The Cocktail Party Contrarian: The Wisdom of Trump’s Crowd

The Trump rally at Madison Square Garden on Sunday was extraordinary for its size and location, in the center of a deep “blue” state that tried to incarcerate its homegrown main attraction, but actually the event itself was fairly unexceptional. There were lots of forgettable speakers delivering boilerplate talking points and enthusiastic onlookers just happy to be in the room with like-minded allies. They applauded every time someone mentioned closing the border and jeered at the “fake news” press. Most of it was predictable. There were some fun moments, like when former wrestling champion Hulk Hogan tore his shirt off or when Congressman Byron Donalds of Florida shimmied off stage to a rap song. Extraordinary moments at political rallies don’t happen often, by definition, but when they do they are unmistakable and they always tell you something important about what the people really care about and why they are really there. The Trump rally had a few such moments, when a speaker stood up and reflected back at the crowd something essential in its consciousness, gave voice to it, and unleashed authentic energy. The crowd roared three times, and a roar is different from even the most enthusiastic cheer. It’s a vocalization that is emitted from deep within when people feel resolute and strong. The sound was overwhelming when entrepreneur and former presidential candidate, Vivek Ramaswamy, and investor, chief executive and prospective Department of Government Efficiency director, Elon Musk, were introduced. It was louder still when the former (and perhaps future) president, Donald Trump, came onto the stage. These three political outsiders with business resumes and bold, powerful personalities have become symbols of the MAGA mission to fight the establishment and to bring skill, competence, common sense and measurable results back to public service. Before any of these men said a word on stage, they created an extraordinary energy of uproarious confidence in an arena full of fighters looking for leadership. Critics of the rally decried the “brotastic” vibe, but failed to understand the people’s yearning for strength.Stillness in a crowd of tens of thousands may be harder to achieve than deafening noise, and it is distinguishable from quiet. Dull delivery of a scripted speech can produce a polite, quiet, detached reaction from an audience, but stillness happens when people are fully engaged and moved to silence. I heard it only once when a man called David Rem took the microphone. Mr. Rem recalled a childhood memory shortly after the death of his father in 1974. He opened his front door at Queens, New York to find Fred Trump, Donald’s father, standing in front of him. He had stopped by to let Mrs. Rem know he had paid her three children’s tuitions, so they could stay in their school. “Who would do that?” David emotionally asked the crowd as he told the story. Everyone there knew the answer wasn’t a government agency, or program. There was no sound or movement in the room which had an energy of its own. The crowd had a moment of nostalgic stillness recalling a time when community wasn’t a digital experience, or a government-designated protected class based on immutable characteristics or sexual preference. It was a group of people living in a neighborhood, caring for each other. The people miss community.Another energetic phenomenon occurred when both the former presidential candidate, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and political commentator and writer, Tucker Carlson, spoke.It happened when Mr. Kennedy talked about the left’s abandonment of free speech and civil liberties, and lamented its embrace of war. It happened again toward the end of his remarks when he spoke about the nation’s health. His sincerity and passion simultaneously animated and subdued the listener. It is the feeling one gets when truth is being spoken by a truth-teller: it energizes you and stops you in your tracks at the same time. That same feeling reverberated around the room when Mr. Carlson described why President Trump has earned such broad support. “The liberation he has brought to us is the liberation from the obligation to tell lies,” he said. “Donald Trump has made it possible for the rest of us to tell the truth about the world around us.” Those sentences were at once both a jolt of restorative affirmation and a calming reassurance for the frustrated, betrayed and gaslit. If you were in the room you could feel that 20,000 souls hardly knew whether to scream “Amen” or to close their eyes and breathe deeply with relief. The people want more honesty and less hypocrisy. They hate the lies.Democrats can continue to pretend to see Hitler and fascist armies around every MAGA corner but that story doesn’t allow them to see why so many people would pack an arena at New York City for Trump. Perhaps they don’t want to understand half the country and prefer to try to crush it. If they do want to understand it, they should look to the crowd. They, more than the headliners, reveal with every reaction, with every sound they do and do not make, what their priorities and aspirations are. Those are the extraordinary moments worth paying attention to.

The Cocktail Party Contrarian: The Wisdom of Trump’s Crowd

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