I was for sure the only person standing directly in front of the podium that was not wearing thread of flag colored MAGA campaign merchandise. If my brown skin and long curly hair didn’t already contrast with the vast crowd, my non-descript black and white shirt, blue jeans, and black down jacket suddenly screamed for attention.
As Mike Pence came to the stage, we made eye contact, and a surreal feeling hit me. He had to be the final act before the main event. The embattled president was soon going to stand in that very spot. At that moment President Trump could cursing at the TV furiously as he watched the House of Representatives pleading to each other to reconsider their partisan positions. It was clear, this rally was staged to give the president an arena to vent his frustrations about impeachment.
Every time the music stopped to change songs the crowd gasped, as if Trump were right around the corner. We waited for over an hour. When he finally came out, people in their seats stood clapping. I just stood. It was surreal. Just a fifteen-foot void away from me was the most polarizing person in the world today. Trump was obviously very surprised to see me with my camera at the front of the rally. He even pointed at me a when he was talking about who had the best seats (but noted that the people behind him would be a lot more famous). He ranted about impeachment, and the Democrats, immigrants, and toilets, he was pleased that the building was full but lamented that there was not a bigger venue. He beamed as he said “Merry Christmas,” then suggested that the longest ever serving member of congress, John Dingell of Michigan, was in hell. Now thawed out and warmed up, the crowd fervently egged him on. After two protestors got thrown out, I realized that they were part of the show too. Their protest left the remaining crowd even more galvanized. This rally was a political spectacle, more like a monster truck show or a pro wrestling event than any political event that I have seen. The attendees, myself included, weren’t there to become informed, they were there to see some sort of performance.
Just one night earlier I was at one of hundreds of impeachment protest around the country. The change in environment was dramatic. Coastal to inland, big city to small town, California cold to Midwest freezing, elated for impeachment to outraged. As I walked toward the protest, a stranger approached me on a bicycle and yelled out, “I hope they impeach him and execute him for treason!” He implored me to leave the modest gathering of people on the on the street ahead at Ocean and Colorado, next to the entrance of the famous Santa Monica pier, and join the larger event in downtown LA. At Grand Park in front of city hall they were expecting thousands of people.
“No,” I told him, “I have to go to the airport. I’m going to a Trump rally tomorrow.”
As Tuesday night rolled onto Wednesday morning, I sat on the redeye flight. I reflected on how much smaller seats are getting as I squeezed my six-foot-tall frame next to guy that was at least four inches taller than me. I was so excited, there was not chance that I was going to sleep. I landed in Lansing, MI, ate a hearty breakfast at Golden Harvest, then drove an hour south to Battle Creek. The cold was bitter; the thermometer in the car read 9 degrees at noon when I finally pulled up to Kellogg Center, a small arena, fitting about 6,000 people.
I didn’t have any special credentials or high dollar donor friends getting me access. In the midst of a scandal ridden administration, I was curious about messaging strategies, so I signed up to get campaign emails. One day I was invited to a rally-style campaign event. I had seen them on TV but never seriously considered attending. That changed quickly.
The House committees had just debated and voted to pass the articles of impeachment, sending them for a vote by the full House of Representatives. I realized that Trump could be rallying on, or around, the day of his impeachment. It would be a historic day. Only two presidents in American history have been impeached, so this would surely be a part of his legacy. The prospect of Trump giving a public speech on the day of his impeachment seemed so brazen that I felt obliged to go and experience it firsthand. I noticed the tickets were free. All I had to do was RSVP. I quickly printed out the ticket and debated to myself if I would ever use it.
I mentioned to my family that I was considering taking this trip, and the reaction was “be careful.” Trump rallies sound scary to a lot of people. To be in a stadium full of the president’s most loyal supporters cheering as he read/rambles about whatever he’s currently feeling at that moment seems frightening. Individual pre-conceived notions of who is at these rallies could make people envision anything from a patriotic gathering to a rowdy mob. I wondered how many people in the whole building might be undecided on who to vote for in 2020? How many people in the building would be celebrating impeachment as a testament that checks and balances that the framers built into the constitution work?
Guerrilla photography might be an obscure hobby, but it combines the intrigue of being in places that you’re not supposed to be, with the challenges of capturing moments that people generally are not supposed to see. This would be a unique opportunity to see Trump and his most ardent supporters under unique circumstances. I noticed that the campaign emails included a list of prohibited items including “professional cameras with removable lens,” but as the emails turned from invitations to reminders, this clause was subtly removed. I wondered if I might be able to slip into the venue with my robust camera or if I would be turned away as I had been at concerts before. As I saw police dogs inspecting people and cars, I got nervous. This would probably be the most secure building in the world for the next few hours. In case I couldn’t take my camera inside, I would just get some pictures of the people outside excited to enter the rally. That notion ended quickly. Most of the people outside were completely covered and layered. I could see plenty of red campaign hats and there was no shortage of merchants displaying buttons, shirts, and flags blowing in the chilly wind. However, besides these merchants not many interesting subjects roamed outside, so I stood in line silently, content to eavesdrop on the conversations that I heard around me. I hopped lightly from foot to foot trying to warm up as I lost the feeling in my toes through my lined boots. A huge video screen where I imagined all of the “overflow” of people would be standing blared what appeared to be a propaganda video featuring Laura Trump on repeat. In it she mentioned that there was a chance that protestors would choose to bypass the area designated for protests (outside), and choose to disrupt the rally. She reminded the people to refrain from harming or touching the protestors and instead to yell “Trump, Trump, Trump” until security could reach them.
As the line continued, we entered a parking structure with almost no sunlight. Gas heaters were sparsely placed throughout the parking lot, but it was so cold they didn’t seem to make a significant difference. At one point I heard someone saying that the temperature with windchill was negative four. It must have been even colder in the garage, yet the line had hundreds of people, frozen and occasionally chanting “USA” or “Four More Years” for a few seconds before the cold silence returned. Volunteers registered new voters while others carried petitions that “would show that we support Trump.” I noticed that a lot of people in the crowd appeared to be barely voting age. A group of young people in front of me carried copies of “The Chronicles of Narnia” and “The Hobbit.” I silently assumed that they were in high school but was surprised when they declined the voter registration because they were too young. Further ahead, a woman who in her fifties was with two kids, a young teenager and a six or seven-year-old boy wrapped in thick over his coat. She got a complement about her MAGA earrings, and divulged that she could even wear them at the elementary school where she was a teacher without anyone noticing. She lamented that she was worried about people noticing at all.
It was three days from the shortest day of the year, so by three o’clock it was dark. They opened the doors leading 50 people at a time into the foyer, through TSA security checkpoints, then the arena. It was dark outside of the garage. I nervously emptied my pockets onto a table at a security checkpoint where a TSA agent asked me to turn on my camera. They checked it out, then I was in. They never even checked my ticket. I quickly walked in and realized there was seating in the stands and general standing room on what would be the basketball court area. I walked around as they started to sing the national anthem. I was already close enough to view the podium without much obstruction, but as I started to frame my shots of the podium with my 100mm prime lens, I wanted to get closer. That’s when I saw a massive security guard with a couple of attractive girls cutting through the crowd. I followed behind them like a running back behind blockers. People obliged quickly when he asked them to move but leered as I brought up the tail behind two attractive white women. A few people even snidely commented that I was in the press, presumptively because I was carrying my camera. Eventually, I was led to the center of the front row. I looked back at the standing crowd and they looked straight forward intensely at me. Almost instantly people confronted me. How did I just walk up there and take my spot at the front? One young man commented that he waited for two days in the cold to get there. The crowd was quelled as Kayleigh McEnany, the campaign press secretary, and Brad Parscale, the campaign manager, came to the stage as opening acts, followed by John James, a candidate for one Michigan’s senate seats. One after another, they warmed up the crowd like opening acts at a concert.
“As we speak the Democrats in the swamp are trying to impeach Donald Trump… but here is what they do not know: they aren’t impeaching Donald J Trump, they are impeaching you, the American voter.”
I was going to be face to face with Trump, WHILE the House was voting to impeach him. I felt each person on stage shutter as they saw me and my camera near the railing. Parscale threw a bunch of red hats into the crowd like a spirit squad at a sporting event. One flew in my direction, but I didn’t flinch as the supporter next to me caught it. He replaced the cap that was already on his head with his fresh new one and passed the old one back to one of his friends. I felt Parscale measuring me as he towered closer to the crowd and signed a couple of red hats… He was probably the only person in the building bigger than my security escort.
Over those hours I saw a string of messages apparently pushing ideological buttons of the audience. They appealed to the crowd with easy single-issue voter talking points, then evoked fear from having their voices taken away in one way or another. These messages were reinforced throughout the night by campaign staff, conservative candidates, and the executive branch itself. When Trump came out, the crowd was so ecstatic to see him, they never questioned the truthfulness or ethicality of what he said. He ranted about lack of water flow to the bathroom, the existence of potholes in Michigan roads, and trolled a dead congressman. The crowd would be ready to support anything he said.
Trump’s propaganda machine is frightening Republicans everywhere. They are confronted with a huge dilemma: to be part of this machine, abandoning their individual voices to retain influence in the party, or to retain their principals and thus become a target of the chaotic messaging machine that Trump has created. This dilemma has forced many of these once-powerful people to stay in line, or retire. Unfortunately, many of them do not see a tenable third option. The Republican party is now firmly the party of Trump. Anyone not on message and in line apparently has to leave. This is an interesting backdrop for moderate senators, who will be jurors in the impeachment trial.