The Big Picture of Trump’s Rallies
The president is adept at connecting with audiences, which will help in 2020.
“Watching the President in [his rallies], I can’t help but think he needs to do a lot more of these,” says Erick Erickson. “Get him out of the White House, away from the TV, and with the crowds that love him. He feeds off their energy. He is deeply entertaining and funny on the stage. He drives the media crazy. … He needs to do more of these.”
Erickson has a good point. President Donald Trump is a crowd pleaser and a man who loves connecting with people from the stage. His television persona gave Americans a familiarity with him long before he ran for president that made voters amenable to his brand of populism, and he played to that strength in “yuge” rallies across the nation in 2016. It will be a necessary part of his 2020 campaign, too.
He doesn’t speak like a polished politician, rattling off the same old list of policy proposals. Instead, he hits his opponents with broadsides that connect with supporters. For instance, in a Louisiana rally Friday, he declared, “[Democrats have been] trying to stop us for more than three years with a lot of crap. They know they can’t win on Election Day so they’re pursuing an illegal, invalid, and unconstitutional bulls—t impeachment.” That’s salty language, but somehow it works for Trump — because he’s right on the merits.
Not only do Trump’s rallies inspire his supporters, they infuriate his detractors. Gary Bauer writes of last Thursday’s rally in Minneapolis, “Sadly, there was violence after the rally ended. MAGA hats were burned. Trump supporters were assaulted. Leftists waved the flag of communist China. Police officers had to create a path for cars to leave because demonstrators were attacking vehicles in the parking garage. It was a striking contrast. Inside the Target Center, Trump praised our brave men and women in uniform, our soldiers, and police officers. He defended our flag and our country. Outside, the left-wing radicals, the activist base of the Democrat Party, were attacking cops, burning flags, yelling their hatred for America, and assaulting conservatives.”
Furthermore, for those paying attention, that highlights the gross double standard of the mainstream media. Bauer notes, “If, after any speech by a leading Democrat, a mob formed outside and began punching people and attacking cars, every network would be running the footage non-stop. Every Republican would be forced to condemn it on the record. But no elected Democrat … will be asked to condemn what happened on the streets of Minneapolis.”
The more Americans are exposed to the radicalism of the Left, the more Trump’s quirks and idiosyncrasies seem like the sane choice in 2020.
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- 2020 election
- Donald Trump