Shortly after taking the stage 91 minutes late for his Atlanta rally this week, Donald Trump did what he can’t help doing — go off on a tangent. This was clearly going to be a night at the improv.
He marveled at length about how Elon Musk’s SpaceX rocket booster was snatched from the skies by mechanical arms on its return. All that fire and smoke. “Coolest thing I’ve seen in a long time,” he told his crowd. “Was that crazy?” Talk about a rocket’s red glare.
A day earlier in Erie, Pennsylvania, Kamala Harris was buzzing with energy and blinding smiles on stage, and so were the thousands there to see her. No tangents.
She delivered a lacerating putdown of her opponent, polishing the art of looking incredulous about the man half the country might be voting for. If she’d held up a sign, “WTF” would have nailed the expression on her face. Her crowd was on a sugar high.
If next month’s election is the ultimate battle of good vs. evil, which we are told by both sides that it is, why are all these Georgia and Pennsylvania people dancing in the hall and having all this fun?
Harris’ rhetoric is existential, the country’s very foundation susceptible to crumbling away Nov. 5, in her reckoning. Trump’s always provocative words have gone darker still, even with violent undertones at times.
Yet in a country sick of what American politics has become, here were thousands marinating in it. Enjoying it. Making a date night out of it. Cocooned in it.
The Harris rally Monday and the Trump one Tuesday were on different planets, to borrow Trump’s phrase for the world each candidate is offering Nov. 5. Trump looked ahead by looking back, promising a return to the country “you were born in.” Harris was fiercely future-focused.
Chants of “U.S.A., U.S.A” rang out at both events and love of America was in the air. But what America?
For U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds, who warmed up the crowd for the tardy Trump, it’s the country where boys grow to be men — “manhood is needed” — and girls become strong women who get husbands. Added Trump when he spoke, “Transgender insanity will be out of our schools immediately” if he wins.
For Harris, it’s the country where people have “the freedom to love who you love openly and with pride.”
At the Trump rally, Jonathan Cordero, 31, a former Bernie Sanders supporter now backing the Republican, was asked whether he recognizes that Democrats are patriots, too. He said yes, and compared patriotism to religion — different faiths all devoted to a deity.
“Somebody who believes in, let’s say, Islam or Hinduism, they fully are committed to that belief system,” he said. “Same concept here — if somebody is for Harris and they’re chanting ‘U.S.A.,’ that’s because that’s their vision for where the country should go.”
Erie was electrified
More than four hours before Harris took the stage, the line to get inside the Erie Insurance Arena wrapped around a city block. Once inside, people had more than two hours to kill before the first speaker addressed them.
Many were on their feet much of that time, dancing as a high-energy DJ spun a club mix heavy on female artists like Katy Perry, Whitney Houston, Beyonce, Madonna and Taylor Swift.
People danced the Cha Cha Slide at their seats when prompted by the DJ. “Woah, we’re halfway there!” the crowd shouted when Bon Jovi’s “Livin’ on a Prayer” came on, with those lyrics.
Before the speakers started, Robert Cabaniss, a 28-year-old music artist from Pittsburgh, two hours away, and his companion on a fishing trip showed up to support a strongly Democratic friend at the rally.
If not a pure party loyalist himself, Cabaniss nevertheless supports Harris because “she fights for all of us” and, in his mind, she’s the only grownup running.
“It’s like, man, did he grow out of his shoe size yet?” he said about Trump and his “spoiled brat talk.” He went on: “I’m still waiting. It’s like Peter Pan hasn’t grown up yet.”
As for Trump’s supporters, he said, “I think they love their country, but not the right way.”
A few sections over sat Angela Cox and her adult daughter, Taylor Norton, who had driven from Buffalo, New York, about 90 minutes away, after learning about the rally online. They were in line two hours before settling in their seats, and Cox had no complaints about that.
