Editorial: Local Attends Donald Trump Rally in Fairfield & Shares her Experience
On August 12th, my 21 year old daughter and I attended the Donald Trump rally at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield. Leaving politics and policy aside, the evening was to some degree what I expected, but it wasn’t nearly as “exciting” as I had always thought a presidential rally would be. I wanted to go for personal reasons, mostly for the ‘show’ and to see if the rally lived up to what has been reported over the last few months. It really did live up to what I expected, along with both lovely and unsettling surprises.
Parking was as expected. We arrived at 6:30 for a 7:30 start and by that time all university parking was full and people were parking on the grass along the street. My only real complaint was that knowing the average age of most of Mr. Trump’s supporters, I was surprised that the campaign had not requested that all on-campus parking near the gymnasium be reserved for the handicapped. In any event, while hobbling along in 100-degree heat and 90 percent humidity we were told by a lovely elderly couple that the air-conditioning in the gym did not work and that it had not been working since before 5:00 that morning. We continued on our trek to then discover that the bleachers had been folded up in order to accommodate more people and that there was no seating set aside for the handicapped.
This appeared to be a well-educated, well dressed crowd, as one would expect from the area. I was however, surprised by the number of people who had brought young children. There seemed to be a fairly large number of children between the ages of 8 and 10. We all know by now that his candidacy has evoked passionate responses from both sides of the aisle and this evening was no different. The heat, the crowds, the length of the evening (the candidate was about 30 minutes late in arriving) did not create an environment, in my opinion, appropriate for young, impressionable children. As the evening progressed, people became more vocal and vulgar in their denigration of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, and parents started leaving in droves to get their kids out of the environment.
What was mostly odd about the speech given by Mr. Trump was how little of it was spent on actual policy. Most of his time speaking was spent on railing against the New York Times and it’s reporting of his campaign and against the notorious “blue dress” worn by Monica Lewinsky during her assignation with former President Bill Clinton. Neither or these issues have anything to do with running for President, but we have all seen over the last year how Mr. Trump is extremely reactionary to what he perceives as negative reporting of his campaign as well as his personal attacks on family members of his opposition. I have difficulty in understanding why a thrice married man, whose first marriage ended amidst allegations of infidelity, would even open that door. As for the railing against the NY Times, as it has become a bit of a badge of honor in this election cycle to have one’s credentials revoked by the Trump campaign, he increases the Times readership each time he complains about something they’ve written as most of us immediately look up the article to see what the fuss is about.
While the Fairfield Police Department could not have been more professional, kind, courteous and helpful, there wasn’t much in the way of security to get in to the event. On the internet it said that tickets would be required, but no one asked me or my daughter for our tickets. We went through one metal detector and then had free reign of the facility (within reason). About 40 minutes into Mr. Trump’s speech, my daughter and I also left the gym. It was unbearably hot and we were bored by Trump’s repeating of remarks we had heard before, and the constant railing against anyone who disagreed with his message. I understand why he is now apparently traveling with a member of the RNC as it was apparent that this is a man who has a need to speak off the cuff and cannot stay on message.
My daughter and I are both they type of people who will talk to just about anyone. Protesters were relegated to the street in front of the university and my daughter wanted to rejoin the Hillary supporters who she had been speaking with earlier that evening. While I would have rather sat in my air-conditioned car, I decided to be a “good” mom and suffer through the heat so that she could feel like she was part of the process. Across the street from the Hillary supporters were a group of white supremacists. I walked over to ask them to explain their ideology to me. They were a group of well-dressed young men who told me that they wanted the world today to be like it was when “I was a kid” (meaning me, literally). They wanted races to be separate. I explained to them that I grew up in Manhattan, going to a Catholic elementary school that had more Jewish students than Catholic, where the only color that one might notice and be surprised by on a street would be purple – and I’m not even sure that that would be worthy of a second look. The young men told me they were graduates of Connecticut public high-school on a college preparatory track and from trade high schools. They were unable to get jobs in factories or plants where through manual labor and hard work they could climb the ladder to area manager one day or own a small business (my vernacular, not theirs). They were frustrated and felt that their country had let them down. They were exactly what have been described in the book Hillbilly Effigy. I understand their frustration, but where we lost each other was over priorities and other smart choices that come with age and experience.
Finally my daughter was ready to leave and she offered to bring the car back to save me the enervating walk in the heat. On her way to the car she happened to be carrying a rainbow “Love Trumps Hate” sign, and being 21, she, of course, didn’t take the care to roll it up so that the words and graphics were facing away from the public. It shouldn’t matter, but we all know that in these situations that kind of stuff can be inflammatory – and it was. About 50 yards away from the main exit of SHU, a group of approximately five men, between the ages of 40 and 50 blocked her egress and would not let her pass. They called her denigrating and hideous names and were extremely intimidating – she was scared. Thankfully, a lovely and very elderly couple, who had attended the rally, as well as a police officer, came to her aid and shamed the men into letting her pass. I was not surprised, because of the vitriol that I had heard in the gym that this happened to her in this venue.
All in all, it was a bizarrely interesting night. I must admit that I agree with the pundits on television that it was strange for Mr. Trump to hold a rally in Fairfield County, Connecticut, and it seemed even stranger to me that with this apparently well-educated, affluent group, the did not stay on his economic message. In any event, it was thought-provoking to see a part of what is sure to be the strangest election of the century.