M. TOMOSKI
The Trump Show
After seven hours on the road, I crossed the Mississippi into Davenport tired, thirsty and with no notion of what to expect ahead of the official start of the 2016 Presidential Election. It all came down to this moment—the months of speculation, polling and punditry were about to be validated or thrown out the window in just a few days. Iowans in over 1,600 precincts across the state would gather in high school gyms and church halls to set the tone for the rest of the election. In the meantime, I was thirsty, and the bartender set a fresh pint in front of me.
“What’s this?” I said. “That’s your free one.” She flashed a smile and pointed to a sign on the wall that read: “SPECIAL—Buy 2 Get 1.” I nodded and sucked the beer with a nervous sense of excitement for what was to come. “You in town for the campaign?” She asked. “God no,” I lied, “just the beer.”
She had good reason to be suspicious. It had been weeks since Iowans could take more than two steps without running into a reporter, volunteer or one of the presidential candidates who swarm the modest Midwestern state for the first-in-the-nation Caucus.
Every four years, Iowans are hammered with ads on local radio stations, television, YouTube, weather-beaten lawn signs and bumper stickers, by door-to-door solicitors, daily phone calls, mailbox pamphlets and neighbourhood phone banks. This year, Ted Cruz’s campaign even sent out voter ‘report cards,’ grading Iowans’ past caucus participation and comparing each voter to their neighbours, claiming a “VOTING VIOLATION” for those who had failed to caucus in previous years.
So how the hell do you caucus in the first place? For those of us who are familiar with the standard method of voting, in which we check a box next to the candidate’s name and move on with our lives, the caucus system requires a level of effort that we’re just not willing to give. Caucusing can take several hours and demands that voters gather in a room big enough to hold all their friends and neighbours. Caucus goers listen to a representative from each candidate and choose to stand on the side of the room that has been designated for the person they support. No ballots are involved. Instead, a chairperson is assigned to count each voter individually as they move from one side of the room to the other until a clear winner is chosen.
Photo: Meg McLaughlin/ QC Online
But all of that chaos was still days away, and for the time being, the bar was the only quiet place I could find to gather myself before heading across the street to the Adler Theater where a horde of Davenport Republicans, Apprentice fans and riled-up conservatives were waiting. They were all lined up to see the 6:30 show: Donald J. Trump featuring evangelical sweetheart Jerry Falwell Jr., who Donald mistakenly referred to as, “the reverend” before being reminded that Falwell Sr. was the preacher.
The rally signs, which read: “The Silent Majority Stands with Trump” were a clear call-back to the Moral Majority movement launched by Falwell’s father in the late ’70s as a response to the Roe V. Wade decision. The movement married evangelical Christians to the Republican Party and launched Ronald Reagan into the White House, giving Trump a reason to smile at his newest endorsement.
Photo: Meg McLaughlin/ QC Online
Both Trump and Cruz were after the coveted title of ‘Ronald Reagan, born again’ in order to win over Iowa’s most active Republicans: evangelicals. Trump’s problem was that no one actually believed he was a practicing Christian. His adlib campaign style caused him to stumble into referring to “Second Corninthuans,” a commonly known bible verse as, “Two Corinthians,” which left an opening for Cruz to poke at the Donald’s shabby knowledge of scripture by saying, “Ah yes, two Corinthians walk into a bar.” But the reality TV star continued to insist he was a god-fearing man, moving on to his next mistake in Council Bluffs, Iowa, where he threw money into a communion plate.
So I chugged at my beer because I thought I knew exactly what was to come: a night of obnoxious bigotry, lightly seasoned with appeals to God and assurances that Donald reads the bible every day. It had been in the news with the headlines like, “The Racist Things I Overheard at a Trump Rally.” Everything I had seen led me to believe that this was going to be a white-supremacist wet dream, and I wasn’t about to face that sort of thing without the kind of courage that came from a tap.
Laughter broke the silence in the bar as three women burst through the door. They were walking billboards for the Trump campaign, decked out in badges that read, “Hot Chicks for Trump” and hats that promised to, “Make America Great Again.” But something wasn’t quite right.
“You ladies Trump supporters?” I asked.
“HA! No,” said the one in the pink hat, “We’re just coming back from a bridal show at the River Center.”
“Yeah,” her friend added, “There’s a bunch of people out front selling this crap.” She laughed.
I couldn’t put it off any longer. The time had come to see just what was driving everyone across the country mad.
Sure enough, just outside of the Adler, several tables had been set up with hats, T-shirts, buttons and bracelets. My eyes were drawn to a pin with an orange cat in a wig next to the words: “Cats for Trump, the time is Meow!” After a few pints, $5 for a pin sounded like a bargain, but the whole setup had a curious feel. I had been to political rallies before—they’re stale, slow-moving events filled with the kind of people who laugh at dad jokes and wear their khakis real high. This time, there was a feeling that I was about to see a genuine performance.
Speaks for itself really #donaldtrump #catsfortrump #election2016 #iowacaucus
A photo posted by Miroslav Tomoski (@miroslavtomoski) on
“Is this official merchandise?” I asked one of the vendors.
“You bet,” she said.
“So all of this money goes to the campaign?”
“Of course!” the vendor said enthusiastically.
Somehow I wasn’t convinced. Crossing through the metal detectors, I stumbled towards two police officers who seemed baffled and amused by the spectacle, “Do you know if this is official merchandise?” I pointed to my ‘Cats for Trump’ badge. They looked down and burst into laughter, “I have no idea,” one replied, “but that’s hilarious.”
Moving down the line, I was informed by the doorwoman I had been duped. The people outside were imposters. I had given my money to an ordinary Iowan, not a New York billionaire. This was the power of Trump’s celebrity. He was inspiring the American entrepreneurial spirit and already creating jobs. It was a comforting thought. After all, there’s no way any respectable candidate for president would allow a serious political event to be reduced to entertainment.
So I made my way through the main doors to the lobby where the official hats, T-shirts, and pins were being sold next to giant tubs of popcorn at the snack bar.
It was nearly time for the show to begin. The next ten minutes were spent running up and down the aisle with a supporter from Tennessee, trying to get our hands on a rally sign to the sound of Rolling Stones’ “You Can’t Always Get What You Want.” The song was either an incredible coincidence or a sign that the person in charge of the playlist had some inside information on Trump’s eventual second place finish.
My new Southern friend began to avoid eye contact after our first failed attempt at snagging a rally sign. He was guilty by association when the sight of my camera caused a Trump staffer to turn his back on me and move to the other side of the aisle with the merchandise. That’s when it became clear that a very real sense of paranoia had gripped the room. It was going to make getting around as a member of the press difficult but not impossible.
I managed to snag a cramped front-row seat against the red, white and blue-adorned security barrier. Showmanship had seized the room. The state and national flags were set against the back of the stage. Adele’s Skyfall creeped through the speakers, and for a moment, I was forced to believe that the secret serviceman who clutched the lapels of his jacket was a hired actor who had been told to “lay it on thick, really make the audience believe.”
“Are you a reporter?” The man next to me was staring at my camera.
“I am,” I replied.
“I’ve been tricked by two of you tonight,” he said.
“Sorry to hear that.”
“Don’t be sorry. I had a good day. I went fishing,” he said crossing his arms and turning away. I was trapped in the corner between a bitter man’s back and the security barrier with my legs crossed to fit into the space. But I was front row at the Trump Show, and the man behind me was just as thrilled and amused. “You won’t believe where I am.” He was speaking to someone on the phone, “I’m at the Trump rally downtown.” He laughed. “That’s what I’m doing with my Saturday night.” The fisherman squirmed in his seat; then he turned around to offer a campaign flier to the man.
“Are you a supporter?” I turned around to ask.
“I don’t really know,” he said. “I’ve seen him on television.”
With that, I thought I understood the fisherman’s frustration. The candidate that he clearly took seriously was being treated as a joke and sideshow, even by some of the folks who attended his events. Both Trump and his supporters have become a novelty to gawk at and ridicule and the whole thing has made the true believers resentful and weary.
His policies are something that any American could understandably view with shock and horror. Banning an entire religious community and deporting 11 million people, especially the children of illegal immigrants for whom America has been the only home they’ve known, are ideas that we’d all like to think we’ve left behind with the days of Japanese internment camps. So perhaps anyone willing to take Donald Trump seriously doesn’t deserve to be taken seriously in return. But the backlash could have very real political consequences if Trump manages to take the White House in November.
If his campaign is anything to go by, a Trump presidency could be the worst thing to happen to the press and transparency since Richard Nixon. Tricky Dick wrote the playbook on press manipulation, creating the country’s first communications office headed by marketing wizard Bob Haldeman, who according to the Washington Post, referred to himself as “the president’s son-of-a-bitch,” and made a daily practice of threatening reporters, staging events and placing members of the media on Nixon’s infamous list of enemies.
To be fair, the Obama administration and every other president since Nixon has used some variation of Haldeman’s strategy to manipulate how the press receives information. But Donald Trump’s open confrontation with members of the press, like Fox’s Megyn Kelly, his refusal to participate in the Iowa debate, his public shaming of local papers in Iowa and New Hampshire and banning of reporters from Univision and the New York Times paints a scary picture of how President Trump’s communications office might conduct its daily press briefings.
Whatever can be said about his knowledge of the issues, Donald Trump knows how to put on a show. Before sitting down to speak with Falwell, he dragged out an oversized cheque for $100,000, made out to a local veterans’ charity, which he delivered to a golden retriever named Jake.
As Falwell pitched Trump, one rehearsed question after another and compared the billionaire to his father, I couldn’t help but think about his bitter rivalry with the media. Cheers of, “We love you Trump!” were greeted with a smile and an, “I love you too!” For a man who’s seen as one of the most honest and organic campaigners on the trail, the event felt terribly rehearsed. It’s hard to imagine that any other outbursts would’ve been acceptable when just a day later, Drake University students were forced out of a rally by security.
“There were more officers escorting the students out than there were students,” a Drake University student told me.
The scariest thing at the rally was not a group of bigots who want to make America a whiter place to be. In fact there were quite a few Muslims in Davenport who pushed their way through the mob for an autograph. The real fear ought to be of a candidate who routinely uses officers meant to protect his life to silence dissenting voices. If his campaign makes it through primary season, the rest of America could suffer for it.
Image sources: cmgdigital.com, inquisitr.com, townnews.com, qconline.com, pinimg.com, politico.com
