It was an hour before Donald Trump’s rally was set to begin Tuesday in Marietta, Georgia, and the line around the venue stretched about a quarter mile. With a capacity of 2,700 participants, the room had already started to fill up with followers. The event was scheduled for seven thirty in the afternoon and the first worshipers had started to arrive around one o’clock. Not everyone could enter.
If there’s one thing Georgia doesn’t lack, it’s political enthusiasm. When the opportunity to vote early was opened on Tuesday, 310,980 people came to vote in person, according to Georgia Secretary of State records. The previous maximum hovered around 130,000 people. A few Trump supporters wore “I Voted” stickers.
Although energy was high before the rally, many people noticed that crowds at Trump rallies had thinned in recent months as the Republican mogul’s speeches turned into hours-long ramblings. Kamala Harris also said this during the presidential debate in September.
“I’m going to do something really unusual and encourage you to attend one of Donald Trump’s rallies. “It’s a really interesting thing to see,” Harris said during that debate. “You will see that at his meetings he talks about fictional characters like Hannibal Lecter and says that windmills cause cancer; You’ll also notice that people start leaving the gathering before it’s over, due to exhaustion and boredom.
The Guardian newspaper agreed with the proposal and went to Tuesday’s rally to verify that about three in ten attendees had left before 10:15 p.m., when Trump finished speaking. In his defense, it must be said that the Republican candidate showed up an hour and a half late.
Seven minutes into the speech, a dozen people had already left as Trump recited a litany of complaints about inflation, schools, car quality, cities, immigration and the possibility of a third war worldwide.
Twenty minutes later, as Trump asserted that “murderers” who immigrate illegally pose a threat to the United States greater than inflation, Ryan Taylor walks to his car. “I live an hour away and my son is waiting in the car,” said Taylor, who runs a podcasts. “He didn’t want to come in, he’s a teenager,” he added, referring to his 15-year-old son.
Haley Lummus, of Jasper, Georgia, left at 9:22 p.m., just as Trump was calling Harris a “tax queen” and complaining about the loss of value of her San Francisco properties. “We had to wait a while for him to come on stage,” Lummus said. “Everyone was doing the wave and a lot of people were excited when he started clapping,” he added. Why then did he leave early? “I’ve been working and I’m tired,” she replied. By then, around fifty people had already left.
Five young men with the slogan “Make America Great Again” [Haz a EEUU grande otra vez] written on their brand-new red caps, they left shortly before half past nine, while Trump claimed that the wars in Ukraine and Gaza would not have happened if he were president. Even then, all five of them seemed slightly disoriented and out of place. “We’re from Denmark, and while we don’t really care about American politics, we wanted to experience it firsthand,” Gustave said.
With about 15 minutes remaining, when Gustave and his friends learned about the gathering, they said to themselves, “why not?” “. The event had been a “delusion” and “something similar to [la serie de TV] The bachelor,” they said as they left. They left early to avoid traffic problems.
Fifty more participants left within the next ten minutes. Four of them were expelled. “Some of us entered with flags to shout ‘Free Palestine,'” said a young man who did not want to give his name. Trump was talking at the time about ending tax levies on tips. “They tore our flags away, they booed us, they kicked us, but I still support Trump,” the young man said.
They also complained of ill-treatment inflicted by a large security guard in front of them, provoked as they wandered around the room. Minutes later, a member of his group was arrested by Secret Service agents.
The flow of people heading for the exits at 9:50 p.m. was constant. Trump spoke at the time of an “invasion of immigrants” who were “stealing American jobs.” Most of those who left said they had to work the next day or had a babysitter to replace.
Marietta is a metro Atlanta city, and most Trump supporters typically live in remote rural communities.
Tuesday’s rally was the second Trump rally attended by Season Poole, a former Army mechanic who specialized in diesel engines. A resident of Social Circle, Georgia, two weeks earlier he had attended another Republican rally in North Carolina. While Trump talked about “foreign gang members and immigrant criminals in prison,” Poole thought about school work and the hour-long car ride ahead. By then, at least 500 people had already left.
Voni Miller would have stayed if it had been in her power. “It made me cry,” she said. “I cried when he talked about making a change; You know, close the border, change things; “If Kamala wins, we’re going to be very screwed because she doesn’t seem to be able to decide what she thinks about anything.”
“[Trump] It made me cry because he gives up a lot, he doesn’t have to do this for us, you know what I mean, he has all the money but he keeps getting shot and people They say horrible things about him, but he does it because he wants change for the United States and it was very emotional,” he added.
So why are you leaving? “I’m actually leaving early because my phone battery is dead and I have a Tesla, so I can’t get to it.” [sin el teléfono]”. “It’s really disappointing because it meant a lot to me to be here and I just wasn’t going to be able to get in my car.”
By 10:50 p.m., about a third of the audience had abandoned Trump, who was speaking about the importance of protecting police officers from possible civil suits for misconduct when they are “really doing something right.”
Stephen Rosenbaum was heading towards the car at that time, accompanied by his son. “I think I get more out of these rallies than anything else, and I hope it’s the same for others,” he said. “It shows the human side; “We saw the Butler rally live on TV when it happened, it was terrible,” he said of the first attack on Trump. “Right before everything happened, he said ‘all we want to do is make the country better.’ »
Rosenbaum also said he attended several Trump rallies. “We wanted to see it, see it in real life, see it live,” he said. But don’t you plan to stay for the entire gathering? “Tomorrow he has to go to school,” he replied, pointing to his son. “And it got to the point where, I mean, we’ve seen enough, we kind of know how it’s going to end, we just wanted to see it live, you know?”
Translation of Francisco de Zárate
