When MAGA came to Manhattan – Mother Jones

A supporter at the New York rally for Trump on Sunday.Katie Godowski/MediaPunch/AP

On Sunday, The MAGA crowd arrived in Midtown Manhattan.

Your goal? Madison Square Garden, where Trump is holding a rally Sunday evening with an army of his most loyal supporters — including his running mate, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio); X owner Elon Musk, who pulled out all the stops to help Trump get re-elected; Ex-Fox News host Tucker Carlson; Tiffany Justice, founder of Moms for Liberty; and Dana White, CEO of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, among others.

When I arrived outside the arena just before 11 a.m. — six hours before Trump was scheduled to take the stage and an hour before the doors opened — the line of MAGA supporters in hats was snaking around the block.

The choice of New York as the location for a large Trump rally, just over a week before Election Day, is confusing: In 2020, President Joe Biden won 87 percent of votes cast in Manhattan. And just a few miles south of the downtown block where the crowd gathered Sunday are the courthouses where Trump was found guilty of 34 felonies earlier this year in his hush-money trial and in a $355 million civil fraud lawsuit was sentenced by Attorney General Letitia James. What's more, New York hasn't voted to elect a Republican president since 1984, when incumbent Ronald Reagan defeated Walter Mondale.

But the ex-president, who was born and raised in Queens, was never deterred by facts. “We will win New York,” he said during the campaign. His supporters who showed up Sunday were similarly defiant. “I’m voting for felon,” shouted a man standing near the line, “and I can’t wait.”

This man, who gave his name as George D. and said he lives on Long Island and works in Manhattan, held a flag with Trump's mugshot above the stars and stripes. He was one of several supporters who told me that he believes Trump will win the election, even though he appears to be tied in the polls with Vice President Kamala Harris. (A new ABC News/Ipsos poll on Sunday shows Harris back in the lead at 51 percent, to Trump's 47 percent.)

“Head-to-head means Trump is ahead,” George said. “I wear this MAGA hat every day and feel the pulse in the streets,” he added. “I went from middle finger to thumbs up.”

Like several supporters I spoke with, George favored Trump's talking points over my fact checks, calling his candidate unfairly persecuted by the left. He claimed the “lamestream media” was “constructing a lie” about Trump’s chances of winning. “The only way to defeat him is to lock him up or try to assassinate him,” he said, adding that he believes the Trump assassination attempts were “an inside job.” (Trump, Vance and Trump's sons have also falsely and without evidence claimed that Democrats were behind the assassination attempts; threat assessment experts have told my colleague Mark Follman that this could lead to more retaliatory violence.)

The shootings concerned his fans. When I asked a woman in line named Dana about Trump's chances of winning, a man behind her chimed in: “Don't say 'shot!'” The group laughed. Dana turned to answer my question about whether Trump could win: “100 percent,” she said without blinking.

But she knew she was something of an oddity in an election that was arguably as much about gender as politics: The latest ABC/Ipsos poll shows Harris with a lead of 14 among female voters points, while Trump has a lead of 14 points and a 6 point lead among men. Dana, who is from New Jersey, wore a pink “Women for Trump” hat. She pointed out, “I can’t wear this hat when I take my kids to school.”

Dana believes women are flocking to Harris because of reproductive rights (fact check: true), but she doesn't believe Trump has actually decimated those rights – he left them to the states. And she doesn't think he will sign a nationwide abortion ban, even though Trump twice refused to commit to it during the debate (earlier this month, he said in a social media post that he would veto it if Congress agreed). It). “I vote on policy,” Dana said, adding that she voted for Trump because of his stance on immigration, the economy and inflation. Under Biden, someone close claimed, bacon now cost $12. “I want to eat more bacon!” Dana exclaimed.

A little behind Dana and her friends I met a Dutch woman named Gabriëlle Kok who didn't show up she supported Trump, but because she wanted to see who did. The only thing she seemed to have in common with Dana was the belief that Trump had a chance of being re-elected. “I think he is a very dangerous man – for everyone, but especially for women,” Kok said. The Netherlands recently installed its first far-right government, whose leader Geert Wilders is known as the “Dutch Donald Trump.” “I think they look up to Trump and Trumpism,” Kok said of the Netherlands’ new government. “There is inspiration for them.”

But Luis Rodriguez, whom I met toward the end of the line, sees it differently: He sees Trump as a bulwark against the socialism of Cuba, from which he emigrated in 1961, shortly after Fidel Castro came to power, he said. “I'm much more aware of how fragile democracy is,” Rodriguez, who lives in Manhattan, told me, adding that he is a registered independent who voted for Obama in 2008.

He just voted early before showing up to the rally, he added. “I always get emotional when I vote,” Rodriguez said. “It's like going to church.” (Trump and his supporters, of course, still refuse to admit he lost the 2020 election and are preemptively sowing doubt in this year's race.)

Rodriguez believes 2020 was a “troubled election” and finds Trump's comparisons to Hitler and other fascists absurd. “Hitler is the cheapest swear word you can throw at someone to silence them,” he said, adding that the Democrats' message had “become 'abortion' and 'Trump is Hitler.'” He was angry . “I am Hispanic, immigrant and gay. I am being told that I support a racist, a xenophobe and an anti-gay bigot.”

His friend Gary Mirkin of Long Island wore a T-shirt that read “I'm Voting For the Felon.” He chimed in: “I'm conservative and Jewish, and people tell me I'm voting for Hitler.” Just then, someone in a MAGA hat walked by with a megaphone, chanting “F Joe Biden” and “Let's Go Brandon!” “

But these were the theatrics that Rodriguez seemed tired of. “Can we discuss politics?” he asked. Like Dana, Rodriguez said he voted for Trump based on immigration and economic issues. (The ABC/Ipsos poll shows Trump leading Harris on both questions by 12 and 8 points, respectively.)

During our conversation, Rodriguez claimed more than once that the Biden administration had lost 300,000 migrant children – a Trump-backed position that experts say is misleading and refers to unaccompanied migrant children who were not given notice to appear in court, not children Those who did this are lost, traded or dead. I asked what Rodriguez thought of the separations of immigrant families under Trump, given that the Trump campaign has not ruled out something like this happening again? Rodriguez said something Vance did: Every day in the United States, children are separated when their parents are arrested.

He also added that the Obama administration built cages to hold immigrant children – which is true, although it did not pursue a policy of systematic family separation like the Trump administration. According to a U.S. Department of Homeland Security report, this measure still separated more than 1,300 children from their parents as of the beginning of the year.

Regardless, Rodriguez trusts Trump: “I think he's the only one who has the courage and wherewithal” to confront the “corrupt establishment,” he said. So what happens if Harris wins? “Obama will pull their strings,” Mirkin said, adding that he had signed up as a poll watcher. (The GOP has recruited 200,000 poll watchers to “create the battleground” to challenge the election results if Trump loses.)

But he and Rodriguez weren't too worried. “Draw,” Mirkin said, “means he wins.”