TUSCALOOSA, Ala. (AP) — As Donald Trump attacked immigrants Saturday afternoon in the Rust Belt, his Deep South supporters turned his previous attacks into a rallying cry at a college football game as They were preparing for the former president’s visit later. in the evening.
“You have to take these people back to where they came from,” Trump said in Wisconsin, as the Republican presidential candidate again focused on Springfield, Ohio, which has been rocked by false claims that he amplified that Haitian immigrants steal and “eat dogs.” .. eat cats” from neighbors’ houses.
“You have no choice,” Trump continued. “You will lose your culture. You will lose your country.
Many University of Alabama fans, anticipating Trump’s visit to their campus for a matchup between the No. 4 Crimson Tide and No. 2 Georgia Bulldogs, sported stickers and buttons that read: “They eat the Dawgs! They randomly chanted “Trump!” Asset! Trump!” throughout the day, a glimpse of the enthusiastic reception he received at the start of the second quarter while sitting in a 40-yard suite hosted by a wealthy member of his club Mar-a-Lago in Florida.
Trump’s populist nationalism leans heavily on his bleak portrayal of America as a failing nation, abused by elites and overrun by black and brown immigrants. But his supporters, especially white cultural conservatives, hear in this rhetoric an optimistic patriotism summed up by the slogan on his movement’s ubiquitous red hats: “Make America Great Again.”
That’s the assessment of Shane Walsh, a 52-year-old businessman from Austin, Texas. Walsh and his family decorated their tent on the University Quadrangle with a Trump 2024 flag and a professionally made sign depicting the popular new message that the Alabama football team would “eat the Dawgs.”
For Walsh, the sign wasn’t about immigration or the details of Trump’s showmanship, exaggerations and lies.
“I don’t necessarily like him as a person,” Walsh said. “But I think Washington is broken, and it’s both parties’ fault — and Trump is the kind of guy who will stand up. He is many things, but weakness is not one of them. He’s an optimistic guy – he just makes you believe that if he’s in charge, everything will be fine.
The idea for the sign, he said, came from a meme he showed his wife. “I thought it was funny,” he said.
Katie Yates, a 47-year-old from Hoover, Alabama, had the same experience with her life-size figure of the former president. She was arrested several times on her way to her family’s usual tent. Trump’s portrait was to join that of Elvis, “who is still an Alabama fan at our door,” Yates said.
“I’m such a fan of Trump,” she said, adding that she didn’t understand why all Americans weren’t.
Yates offered nothing disparaging about Trump’s opponent, Democratic nominee and Vice President Kamala Harris, simply lamenting that she couldn’t stay for the game and see Trump be recognized by the voting system. stadium sound system and shown pumping his fist on large video screens during all four games. corners of Bryant-Denny Stadium.
That moment came with 12:24 left in the second quarter, shortly after Alabama quarterback Jalen Milroe ran down the right sideline, on Trump’s side, to give the Crimson Tide a stunning 28-0 lead over the Vegas favorite. Bulldogs.
Trump did not respond to Milroe’s slip-up, perhaps recognizing that Georgia, not Republican Alabama, is a key battleground in his fight against Harris. But when “the 45th President of the United States, Donald J. Trump” was introduced before a crowd of more than 100,000 fans — all but a few thousand wearing crimson — Trump smiled broadly and raised his fist, as he had done on stage. in July, after a would-be assassin’s bullet grazed his ear and bloodied his face.
The crowd roared its approval, raising cellphone cameras and their purple and white pom-poms toward Trump’s suite, where he stood behind ballistic glass that had become a feature after two assassination attempts. A few boos and a few raised middle fingers broke the Trumpian decorum, but they gave way to more chants of: “USA!” USA! USA!”
Indeed, not everyone on campus was thrilled.
“There is, I think, a silent majority among students who are not with Trump,” said Braden Vick, president of the College Democrats in Alabama. Vick pointed to recent elections in which Democratic candidates, including President Joe Biden in 2020, far exceeded their statewide totals in precincts around campus.
“We have this great vibe for a top-five game between these two teams, with playoff and championship implications,” Vick said, “and it’s just a shame that Donald Trump has to try to ruin it with his selfishness.”
Trump came as a guest of Alabama businessman Ric Mayers Jr., a member of Mar-a-Lago. Mayers said in an interview before the game that he invited Trump so he could enjoy a warm welcome. And, as Mayers pointed out, Trump is a longtime sports fan. He attempted to buy an NFL team in the 1980s and instead helped launch a competing league. And he attended several college games as president, including an Alabama-Georgia national championship game.
Mayers also invited Alabama senators Katie Britt and Tommy Tuberville. Britt, former president of the Alabama Student Government, delivered the Republican Party’s response to Biden’s latest State of the Union address, drawing criticism after using a debunked history of human trafficking to echoing Trump’s warnings about migrants. Tuberville, a former head football coach at Auburn University, Alabama’s arch-rival, is a staunch Trump supporter.
Musicians Kid Rock and Hank Williams Jr. Herschel Walker, a Georgia football icon and failed 2022 Senate candidate, traveled in Trump’s motorcade to the game.
Fencing surrounded parts of the stadium, with dozens of metal detectors and tents forming a security perimeter beyond the usual footprint. Alpha Omicron Pi sorority sisters showed off their security bracelets before being allowed into their sorority house directly adjacent to the stadium. Bomb-sniffing dogs stopped catering trucks carrying food. Hundreds of TSA agents fanned out to do a potentially unpopular job: enforcing airport-level screening for every ticket holder.
But what seemed most important was the opportunity for a friendly audience to cheer Trump the same way they cheered the Crimson Tide, regardless of anything he said in Wisconsin or elsewhere as he presents an increasingly dark final argument.
“College football fans can get emotional and crazy about their team,” Shane Walsh said. “And Trump supporters too.”
They didn’t even mind that Trump’s tie wasn’t crimson. It was Georgia red.
