the number of women in attendance (unlike the testosterone-fueled January 6 riot).
The one person who was actually shot and killed on Jan 6 was a woman. Don't know the overall gender breakdown .
That thought crossed my mind (there was one other female who died in the crowd - apparently the cause is still unclear). But my impression from the video was that while many women attended the rally, it was almost all males who actually breached the Capitol. Someone should ask AOC for a headcount since she stood face-to-face with danger.
I watched the video of Ashley being shot by the police before they took it off of YouTube. She was climbing through a window as everybody else was entering the building. She was the only fatality from January 6.
I’m the FIRST citation in hillbilly elegy
Are you really? lol
Yes
On Trumps reaction to stand and stay for a second. Some people when they get hit don’t really get scared so much as mad. I’m talking about getting punched in my experience. It’s obviously a different thing to get shot but he did also get tackled. I can only assume that he’s the mad type. There was probably so much adrenaline pumping in the moment, I wouldn’t be surprised if the only word he could coherently say at that point was fight.
I don’t think it had much to do with political talent. I think if you took 20 guys and put them through that. 12-16 of them would react similarly.
Who knows. He gets to tell the story and embellish it moving forward so it will be interesting to see how he describes it in the future.
Oh for sure: you’re absolutely pumping with adrenaline at first (and it lasts a little bit too, not sure exactly how long but more than a few seconds for sure) and that kills/seriously dampens the pain and fear responses that seem like they’d be the obvious first feelings in that situation. I’ve never been shot, but have had a gun to my head (robbery/mugging situation) and have been in plenty of fistfights, and yeah, you don’t realize just how freaked out and/or hurt you are until after the thing is over.
The can’t feel anything bit is so real haha. It’s happened to me once or twice where you get hit hard enough that it shakes the adrenaline out for you though. The one time I had trouble chewing right for like a week. That guys fist was nearly the size of my face. He was 6’8” and we’d gotten into it while playing basketball. I learned a couple things that day 😂😂.
Interesting observation.
As a woman, I’d also say that 13 out of 16 women would respond with “flight” not “fight” (or cower and hide).
It’s probably evolutionary. Of course, there always outliers — the 4 flighty men and 3 (or maybe 2) fight-y women —but by and large, accurate and understandable.
I guess I’m one of those three that you refer to. I would have reacted exactly as Trump did. Fury would have overcome fear.
To get into the rank punditry vein, it's crossed my mind that putting Trump through those New York trials has backfired politically (I'm not talking about their legal merits, just their political effects). I think these may have been the first times in his life that he's had no choice but to sit down and shut up, and I think that's a vital skill he's sorely lacked. I don't know how much one can learn to mitigate their impulses at his age, but it certainly seems like something there has changed. (It's also conceivable he's feeling older and less fiery in general, or some combination of the two.)
I just read Ross Douthat’s long interview with Vance in the NYT. The headline is “What JD Vance believes”. I still have no idea what JD Vance believes.
Sarah is absolutely right about the debate not piercing through the hyper progressive media bubble. I have considered myself pretty liberal for a long time. I vote for Democrats. I was talking to a friend who gets her news from lefty Twitter. She said that she was frustrated with all the pundits and politicians who are saying Biden should step down, because "if they would just say he is fine, people would believe them and he would not be losing." She also said she thought Democrats had a pretty good chance until the debate reaction ruined it.
I just said that I thought that is the split in the democratic party. The people who already thought it was a tough race and that Biden might not be able to pull it off are calling for a change now, while the people who thought he was doing well are hesitant to replace him.
Her reaction was insane. She just screamed at me for five full minutes about how we all just have to get in line and back him no matter what. She told me he can speak in complete sentences. She claimed that Trump is just as incoherent, and that if the standard is clear speaking then the papers should have already been calling for Trump to step down. All this highly insightful information was delivered at a scream. All because I expressed an opinion that I hold because I think replacing Biden would give the Democrats a better chance of *actually winning.*
I have never before given a moments thought to the idea that Trump Derangement Syndrome is real, but man.
Yeah, left-leaning people are absolutely as capable of political insanity as right-wingers, and in my experience they’re more prone to react to bad political developments with fear—which is counterproductive because it makes you sorta shut down—where right-wingers seem more prone to a kind of stirred-up-hornet’s-nest anger response, which is also bad but, politically speaking, at least tends to make you do *something* that just *might* help the situation. Your friend’s response sounds like an outgrowth of the fear that I just KNOW she’s been gripped by deep down: make like a turtle and hole up in your shell, shut out the scary information and pretend it isn’t real, etc. If you weren’t her friend she would have simply dismissed your views outright—call them right-wing propaganda or whatever and then, if this was online, block you and never have to hear from you again—but it sounds like actually hearing an opposing case from someone who she knows isn’t a troll really set her off.
I think about this kinda stuff a lot because I’m a left-of-center person myself, and it really bums me out to see some of the people I’m supposed to be making common cause with act like this all the time. It does actually make me feel some empathy for the non-crazy right-wing people who are always having to answer for the Jerry Falwells and Steve Kings and Donald Trumps of the world, whom they mostly can’t stand but have to play ball with. Not unlimited/complete empathy, tbh—some of their beliefs are flatly indefensible in my view—but still, I get it.
(I don’t think it’s just “TDS” though; people were absolutely losing it in the Bush years, which were worse in some ways because the people in the administration were actually competent at running the bureaucracy. Which is yet another reason I worry about Trump 2.0: his people have been working on solving their competency shortfall for years now. Having Trump again, but with his own Dick Cheney and a bunch of actually skilled/capable staffers, is a deeply concerning prospect, IMO.)
“If you were gonna get hit by a bullet in crowd would you rather be at a trump rally or an antifa kinda situation.”
Omg. This is why I’m a paid subscriber. Humans get to human.
First
DC is clean by American standards, but there are stark contrasts in neighborhoods. There are many areas that were destroyed during riots in the '60s and were starting to come back, but there has been some backsliding. The Anacostia is cleaner than it used to be, but would you swim in it? I wouldn't.
Also see: the parody Yelp reviews of the "Dupont Circle Rat Sanctuary" (https://www.yelp.com/biz/dupont-circle-rat-sanctuary-washington)
Don't you think by "clean" they're referring to the crime? Isn't DC one of the most dangerous cities in America? Or are my facts outdated.
If you look at per capita murder rates, DC is in the top 10 in the country (https://usafacts.org/articles/which-cities-have-the-highest-murder-rates/). It's usually been New Orleans, St. Louis, and Baltimore at the top.
DC is not a huge city and of course has many touristy areas and many ritzy residential neighborhoods, but the bad parts of the city are really bad, by any measure.
Great episode. A couple quick thoughts.
JD Vance is a fusion between Oren Kass style right-coded economic populism and Claremont Institute authoritarianism. He's very good at it but not an electrifying speaker, as last night's speech showed. Ezra Klein just did an interview with Oren Kass if you want to know more about that angle. The Claremont Institute approach is best understood in the first paragraph of this essay:
"Let’s be blunt. The United States has become two nations occupying the same country. When pressed, or in private, many would now agree. Fewer are willing to take the next step and accept that most people living in the United States today—certainly more than half—are not Americans in any meaningful sense of the term."
https://americanmind.org/salvo/why-the-claremont-institute-is-not-conservative-and-you-shouldnt-be-either/
Kamala is underrated. She would hold up very well in a debate against Vance or Trump. Just watch some of her questioning of nominees in the Senate.
She's been hamstrung by the VP role having to be in sync with Biden in everything she says, and a a little intimidated by the media after her terrible Lester Holt interview. (The solution to that kind of mistake is just to go on TV more often so that one appearance doesn't define you.) Elaina Plott did a good profile of her in the Atlantic last fall, and Ezra Klein had Plott on his podcast a few weeks ago.
Meghan is right that her background was ill-suited to the BLM moment, but that context has changed a lot since then.
Hey Sarah, if you want to dive deep on Destiny, here's some background from a long time watcher.
TL;DR: He may have a touch of the TDS, but I think his internal world view is consistent. Check out his debate with NOT Elon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXOhf40T2Mg&t=5803s
I've been watching Destiny since 2016. I was shaking my head when I saw the jokes he's been making on twitter but I was not surprised. Destiny is an asshole and an edge lord. If you tell him something is offensive, he'll laugh in your face. He's a contrarian who is genuinely bored by people that agree with him. He is extremely high in openness and disagreeableness. He makes disgusting jokes all the time.
He is actually incredibly principled. For example, in 2020, in the middle of his "lefty arc", a debate ensued over his casual use of the n-word. His position was that you shouldn't call people slurs, but words aren't magic, and he doesn't care if people are offended when he uses it in a joke. This led to a bit of a maelstrom in the streamer world including the publishing if his so-called "n-word manifesto". The point is, this guy is immune to social pressure, and if he is convinced of a position, he will stand his ground. If he gets attacked personally, he will get down in the mud. A not-so-concise summary of these events can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7XGOtOSWe4
Another example. He was banned from Twitch due to his stance on trans women in sports. Before the ban, he was seen as an ally of the trans community and one of the most effective debaters against "TERFs". Even to this day, he is generally supportive of medical transition, even for minors, but he thought a recently transitioned male who has gone through puberty competing against females perhaps isn't the most fair thing in the world. He got into heated arguments with TRAs. Insults were thrown around, and he was publicly pressured to change his views. But his mind was made up. The far left staff at Twitch banned him (I'm curious what the rate of trans identified persons at Twitch is). Here is a representative debate (somewhat similar to the twitter spaces he's been engaging in lately): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPss2z6ua1Y
So what is going on right now with Destiny? Has he lost his mind? Perhaps. But I think I have a sense of what is going through his head.
1. Trump demonstrably tried to subvert the democratic process in 2020, and would be willing to do so again
2. The immunity case (which he has already spent over a dozen hours reviewing and speaking with liberal lawyers about) has him freaked out that Trump would have the power of king if elected again. (For me, this is where his mind has broken)
3. Conservatives have celebrated violence and engaged in heated rhetoric for years
4. He can't stand hypocrisy and has no issue getting dirty
Destiny legitimately believes people supporting Trump are supporting someone who tried to overthrow an election. These people have tried to undermine the democratic process and are traitors to the country. These same people celebrate violence and bodily harm (i.e. Bushnell) when it happens to their political opponents. Why should he afford his political opponents the respect they would never show his side?
For the record, I don't agree with his take on the immunity case, as I see the attempts to imprison subsequent presidents a greater threat that SCOTUS nips in the bud, but given you have his beliefs on the case I can see why he's acting the way he is.
This podcast is hilarious. Are you two real? Absolute comedy.
I'm pretty sure they are not real.
Regarding the effectiveness of the security detail, Chris Williamson did a great no-nonsense interview with Tim Kennedy here, who is definitely a subject matter expert.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9boJpqiZTQ
It’s funny that the assassination attempt is weirdly not much of a story. It’s all surface level and obvious. A 20 year old kid shot at Trump and missed by a hair. We don’t know why he did it and will probably never know. He seized the moment for a great photo op. It will be good for him in the election. The end. The failure of the secret service isn’t the striking part of the story but it’s the only part that would really benefit from deeper investigation. The rest is all readily apparent. My Twitter feed has already moved on to talking about JD Vance.
I’m actually not surprised they want to downplay the story, it doesn’t serve their agenda. By September/October there will be some big anti Trump story that the media will be in lockstep on and this will be completely disregarded.
I don’t think the media is intentionally downplaying the story out of anti-Trump bias. It was all over the front pages. My point is more that, by its nature, the story just doesn’t give the chattering classes much to chew on.
I'm going to have to disagree with you on that one. I think they are deeply entrenched against anything remotely Trumpian, I think they see it as a threat to their power and legitimacy.
It was NOT on the front page of the Sunday times, traditional news sources only started picking up the story because they had to; the story is too important to too many people and it's just really hard to spin the narrative in a way that doesn't make Trump look good and/or the Secret Service look bad.
The shooter being dead is a huge factor in the story dying along with him. There will never be an interrogation/interview and he didnt leave a manifesto.
2
One thing that caught my ear: Sarah said Trump brought back in-person rallies in politics, as opposed to the mass-communication-era campaigning that she presumably is saying all occurs over the airwaves. I feel pedantic saying this, but that’s just not the case: I’ve been to a bunch of huge campaign rallies—either as a journalist or a spectator—for Trump, Bernie Sanders (during his first run for president), Obama, and Ron Paul back in the day. Big crowds (10k+ for at least a couple of them) turned out, sometimes in arenas and sometimes outdoors, and it was always a big love-fest: very communal, friendly, excited, etc. Makes sense to me, as most of the crowd is there because they already support the candidate, so they’re already thrilled just being there.
Fwiw, I was always treated well as a reporter, including at the Trump rally I attended, though of course there was some harmless-in-retrospect, ritual booing of the press—I mean, I say “of course”, but obviously that wasn’t a normal thing with other candidates in my lifetime; we’ve just become accustomed to it with him. But no individuals ever gave me any shit for being “fake news” or whatever at that rally; they were all perfectly polite and so on.
But yeah, maybe this is sort of a picayune point. I’m just saying it’s not as if Trump reinvented real-life, in-person politics or anything. I will grant you, though, he’s made the rallies his calling card in a more pronounced way, but even that is maybe an overstatement particularly in comparison to Bernie and Ron Paul, who both had lots of massive rallies.
Anyway, make of that what you will!
Trump made rallies must-see TV. Part of the appeal is that there's something almost dangerous and menacing about him, yet also comical and attractive. People tune in for the same reason they watch reality shows. "What will he say this time?"
Melania’s statement, while well written, only underscores that Melania does not speak very good English and probably didn’t participate in writing it at all.
In her next public appearance, Melania needs to break out her legendary jacket: https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2018/10/13/melania-trump-jacket-sot-ctn-vpx.cnn