Donald Trump is returning to Arizona this week, visiting the border on Thursday and holding a rally in Glendale on Friday, but I won’t be anywhere near him.
I’ve covered politics for much of the last 20 years, including Trump campaign rallies, and I’ll never do it again.
It’s not about Trump.
He’s a presidential candidate for a major political party, and therefore merits coverage regardless of how much his lies and election denials and racist statements bother me, personally.
Journalists, especially opinion journalists such as myself, should call out these missteps loudly and frequently. It’s our role in making sure our nation has a strong democracy.
But I’ll be doing it from the office. Because Trump’s supporters are often, well, weird.
Good people support Trump. They’re not the issue
I don’t say that lightly.
I’m not a fan of Tim Walz branding Trumplicans with the “weird” sobriquet. For me, the Michelle Obama “when they go low, we go higher” strategy has the most dignity.
And if I were a GOP strategist, I’d be printing up “weirdo” T-shirts as a point of pride, turning the insult into a battle cry.
Also, some of my closest friends are Trump supporters. I attend a predominantly white evangelical Christian church, and Trump bumper stickers aren’t hard to spot. (Although, as one of the few African American congregants, I’m probably just as easy to pick out in the parking lot.)
These are good people who oppose abortion from the depths of their souls, and they can speak reasonably about complicated issues. To have the opportunity to learn from them is a privilege, even as we disagree on whether Trump is fit to guide the nation.
The problem is the supporters who get rowdy
My problem is with the Trumpers who — how can I put this delicately? — like to get a little rowdy.
You know, the ones who show up at polling places armed for combat? Or the ones who tried to take over the U.S. Capitol in a deadly riot? Or the ones who carried tiki torches through Charlottesville?
Trump might consider them as “very fine people,” but they scare me.
I was wrong about Harris: That’s a problem for Trump
Sometimes, the people at Trump rallies are kind of funny.
Consider the older Black woman, an entrepreneur of the highest order, who was selling Trump condoms outside an event in Milwaukee in 2016. The prophylactics were $5 each, and they said “Trump” in big, bold letters.
She was screaming, “Trump condoms! … Next time you get that rump, think of Trump!”
Weird.
I don’t know what else to call it.
Their behavior is weird. How else do you say it?
Or the white woman selling Trump T-shirts and Confederate flags from the back of her truck at a Phoenix rally in 2020.
I was sitting in my car across from her tent, talking on the phone to a source, when she came over to my window, knocking violently, demanding to know what I was doing there and threatening to call the police.
She had no authority to question me. And given the state of race relations in the nation at the time, she was trying to use the police to bully me for simply existing within her line of sight.
Again, weird.
For me, I can’t understand how conservatives of conscience could allow a candidate like Trump to represent them. Or at least why they aren’t louder in demanding he stop dog whistling to these weirdos.
So, I won’t be going to the border on Thursday or the rally on Friday.
I love my job.
But I love my safety and sanity more.
Trump doesn’t worry me as much as they do
I’ll watch the videos of what he says, and if there’s good reason for me to give my opinion, I will.
Again, it’s my job.
But it’s not my job to put myself in harm’s way, even if I still regret not buying one of those condoms as a souvenir. (I just wasn’t about to walk past the “Hillary for Prison” T-shirts with AK-47s printed near her name to get one.)
It’s not Trump who worries me as much as it is some of the people who support him.
They’re the reason I don’t intend to ever go to another Trump rally.
Reach Moore at [email protected] or 602-444-2236. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter, @SayingMoore.
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Trump has ‘weird’ supporters at his Arizona rallies. They scare me
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