{"id":39326,"date":"2019-10-18T02:49:22","date_gmt":"2019-10-18T02:49:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=39326"},"modified":"2019-10-19T18:53:54","modified_gmt":"2019-10-19T18:53:54","slug":"well-now-that-was-some-kag-rally-in-big-d","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=39326","title":{"rendered":"Well now &#8230; that was some KAG rally in Big D"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?hashtags=KAG2020%20%23MAGA%20%23POTUS&#038;via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/crowd-at-rally.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-39327\" src=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/crowd-at-rally-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/crowd-at-rally-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/crowd-at-rally.jpg 640w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>To my friends and assorted loved ones who expressed concern that I was plunging into the belly of the beast by attending a Donald Trump re-election rally, I have good news.<\/p>\n<p>I survived. Intact. No one laid a hand on me. No one got angry. I stayed for as long as I wanted to stay and left on my terms.<\/p>\n<p>There. Now that we&#8217;ve cleared that up, I want to offer a word or two about what I saw at the American Airlines Center in downtown Dallas this afternoon and evening.<\/p>\n<p>I saw a huge crowd of Trump fanatics &#8212; the vast majority of whom (close to 90 percent, I am guessing) &#8212; wearing Donald Trump gear. MAGA hats. Shirts with assorted sayings and slogans; some of them were profane and expressed a good bit of anger.<\/p>\n<p>I met a very nice couple from Rockwall, who drove all the way into Dallas to see their man, the president. I confided in them while we waited outside that &#8220;I am not a Trump supporter. I am here as an observer.&#8221; OK, I didn&#8217;t tell them the whole truth, that I was there as a fervent anti-Trump voter and that I intend to keep skewering Trump whenever possible. They promised to read my blog on the subject and I hope they don&#8217;t <em>hate me too much<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>There were t-shirts with the message: <em>Trump Supporter, I Won&#8217;t Apologize For It.&#8221;<\/em> When have you seen a political supporter offer up that qualifier? Anyone? Oh, and there was this gem: <em>&#8220;Fu** Your Feelings.&#8221;\u00a0<\/em>I didn&#8217;t have the courage to ask if those wearing that article of clothing were among Trump&#8217;s evangelical base of supporters.<\/p>\n<p>The crowd outside was remarkable in its ethnic\/racial makeup. It was not as lily white as I expected. I saw several African-American men wearing &#8220;Blacks for Trump&#8221; attire.<\/p>\n<p>Then there was the shirt that said &#8220;Jesus Is My Savior, Trump Is My President.&#8221; Actually, that one made me want to hurl, given that the shirt contained the name of Jesus Christ and arguably the most <em>anti-Christian<\/em> man ever elected to the presidency. Enough of that.<\/p>\n<p>I stood in a line that stretched more than a mile and a half. We snaked our way around several barriers outside the AAC, then walked up the steps and into the building. The U.S. Secret Service did a remarkably thorough but quick inspection of everyone entering the arena.<\/p>\n<p>I found a seat way up high.<\/p>\n<p>Then out came the president of the United States, applauding along with the cheering crowd. I never can tell why he claps so much when he enters a room. Is he cheering those who are clapping for him \u2026 or is he just so damn proud of himself that he cannot resist giving himself an ovation?<\/p>\n<p>Whatever.<\/p>\n<p>He launched into the same tired tirade I&#8217;ve been hearing since he took office. Democrats are the enemy. So are the media. Everyone opposed to Trump and the Republican Party want &#8220;open borders,&#8221; they want to &#8220;take away your rights,&#8221; they favor &#8220;socialism&#8221; over capitalism, they hate the United States, and on and on.<\/p>\n<p>Admission time: I didn&#8217;t stay for Trump&#8217;s entire tirade. I heard all I could stand and left.<\/p>\n<p>My final takeaway from this Trump &#8220;Keep America Great&#8221; rally is this: The enthusiasm of the 16,000 or so in the arena and in line waiting to get into the AAC is as fervent as anything I have ever seen at events such as this. I will give Trump credit for that much; his base of support is seemingly unshakable.<\/p>\n<p>Which makes me wonder yet again: Are these Trump loyalists so blinded by their fealty to this man that they can overlook the crimes he has committed? Or are they &#8212; and there&#8217;s no pleasant way to say this &#8212; just plain ignorant?<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?hashtags=KAG2020%20%23MAGA%20%23POTUS&#038;via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>To my friends and assorted loved ones who expressed concern that I was plunging into the belly of the beast by attending a Donald Trump re-election rally, I have good news. I survived. Intact. No one laid a hand on me. No one got angry. I stayed for as long as I wanted to stay &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=39326\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Well now &#8230; that was some KAG rally in Big D<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,13,14],"tags":[7225,8959,1424,8987,7419],"class_list":["post-39326","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","category-national-news","category-political-news","tag-2020-election","tag-american-airlines-center","tag-donald-trump","tag-keep-america-great","tag-maga"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39326","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=39326"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39326\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39345,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39326\/revisions\/39345"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=39326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=39326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=39326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}