Last week during the POTUS visit in McAllen, TX both protesters and supporters lined the street to express their point of view. I was there for the show. And believe me it was a show complete with Geraldo and Fox News to a giant Baby Trump balloon. I was there with my camera to shoot video and photograph the event. The sides were fairly evenly divided and both more than willing to antagonize the other.
The Trump side was jovial. I’m not going to lie, they were more entertaining and generally happy. It felt more like a tailgate party. Lots of MAGA hats and American flags. The mood wasn’t surprising. Their hero had come to town. The protester side, not so much. When I was walking through the MAGA crowd one of the guys stopped me. He wanted to talk about how angry the protesters were. He wanted to talk about how the MAGA side only showed them respect and hospitality and how if he went to the other side he would be greeted with insults and anger.
I told him that I’d be happy to follow him with the camera to document what happened.
And you know what? He was right. He wasn’t received warmly. He was greeted with anger. He was greeted with insults. I recorded it all.
At some point he asked me a rhetorical question, “Why are they so angry?”
After the day had ended and I had time to process my thoughts I went back to the man and his question.
All I could come up with was, after all the celebrated cruelty of Trump, how is it that he doesn’t understand? I’m leaving my opinion out of the conversation on whether or not he should agree with them, but understanding their rage shouldn’t be that hard.
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