Except translation, this story has not been edited by achinews staff and is published from a syndicated feed.
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. (AP) — As Donald Trump defeated immigrants Saturday afternoon in the Rust Belt, his supporters in the Deep South turned his earlier rants into rallying cries over a college football game as they prepared for the visit of the former president later in the evening.
“You have to get these people back where they come from,” Trump said in Wisconsin, as the Republican presidential nominee again focused on Springfield, Ohio, which has been rocked by false claims he elaborated that Haitian immigrants steals and “eats the dogs… eats the cats” from neighbours’ homes.
“You have no choice,” Trump continued. “You’re going to lose your culture. You are going to lose your country. “
Many University of Alabama fans, anticipating Trump’s visit to their campus for a showdown between the No. 4 Crimson Tide and No. 2 Georgia Bulldogs, sport stickers and buttons that read: “They eat the Dawgs!” They broke out in random chants of “Trump! Trump! Trump!” all day, a preview of the rousing reception he received early in the second quarter as he sat in a 40-yard line suite hosted by a wealthy member of his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida.
Trump’s brand of populist nationalism leans heavily on his dark rendering of America as a failing nation abused by elites and overrun by Black and brown immigrants. But his supporters, especially white cultural conservatives, hear in that rhetoric an optimistic patriotism summed up by the slogan on his movement’s ubiquitous red hats: “Make America Great Again.”
That was the assessment of Shane Walsh, a 52-year-old businessman from Austin, Texas. Walsh and his family decorated their tent on the university’s quadrangle with a Trump 2024 banner and a professionally made sign depicting the popular new message predicting the Alabama football team “eating the Dawgs.”
For Walsh, the sign was not about immigration or details about Trump’s showmanship, exaggerations and falsehoods.
“I don’t necessarily like him as a person,” Walsh said. “But I think Washington is broken, and it’s the fault of both parties – and Trump is the type of guy who will stand up. He is many things, but weak is not one of them. He’s an optimistic guy – he makes you believe that if he’s in charge, we’ll be fine. “
The idea for the sign grew, he said, from a meme he showed his wife. “I thought it was funny,” he said.
Katie Yates, a 47-year-old man from Hoover, Alabama, had the same experience with her life-size crush on the former president. She was repeatedly stopped on her way to her family’s usual tent. Trump’s likeness was about to join Elvis, “who is always an Alabama fan at our tailgate,” Yates said.
“I’m such a Trump fan,” she said, adding that she couldn’t understand how all Americans weren’t.
Yates offered nothing disparaging about Trump’s opponent, Democratic nominee and Vice President Kamala Harris, instead simply lamenting that he couldn’t wait for the game and see Trump recognized by the stadium’s public address system and his shown pumping his fist on large video screens in the four. corners of Bryant-Denny Stadium.
That moment came with 12:24 left in the second quarter, shortly after Alabama quarterback Jalen Milroe ran up the right sideline, on Trump’s side of the field, to give the Crimson Tide ahead of 28-0 over the Vegas-favourite. Bull dogs.
Trump did not respond to Milroe’s impostor, acknowledging that Georgia, which is not reliably Republican Alabama, may be a key battleground in his contest against Harris. But when “45th president of the United States, Donald J. Trump” was introduced to the capacity crowd of more than 100,000 fans – all but a few thousand wearing crimson – Trump smiled broadly and pumped his fist, as he had to perform on stage in July after a would-be assassin’s bullet grazed his ear and left his face bleeding.
The crowd roared its approval, raising cell phone cameras and their crimson-and-white pompoms toward Trump’s suite, where he stood behind the ballistic glass that has become a feature after two assassination attempts. The Trumpian decorum was interrupted by a burst of boos and a few extended middle fingers, but they gave way to more chants: “USA! USA! USA!”
In fact, not everyone on campus was thrilled.
“There is, I think, a silent majority among the students who are not with Trump,” argued Braden Vick, president of the Alabama College Democrats chapter. Vick pointed to recent elections when Democratic candidates, including President Joe Biden in 2020, fared better than their statewide totals in precincts around campus.
“We have this great atmosphere for a top-five game between these two teams, with playoff and championship implications,” Vick said, “and it’s a shame we have to Donald Trump tried to ruin it with his selfishness.”
Trump became the guest of Alabama businessman Ric Mayers Jr., a member of Mar-a-Lago. Mayers said in an interview before the game that he invited Trump so he could enjoy a warm welcome. And, as Mayers pointed out, Trump is a longtime sports fan. He tried to buy an NFL team in the 1980s and helped launch a rival league instead. And he attended several college games as president, including the Alabama-Georgia national championship game.
Mayers also invited Alabama Sens. Katie Britt and Tommy Tuberville. Britt, a former Alabama student government president, delivered the GOP response to Biden’s final State of the Union address, drawing rebuke after using a human trafficking rebuttal story to echo Trump’s warnings about migrants. Tuberville, former head football coach at Auburn University, Alabama archivist, is a staunch Trump supporter.
Joining the politicians in the series were the musicians Kid Rock and Hank Williams Jr. Herschel Walker, Georgia football icon and unsuccessful 2022 Senate nominee, traveled in Trump’s motorcade to the game.
Fences surrounded parts of the stadium, with scores of metal detectors and tents forming a security perimeter beyond the normal footprint. The Alpha Omicron Pi sorority sisters showed off their safety wristbands before being allowed to go to their sorority house right next to the stadium. Bomb-sniffing dogs stopped catering trucks carrying food. Hundreds of TSA agents spread out to do a potentially unpopular job: set up airport-level screening for every ticket holder.
But what seemed most important was the opportunity for a friendly home crowd to cheer for Trump the same way they cheered the Crimson Tide, unencumbered by anything he said in Wisconsin or any another place as he makes an increasingly dark closing argument.
“College football fans can be emotional and funny about their team,” Shane Walsh said. “And so are Trump supporters.”
They didn’t care that Trump’s tie wasn’t crimson. It was Georgia red.
(Except translation, this story has not been edited by achinews staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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