I’ve deliberately abstained from writing about the 2016 election. In both the Alligator and elsewhere, we are so constantly bombarded with election coverage and “hot takes” that I think the last thing the world needs is another college kid’s narrow perspective. However, I feel the need to describe my experience last Friday at the University of South Florida Sun Dome.
I went to a Donald Trump rally, and it left me feeling both disappointed and confused. Thousands, including myself, were not actually able to enter the rally because of unplanned overcrowding at the Sun Dome. Instead, what left me so dismayed was my experience with the protests outside the rally.
Conviction — unwavering, unyielding and whole-hearted conviction — characterized the atmosphere of the evening and the views of Trump’s supporters.
No one came to expand personal views or engage in civil discourse. Instead, amidst the protests and close confrontations, Trump’s supporters shouted arguments rooted purely in emotion and presumption.
On immigration, a woman vehemently argued against the presence of illegal immigrants because, as she claimed, two illegal immigrants kidnapped someone from her family. On the size of government, another Trump supporter argued, “It’s not the government’s job to wipe my ass. The more the government’s out of my life, the better. I would prosper.”
This is where my disappointment begins: There is a remarkable degree of cognitive dissonance within these outraged supporters between their perception of a Trump presidency and the reality of Trump’s platform. For example, only a tremendous — or, if I may, “yuge” — amount of government oversight and involvement could facilitate the mass deportation of 11 million residents, the increased surveillance of all Muslim Americans and the roughly $8 billion, 1300-mile-long wall.
Not to mention a few particularly fired-up supporters who shouted, “America! USA! USA!” as if Trump is the “American” way, while all those opposed — those “liberals” — are unpatriotic or un-American.
For the majority of these supporters — and, I’ll admit, for some protestors as well — “winning” arguments and feeling right and triumphant is infinitely more important than actually being right.
Demonize the other side, vindicate your own message as irrefutably true and disregard or manipulate the facts when they don’t work in your favor: This is the name of the political game. While this process is not by any means uniquely Republican (see Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., and the Democratic National Committee), it is vividly portrayed and widely accepted at Trump’s rallies.
Last Friday also left me confused. Before arriving at the protest, I had a lovely conversation with a middle-aged couple from Orlando, both avid Trump supporters. We spoke of nothing political and simply chatted about our hometowns, Friday’s highway traffic, our families and the like.
Small talk as it was, I think such interactions hold profound implications. Strip away the mob mentality and political biases, and we’re all just people waiting in a line. Civility is not entirely absent in all of Trump’s supporters.
But then this left me even more confused, for I utterly fail to understand why scores of low- and middle-class Americans, such as this couple and many supporters at the rally, would support Trump so adamantly based on little more than the vitality and gratification Trump’s rhetoric ensures.
Perhaps it’s upbringing? Perhaps we choose our affiliations based on our life’s experiences and our imagination of the political reality, while outside influences and calls to arms — such as Trump’s demagoguery — facilitate such stark allegiances, ignorance merely exacerbating the process? I don’t know; I’m just a 20-year-old trying to understand all this.
In the end, what revitalized me was witnessing the nearby Perkins attended by both Trump supporters and non-Trumpers alike after the rally. By no means were they holding hands and singing kumbaya, but they nonetheless sought out the same midnight munchies.
If there’s one thing that transcends the stark divisions of our nation’s political theater, it’s pancakes. Perhaps all hope is not lost after all.
David Hoffman is a UF history and physics sophomore. His column appears on Tuesdays.
