This weekend I headed up to my ancestral heartland of Hanover, New Hampshire, to chill with Evan Coates, knock on some doors for Hillary, and hit up some political rallies.
Trump
He had three songs in rotation for warm-up music: Hey Jude, Rocket Man, and Tiny Dancer. The crowd at Plymouth State’s indoor track seemed filled with a fair number of college kids who just thought this was a joke. When some warm-up state rep came on stage saying Trump was going to make America great again some bro screamed “we’re always the best country!”
It was really sad to see a few five year-olds with their parents wearing Trump hats. The scene reminded me of this ISIS Vice bit.
Before Trump came on they had an announcement regarding protesters.
Trump supports the First Amendment just as much as he does the Second. We’ve provided a safe protesting place outside the building. However, this is a private event. If a protester starts demonstrating, please do not touch or harm the protester. This is a peaceful rally. Instead, start chanting ‘Trump, Trump, Trump’ around them and hold a sign over their heads. Police will come and take them away Thank you for helping make America great again.
This was the most menacing bit of the entire event. It felt like a dystopian PSA, or, as Evan put it, “some bad voice acting from an old FPS.” Tiny Dancer came back on.
Trump’s walk on music was You Say You Want a Revolution. Full lyrics, which his snippet didn’t quite get to, include “ We all want to change the world/But when you talk about destruction/Don’t you know that you can count me out.”
Even on an off day he is really skilled at reading and working crowds. Perhaps sensing that this group wasn’t quite as bloodthirsty as past gatherings, he wasn’t quite as aggressive. At one point when he got on on a digression that special interests donated to him, he said “I have no friends…wait, you’re all my friends!” Another big cheer line was “I wanna do a whole lot more than waterboarding.” He seemed proud of himself when he said “Iraq is a mistake because Saddam got great pleasure in killing terrorists…today Iraq is the Harvard for terrorists.” On drug abuse, he promised that after his wall “your kids are going to look all over the place for drugs and they’re not gunna find them.”
He does an interesting rhetorical trick to not say openly racist stuff — his new maneuver is to praise the brilliance of foreign leaders in China, Iran, Mexico, and Japan (he said Abe like Abe Lincoln). Outside we ran into a Tokyo University professor and an Asahi Shimbun journalist who wanted to interview a Trump supporter. To help him out I gave him a fake name and some quotes. I mentioned to him that Trump praised Abe. Fumiaki Kubo responded, “Well, not all Japanese are Abe fans.”
Hillary
Corey Booker is very skilled but he thinks he’s a little better than he probably actually is. He was on hard ‘white people code-switching’ mode in rural New Hampshire. He did some Maya Angelou “still I rise” speech which was elegantly put together but at the end he tried to rhyme and it came off forced, especially given the audience.
Madeline Albright looked and sounded good at 78. She had a cute line where she said Hillary lobbied Bill to give Albright the job because doing so “would make your mother happy.” Her “there’s a special place in hell for women who don’t help other women” I thought isn’t quite the right note particularly for younger people — it felt a bit like guilting into folks supporting her.
Hillary really won me over with her speech. In particular I thought the emotional middle of it came off very sincerely.
Said Coates, “HRC:Booker, Jay Z: Memphis Bleek.”
Jeb
Dude is straight boring. When you’re out charisma’d by Lindsay Graham you know you have an issue. Tom Ridge by accident referred to him as George Bush.
I feel bad for him. He got super wonky, for instance talking about compensation incentives at the VA two days before an election. It’s very endearing that he’s interested in the sort of stuff, but reflective of how bad a politician he is to think that this sort of appeal is going to win him a national election. He just doesn’t think at the right level required to be president.
Overall Impressions
I think rallies are good for democracy. You feel transported back in time and can kind of get why folks were really into them and that to win a presidential election in the 1800s you had to spend a boatload on music and beer. Super analogue. You get a way better sense of candidates walking them work a crowd than you do seeing them spar with Anderson Cooper or on TV ads. Also, the whole ‘ground game’ dynamic really seems to represent how enthusiastic candidates’ supporters are.
After going to these rallies, I’m more bought into the I think uniquely American concept that a few states which get outsize attention from the candidates should have a big say in who gets nominated— though it would be nicer if they were more representative than Iowa and New Hampshire.