Go to one of Donald Trump’s rallies. He talks about Hannibal Lecter, windmills causing cancer—and you will even notice people leaving early out of boredom.
The one thing you will not hear him talk about is you.
Kamala Harris, 9/10/24
With the media desperate to sane-wash Trump, it was smart for Kamala Harris to encourage people to watch one of the Orange One’s rallies of batshit insanity and flailing, incipient fascism.
Don’t read the quotes in the newspaper that editors clean up and turn into sane, coherent sentences. Instead, watch for yourself on YouTube, and try to make sense of the incoherent ramblings dished out by Trump to an audience of slavering cultists.
Kamala invited a comparison: a normal, kind person versus a delusional wannabe tyrant.
But, for newbies, encountering the unfiltered Trump world can be shocking. From chemtrail conspiracies to chugging raw milk, you have no idea how crazy some of your fellow Americans have become.
Those of us who have been watching “the chuds” as we call Trump supporters, can be a guide. We know the d-list celebrities, bizarre theories and cult-like language employed by Trump and his followers.
I’ve been watching for years. There’s a whole group of us online who monitor a rump offshoot of the cult called Freedom Corner in Washington, DC, which demands freedom for January 6th rioters and the hanging of Nancy Pelosi.
Every night, they chant the name of Ashli Babbitt, read out a list of insurrectionists with the benediction of “hero” and swear allegiance to Donald Trump.
The things I have seen on their livestreams! George Santos posing for selfies. Megaphone wars with counterprotestors. Cult members arrested for assault. Bizarre song and dance numbers. Arguments with the police. Hidden bottles of wine. Cardboard forts. Chalktifa.
It’s been a wild ride, with so many hard-to-believe moments that I created a glossary to keep track of the people, places and things of the chudoverse.
I’ve also watched plenty of his rallies, for many of the DC-area chuds attend them and livestream from the audience. (The dirty secret of Trump events is that he’s not attracting new followers but just getting the same olds again and again.)
But for newbies, watching a Trump rally, like his recent salute to fascism in Madison Square Garden, can be disorienting, like being thrown into an insane asylum where all the inmates think that you’re the crazy one.
Here are four tips to watch a Trump rally without losing your mind:
- Watch on YouTube. Do not watch live on TV. You need the ability to pause and rewind (did I just hear that?), as well as being able to fast-forward through the hours of dead air and filler that comprise these poorly-managed affairs.
- Take breaks. Crazytown is addictive. Once you’ve seen Trump swaying on stage to YMCA and Ava Maria, his brain an empty shell, with hundreds of people following along in a Pennsylvania gymnasium as if this is perfectly normal, it can be hard to pull away.
- Be careful with RSBN. You can find Trump rallies on many platforms but the most dangerous is the Right Side Broadcasting Network (RSBN), which makes North Korean state media look subtle. This YouTube channel is for people who think Fox is too liberal. They fill the breaks and dead air during Trump rallies with commentators praising their god-king interspersed with ads for coronavirus cures and MAGA coins.
- Let someone else do the work for you. The best/worst parts of any Trump rally are quickly clipped and shared online. You do not have to watch the whole thing or even watch it live. Follow @atrupar or @acyn on Twitter for those viral moments.
Win or lose, the Trump cult isn’t going away. Millions of Americans believe that the government can control the weather and that January 6th was a setup. And that they are the rightful masters of this country, with democracy a mere fiction to be discarded when it gets inconvenient.
Know your enemy. Watch the cult.