At a remote rural airport in Michigan, an outsized plane touched down as music from Tom Cruise’s film Top Gun boomed from loudspeakers. Late afternoon sunshine gleamed off five giant golden letters on the plane’s side – “TRUMP” – and its Rolls Royce engines. A crowd bedecked in red roared as the plane rolled to a standstill behind a blue “TRUMP” lectern.
A door opened and men in dark glasses and dark suits from what Donald Trump would call “central casting” made their way down the stairs. “Trump! Trump!” the audience chanted, raising hundreds of camera phones in eager anticipation. Great Balls of Fire, Macho Man and YMCA blared. Finally, the former and would-be future president emerged, clapping and fist pumping to the sound of whoops and cheers and Lee Greenwood’s God Bless the USA.
How different the warm embrace from Trump’s recent experience as a defendant on criminal trial in a chilly, dingy courtroom in New York. On those days, threatened with prison, he looks old, vulnerable and small. Back on the election campaign trail, it is all about hypermasculine energy and bigness – big plane, big crowds, big promises and big lies.
Trump had spent Tuesday in the now grimly familiar routine of the courtroom, where he is charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records to cover up a hush-money payment to the adult film performer Stormy Daniels. But the the court does not sit on Wednesday, freeing him to get a fresh shot of adulation from his fan base.
The 77-year-old headed to two of the most crucial battleground states, holding rallies first in Waukesha, Wisconsin, then in Freeland, Michigan, where the rolling farmland, farmhouses and silos are a world away from the skyscrapers of Manhattan. Instead of a gag order that he has violated, resulting in a fine, Trump was at liberty to let rip with a stream of consciousness both profane (“bullshit”, “shit”) and divorced from fact.
And instead of a sombre-faced jury deciding his fate, there were diehard supporters – mostly white retirees – sporting Make America great again regalia: “God, guns and Trump”; “Women for Trump”; “I stand with Trump”; “Trump was right”; and “Fuck Biden”. (High winds sent some Maga caps dancing across the grass and rocked lifesize cardboard cutouts of Trump rocking back and forth.)
“He had our economy good and he’s for America, he’s for the people,” said Karen Mantyla, 65, wearing a T-shirt that said “I’m still a Trump girl – I make no apologies”, with an image of spectacles and a hair ribbon. “He believes in God and he’s my guy.”
Mantyla, like many here, dismisses the New York trial as a politically motivated witch-hunt. “It’s a farce,” she added “It’s just to stop him becoming president. Why is he the only person who’s being persecuted for nothing?”
Supporters held signs that said, “Trump 2024”; “Fire Biden”; and “You’re fired!”. In a speech lasting just over an hour, his red tie and teleprompters tossed by the wind, the Republican presidential nominee made an argument familiar to anyone who has heard his rants outside the courtroom each day.
Trump said: “As you know, I have come here today from New York City, where I’m being forced to sit for days on end in a kangaroo courtroom with a corrupt and conflicted judge enduring a Biden sideshow trial at the hands of a Marxist district attorney, Soros-backed, who’s taking orders from the Biden administration.”
There is zero evidence that Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg is taking orders from the White House; indeed, some commentators believe this is the weakest of four cases against Trump and could work to his political benefit. But unlike at the trial, candidate Trump can make outlandish statements without repercussions.
He went on to argue that, had he lost the Republican primary election, he would not now be facing prosecution and could be relaxing somewhere “beautiful” instead. “But you know what, I’d much rather be with you,” he assured the audience, who hollered their approval.
He claimed that the New York trial has driven his poll numbers higher than ever “because people get it. It’s a scam and they get it.” He went on to recycle a now familiar line comparing himself to the gangster Al Capone. “Joe Biden wants to jail his political opponents like they do in third-world countries and banana republics,” Trump said. “There’s only one problem: every one of these cases is bullshit.”
Trump also used the speech to press his case against Biden on inflation, promise to bring car industry jobs to Michigan at the expense of China, condemn “leftwing gender ideology” regarding men’s access to women’s bathrooms and sports, and repeat his lie that the 2020 election was stolen. He called on his base to make sure that his win in 2024 is “too big to rig”.
The ex-president also fearmongered, asserting that Michigan is being “torn up to pieces by migrant crime” and that prisons and mental institutions all over the world are being emptied into the US “because we’re a dumping ground”. He promised the biggest ever domestic mass deportation of undocumented immigrants – a notion that thrilled this gathering. “When I return to the White House, we will stop the plunder, rape, slaughter and destruction of the American suburbs, cities and towns.”
He swerved past the protests against Israel’s war in Gaza currently convulsing university campuses, although earlier in Wisconsin he said it “was a beautiful thing to watch” New York police officers raiding a Columbia University building occupied by pro-Palestinian students, calling the protesters “raging lunatics and Hamas sympathisers”.
Trump repeatedly denounced Biden as the worst president in American history who is going down to defeat in a landslide. He made clear that his animus towards Biden is now highly personal because he blames his election rival for the indictments ranged against him.
“What a crowd!” he said, evidently relishing the break from legal proceedings and the unqualified support from those who have bought his narrative. Among them was Renee Salzeider, a retired federal government employee wearing a Stars and Stripes cowboy hat and red Rockmount western shirt. “I think it’s bullshit,” she said.
Bob Horny, 70, a retired builder, commented: “It’s just a big farce to get him out of the campaign trail and to keep him in the courts. Every one of them guys is guilty for years and years. Biden’s got a … well, I won’t even go there.”
Asked if he would be troubled by court testimony that Trump paid hush money to a porn star, Horny replied: “No, I wouldn’t. They’re talking 30 years ago, 20 years, whatever it was. None of this stuff is pertinent to this country. He’s a good, strong leader. He’s a faithful man. He’s a hard worker. His kids work. And that’s basically it.”
The rally ended, a musical soundtrack swelled once more and Trump performed an unintentionally comical on-stage dance, briefly taking off his Maga hat. He savoured the final waves of adoration from the faithful before boarding his plane, all too aware that the strange double life of Donald Trump is soon to resume in the Manhattan criminal courthouse.