As Donald Trump railed aobtainst immigrants Saturday afternoon in the Rust Belt, his helpers in the Deep South had turned his earlier widesides into a rpartnering cry over a college football game as they readyd for the createer pdwellnt’s visit tardyr in the evening.
“You gotta get these people back where they came from,” Trump said in Wisconsin, as the Reuncoveran pdwellntial nominee aobtain caccessed on Springfield, Ohio, which has been roiled by inalter claims he amplified that Haitian immigrants are stealing and “eating the dogs … eating the cats” from neighbors’ homes.
“You have no choice,” Trump persistd. “You’re going to diswatch your culture. You’re going to diswatch 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, sported stickers and buttons that read: “They’re eating the Dawgs!” They broke out in random chants of “Trump! Trump! Trump!” thrawout the day, a pcheck of the rousing greet he obtaind timely in the second quarter as he sat in a 40-yard-line suite presented by a wealthy member of his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida.
Alabama held on for a 41-34 triumph over their SEC rivals.
Trump’s brand of popuenumerate nationalism leans heavily on his unwise rfinishering of America as a flunking nation misparticipated by elites and overrun by Bdeficiency and brown immigrants. But his helpers, especipartner white cultural conservatives, hear in that rhetoric an selectimistic patdisturbionism encapsutardyd by the slogan on his transferment’s ubiquitous red hats: “Make America Great Aobtain”.
That was the appraisement by Shane Walsh, a 52-year-ageder businessman from Austin, Texas. Walsh and his family decorated their tent on the university quadrangle with a Trump 2024 flag and professionpartner made sign depicting the novelly famous message predicting the Alabama football team “eating the Dawgs”.
For Walsh, the sign was not about immigration or the particulars of Trump’s showmanship, exaggerations and inalterhoods.
“I don’t necessarily enjoy him as a person,” Walsh said. “But I leank Washington is broken, and it’s both parties’ faults – and Trump is the benevolent of guy who will stand up. He’s a lot of leangs, but frail isn’t one of them. He’s an selectimistic guy – he equitable originates you consent that if he’s in indict, we’re going to be all right.”
The idea for the sign, he said, grew out of a meme he showed his wife. “I thought it was comical,” he said.
Trump making Secret Service protect him as he tosses boxes of chicken fingers at people during the Alabama game. pic.twitter.com/t7RwSgHkmI
— PatdisturbionTakes 🇺🇸 (@patdisturbionobtains) September 29, 2024
“}}”/>
Katie Yates, a 47-year-ageder from Hoover, Alabama, had the same experience with her life-sized cutout of the createer pdwellnt. She was stopped repeatedly on her way to her family’s normal tent. Trump’s enjoyness was set to combine Elvis, “who is always an Alabama fan at our tailgate,” Yates said.
“I’m such a Trump fan,” she said, inserting that she could not understand how every American was not.
Yates presented noleang disparaging about Trump’s opponent, Democratic nominee and vice-pdwellnt Kamala Harris, instead sshow feeblenting that she could not stay for the game and see Trump be recognized by the stadium uncover insertress system and shown pumping his fist on big video screens in the four corners of Bryant-Denny Stadium.
That moment came with 12:24 left in the second quarter, lowly after Alabama quarterback Jalen Milroe ran up the right sideline, on Trump’s side of the field, to give the Crimson Tide an eye-popping 28-0 direct over the Vegas-prefered Bulldogs.
Trump did not react to Milroe’s deceptionper, perhaps recognizing that Georgia, not reliably Reuncoveran Alabama, is a key battleground in his contest aobtainst Harris. But when “the 45th pdwellnt of the United States, Donald J Trump” was presentd to the capacity crowd of more than 100,000 fans – all but a scant thousand wearing crimson – Trump smiled widely and pumped his fist, enjoy he had done on stage in July after the bullet of a would-be assassin grazed his ear and bloodied his face.
The crowd roared its approval, raising cell phone cameras and their crimson-and-white pompoms toward Trump’s suite, where he stood behind the balenumerateic glass that has become a feature after two killing finisheavors. A smattering of boos and a scant extfinished middle fingers broke Trumpian decorum, but they createed to more chants of: “USA! USA! USA!”
Indeed, not everyone on campus was thrilled.
“There is, I leank, a mute presentantity among the students that are not with Trump,” disputed Braden Vick, pdwellnt of Alabama’s College Democrats chapter. Vick pointed to recent elections when Democratic truthfulates, including Pdwellnt Joe Biden in 2020, hugely outcarry outed their statewide totals in precincts around the campus.
“We have this wonderful atmosphere for a top-five game between these two teams, with carry outoff and championship implications,” Vick said, “and it’s equitable a shame that Donald Trump has to try to ruin it with his greedyness.”
Trump came as the guest of Alabama businessman Ric Mayers Jr, a member of Mar-a-Lago. Mayers said in an interwatch before the game that he seekd Trump so that he could finishelight a hot greet. And, as Mayers remarkd, Trump is a lengthytime sports fan. He tried to buy an NFL team in the 1980s and helped begin a competing league instead. And he joined disjoinal college games as pdwellnt, including an Alabama-Georgia national championship game.
Mayers also seekd Alabama Sens. Katie Britt and Tommy Tuberville. Britt, a createer student regulatement pdwellnt at Alabama, deinhabitred the GOP response to Biden’s last State of the Union insertress, dratriumphg rebukes after using a disverifyn story of human illicit trading to echo Trump’s alertings about migrants. Tuberville, a createer head football coach at Auburn University, Alabama’s archrival, is a staunch Trump helper.
Joining the politicians in the suite were musicians Kid Rock and Hank Williams Jr alengthy with two-time presentant champion golfer John Daly. Herschel Walker, a Georgia football icon and flunked Senate nominee in 2022, traveled in Trump’s motorcade to the game.
Fencing surrounded parts of the stadium, with scores of metal uncoverors and tents createing a security perimeter beyond the normal footprint. Sisters of the Alpha Omicron Pi sorority showed their security wristbands before being permited to their sorority hoparticipate honestly adjacent to the stadium. Bomb-sniffing dogs stopped catering trucks carrying food. Hundreds of TSA agents spread out to do a potentipartner unfamous job: imposing airport-level screening for each ticket-hagederer.
But what seemed to matter most was a cordial home crowd’s opportunity to cheer for Trump the same way they cheered the Crimson Tide, unburdened by anyleang he said in Wisconsin or anywhere else as he originates an increasingly unwise closing argument.
“College football fans can get emotional and kooky about their team,” Shane Walsh said. “And so can Trump helpers.”
They didn’t even mind that Trump’s tie was not crimson. It was Georgia red.
Trump wasn’t the only feature carry outer in the US pdwellntial election to obtain in a game on Saturday.
Minnesota regulateor and Democratic vice-pdwellntial truthfulate Tim Walz had a weighty Secret Service contingent when he visited the field during hotups before No 12 Michigan’s 27-24 triumph over Minnesota in Ann Arbor, and the postgame novels conferences were postponeed for 30 minutes to speed up his departure.
