Jen Golbeck
Fri, September 13, 2024 at 6:01 a.m. MDT
Some people spend their summers following musicians on tour, meeting people and swapping friendship bracelets. I spent mine traveling around the country to attend Donald Trump rallies and interview his MAGA faithful in Florida, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Illinois.
I am a journalist and researcher working on a book about the psychology of the MAGA movement and the far right. I have been immersed in far-right internet forums for nearly a decade, studying how people are radicalized and identifying when there is a potential for violence. Even as a trained, objective observer, there are days when the bigotry, conspiracy theories, misogyny and hate speech in those spaces overwhelms me. But I also know online vitriol does not always reflect offline reality.
I started going to rallies this year because I wanted to talk with people face-to-face in hopes of understanding their points of view. I have discovered how unique of a phenomenon Trump rallies are — and what you see on TV isn’t even close to the full story.
People wait in line to attend a rally for Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump on Aug. 30 in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. Courtesy of Jen Golbeck
Being outside a Trump rally venue is like being at a giddy but dystopian carnival — like something you would find in a haunted video game. Trump and MAGA flags fly everywhere. There are Trump-themed street performers — an Uncle Sam on a hoverboard or a break dancer in a full-face Trump mask and MAGA hat. There are food stands offering funnel cakes, hot dogs and lemonade. People also bring their own coolers, and by mid-afternoon, I’ve had many conversations with tipsy guys in their fourth hour of drinking, and I can smell the vapors of Miller Light wafting off of them.
Impromptu midways form between rows of stalls with friends, couples, parents and children milling about. Countless booths sell MAGA hats and T-shirts, along with Trump plushies, buttons, jewelry, shoes and trinkets. One vendor I spoke with in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, who owned one of the smaller stands I saw, said he grosses $10,000 per event and clears around $6,500 by the end of the day.
A vendor looks at his table of merchandise outside a rally for Trump in Johnstown. Courtesy of Jen Golbeck
The real action takes place while everyone is waiting for the rally to start, not during the actual speech. It’s free to attend and anyone can request tickets. People are admitted on a first-come-first serve basis. Tickets do not guarantee you a seat, and if the venue fills — which, despite what Trump says, does not always happen — people are refused entry.
Doors to the venue open hours before the program begins, and people line up hours before that to secure a spot. In Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, the parking lot opened at 9 a.m., the arena doors opened at 2 p.m., the program began at 4 p.m., and Trump was scheduled to speak at 6 p.m. If you want to know what experiencing a Trump rally is like, you need to get in line.
Around the rally site, music blares from every direction, sometimes from speakers, and often from live performers. In Johnstown, one musician was dressed in Revolutionary War garb.
Another was playing oldies and yacht rock under an umbrella. I passed him early in the day while he was singing a rendition of Jimmy Buffett’s “Margaritaville,” and when he sang “…searching for my lost shaker of salt” and pointed to me, I returned the obligatory audience response of “Salt! Salt! Salt!” Others also returned his call, but their response was “Trump! Trump! Trump!”
As the day wore on, the performer adapted to his audience. I passed him again around 2 p.m., and he had changed most of the lyrics to the songs he had chosen to make them Trump-oriented, like singing The Temptations’ “My Girl” as “My Trump.” His cup overflowed with tips.
A breakdancer in a Trump mask performs on the street before a rally for Trump in Johnstown. Courtesy of Jen Golbeck
The mood at these rallies is a mix of jubilation, community, rebellion and darkness. There is a bond between the attendees similar to what you might find at an arena concert, where people revel in their shared fandom. There is also a palpable sense of relief among the attendees that they can finally stop worrying about defending their support for Trump and relax among “their” people. Aggressive defiance is infused with the party feel. Women’s T-shirts, usually pink, feature slogans like, “Yeah, I’m a Trump girl. Get over it.” Men sport shirts reading, “If you don’t like Trump, you probably won’t like me, and I’m OK with that.”
Given Trump’s constant derision of the media and the thunderous boos that erupt when he mentions the press at his rallies, I was worried about what I would encounter when I arrived at my first summer rally, which was in Doral, Florida. I was anxious my liberalism would be obvious, even though I go to great lengths to remain completely neutral at these events. But with few exceptions, people have been polite, friendly, and even enthusiastic to talk to me. When I walk by with press credentials and a camera around my neck, they stop me and ask me to take their picture. I always oblige, and when I ask them for an interview, the vast majority say yes.
My “interviews” at these events are really active listening sessions. I start with a question, but it doesn’t matter what I ask, because once they know I am not there to criticize or catch them in a contradiction, they speak freely and expansively about the former president, how they came to support him, their worries for the country, and the conspiracy theories and misinformation they hold as truth. Other than occasionally prompting them with, “tell me more about that,” I rarely say anything.
Almost everyone wants to talk about 2016 and how they’d been waiting for someone like Trump to come along with the guts to say what they were thinking but they weren’t “allowed” to say out loud. “Is he an asshole? Sure. But he’s our asshole,” one man emphatically told me, and those around him nodded in agreement. They love that Trump created a space to speak their minds, which, in many cases, means being able to spout racist, sexist, hate speech that was all but forbidden in public life just a decade ago.
A woman waits to enter a rally for Trump on July 31 in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Courtesy of Jen Golbeck
These individuals fully embrace the former president’s crass, offensive, disrespectful way of speaking, and imitate it, too. The mainstream media does not show the obscenity and profanity of these rallies, but it is everywhere and, for me, a defining characteristic of these events.
“FUCK BIDEN” flags are still for sale from most vendors (even though Joe Biden dropped out of the race weeks ago) and appear on cars across the parking lots near the venues. Families wear matching T-shirts reading, “The Hoe is worse than Joe.” Kids wander around in “No more bullshit” visors with fake Trump hair attached, and browse bumper stickers that read, “I like big boobs and small government,” or show a naked woman’s torso with pistols resting on her hard nipples and the slogan “I <3 guns, titties, & whiskey.” After the assassination attempt in July, graphics featuring Trump with two raised middle fingers have popped on every type of merchandise you can imagine with taunts like, “You missed, BITCHES.”
The people I chat with drop slurs into our conversations, often with the glee of teens testing their parents’ boundaries. Since Kamala Harris has become the Democratic nominee for president, the men I interview at every event tell me that she got to where she is “on her knees.” They shift from foot to foot as they say it to me, knowing it’s offensive, and wait for my reaction. As someone who has endured a career full of misogyny and sexual harassment, I feel waves of disgust and anger when I hear these comments, but I just blink, remain blank-faced, and wait for them to continue.
Conspiracy theories and misinformation are threaded through every conversation I have:
The assassination attempt was an inside job.
Obama is still running the government.
People in the country illegally are being given vast sums of money, benefits, houses and free education.
Crime is at an all-time high.
Antifa has burned major American cities to the ground.
There is a globalist cabal in control of everything.
I frequently ask if Trump lost the 2020 election and, except for one individual, the response is unanimous, immediate and strong: The election was stolen. The single hold out just shrugged, which I took as, “Who knows?”
A man in an Uncle Sam costume speaks in support of Trump outside the Republican National Convention on July 19 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Courtesy of Jen Golbeck
The discussions are infused with dehumanizing language. Immigrants are a common target for their attacks and, as someone married to one, I sometimes physically bite my tongue to keep from responding. As the attendees bemoan the alleged “border invasion,” they simultaneously (and disingenuously) claim that they would welcome these people if they came to this country “the right way.”
Minorities are also frequently disparaged by Trump’s white fans while we’re talking, but there are some non-white attendees at these rallies, and they are celebrated. Trump supporters enthusiastically point out the “diversity” of the movement and even take cringey selfies with the “Koreans for Trump” group that seems to show up at every event I attend.
No one I talk to believes there will be a peaceful transfer of power if Trump loses the election in November. Lots of people mention “civil war” (though no one volunteers to fight it), “civil unrest,” or “the end of America as we know it” and “the fall of the American empire.” They, like many people across the political spectrum, see this election as determining whether America survives.
My interviews end whenever the subject decides they are done talking. Though I have been mostly silent, I’m often thanked for “the great conversation.” These Trump supporters feel unheard and unconsidered, and they seem genuinely grateful for the chance to voice their grievances. They talk about real difficulties — their own and their neighbors’ — trying to pay bills, access medical care, and get a fair shake.
I am empathetic to some of what they’re expressing. As someone who grew up in a small town in middle America surrounded by corn fields, I know the feeling of being excluded both culturally and politically from the national conversation. But I have also seen that their responses to those concerns are often lazy, biased, cruel, misinformed and hateful. As they fondly look back on their childhoods and their dad’s “good union job” or to some fabled time of supposed “great abundance” in our country, they feel they are unfairly suffering in a changing America. They believe their share of the nation’s prosperity is being given to “undeserving” outsiders or lazy leeches, and it makes them angry. Trump validates and stokes that anger using textbook fascist tactics — the glorification of a mythic past, the marginalization of women, the division of society into “us” and “them,” the creation of a shared sense of victimhood, scapegoating, and an idealized white nationalist social hierarchy — and they eat it up.
A girl holds a homemade "Make America Great Again" sign as she waits in line ahead of a rally for Trump in Johnstown. Courtesy of Jen Golbeck
I leave these rallies when the pre-game party has wound down and the crowd has taken their seats. As the event begins, they move deeper into MAGA ideology, safely surrounded by a crowd of their like-minded peers. Outside the venue, the vendors start breaking down their stands. As I drive away, those flags fading in my rearview mirror, I am left with an uneasy sadness and deep concern.
The conversations I’ve had over the last three months have made it clear to me that there is a large, unified movement committed to the destruction of American democracy. This campaign claims to want to save our country — to make it great again — but it is working to do exactly the opposite. These rally goers cheerfully and earnestly call themselves “patriots,” but true patriotism is nothing like the hateful, authoritarian, anti-institutional platform they support, and I believe many of these people do not grasp this — or how they are being used.
They aren’t alone. While the people I’ve spoken with are more extreme in their beliefs than your average Republican, the polls tell us that many others have been duped into believing that Trump-style fascism is worth accepting if it can deliver a return to “better days.” This is terrifying. The more we can learn about why people have joined this camp — their troubles, their worries, their needs and their wants — the better chance we have of addressing the real change that needs to happen. Having a conversation with people who live and think much differently than we do — and listening deeply to what they’re saying — isn’t going to magically make everything better, but it’s a good place to start.
Jen Golbeck is a professor at the University of Maryland where she studies extremism, social media, malicious online behavior, and artificial intelligence. She writes the MAGAReport, a newsletter reporting on the far right with a focus on trends and plans for violence. She splits her time between Washington, D.C., and the Florida Keys.
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