The following citations are for facts and quotes that are not common knowledge; I have not cited generally accepted political facts regarding issues like Ukraine, impeachment, or, for instance, Trump and the GOP’s war on the Affordable Care Act or unions.
1. The Crowd Loves Density
1. In Las Vegas, sixty-nine-year-old Rick Snowden: This description of Snowden and all others in this and subsequent chapters come from the approximately 170 hours of talking and spending time with him and Rick Frazer, Gale Roberts, et al. over the course of my rally journey. Though I had not met any of them yet during my first rally in Minneapolis, I saw them and photographed them there.
2. This particular rally, Trump’s four hundredth: List of rallies for the 2016 Donald Trump presidential campaign. In Wikipedia. Retrieved March 6, 2020, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rallies_for_the_2016_Donald_Trump_presidential_campaign. Wikipedia lists on this same page all of Trump’s rallies during the 2016 campaign; rallies after his election are listed at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_post-election_Donald_Trump_rallies.
3. Of a chain reaction: Elias Canetti, Crowds and Power (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1984), 29.
4. “After all, great movements are popular movements”: William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1959), 25.
2. Are You a Good Person?
1. “Anyone, from any corner of the world”: Amy Chua, Political Tribes: Group Instinct and the Fate of Nations (New York: Penguin Books, 2018), 33.
2. Edgar Maddison Welch fired: Adam Goldman, “The Comet Ping Pong Gunman Answers Our Reporter’s Questions,” New York Times, December 7, 2016.
3. “For I was constantly aware”: Ibid., 7.
3. You Must Love Jesus More Than Your Own Life
1. The Democratic mayor of Minneapolis: Paul Walsh, “Tied to Trump Rally? Police Union Sees Partisanship in Ban on Uniformed Cops Backing Candidates,” Minneapolis Star Tribune, September 30, 2019.
2. Eugene Debs, the socialist: Eugene V. Debs. In Wikipedia. Retrieved March 6, 2020, from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugene_V._Debs.
3. Hillary Clinton won the state: The 2016 General Election Results, in Office of Minnesota Secretary of State. Retrieved on March 6, 2020, from: https://www.sos.state.mn.us/elections-voting/2016-general-election-results/.
4. Just nine months later: Chart Book: Tracking the Post–Great Recession Economy. Retrieved on March 6, 2020, from: https://www.cbpp.org/research/economy/chart-book-tracking-the-post-great-recession-economy. From October 2009 to October 2019, when I began traveling to the rallies.
5. I spent a night in Celina: Trump had at least 70 percent of the vote in thirty Ohio counties; six takeaways from Ohio’s 2016 presidential vote. In Cleveland.com. Retrieved March 20, 2020, from: https://www.cleveland.com/election-results/2016/11/trump_had_at_least_70_percent.html.
5. Dream On
1. The Chinese had called him: Trump’s speeches are available in their entirety on https://factba.se/. I took notes throughout the rallies, but all direct quotes of the president in this and all further chapters have been double-checked against transcripts at Factba.se. This particular rally is: https://factba.se/transcript/donald-trump-speech-kag-rally-minneapolis-mn-october-10-2019.
2. I thought of how Borges: Federico Finchelstein, From Fascism to Populism in History (Oakland: University of California Press, 2019), xxxvii.
6. The People and the Anti-People
1. For the first century of American history: Jeffrey K. Tulis, The Rhetorical Presidency (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987), 5.
2. The founders, after all: Ibid., 27.
3. Almost 175 years: Ibid.
4. At his very first inauguration: Ibid., 48.
5. “Prior to this century”: Ibid., 5.
6. And even until 1956: Timothy Crouse, The Boys on the Bus (New York: Random House, 2003), 28.
7. “For fifty years”: Ibid.
8. In 1972 Edmund Muskie: Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2012), 111.
9. Mitt Romney’s rallies: Emily Schultheis, “Mitt Drawing Larger Crowds.” In Politico. Retrieved March 20, 2020, from: https://www.politico.com/story/2012/10/mitt-drawing-larger-crowds-082348.
10. Barack Obama was a phenomenon: Larry Rohter and Julie Bosman, “Obama Draws Huge Crowd in Oregon as Clinton Courts Kentucky,” New York Times, May 19, 2008; for the 100,000 figure: Amy Chozick, “Obama Rally Draws 100,000 in St. Louis,” Wall Street Journal, October 18, 2008.
11. “Populism is an ideological pendulum”: Finchelstein, From Fascism to Populism in History, 20.
12. It was no coincidence: Ibid., 218.
13. “Wallace defended racism”: Ibid.
14. Just twenty years later: Ibid.
7. They Even Downsized Walmart
1. The town owed its existence: Notes taken from exhibits during my visit to the Chisholm Trail Museum in Wellington, Kansas, October 2019.
2. Far more ubiquitous: “Number of Stores of Dollar General in the United States from 2007 to 2018.” In Statista.com. Retrieved on March 6, 2020, from: https://www.statista.com/statistics/253587/number-of-stores-of-dollar-general-in-the-united-states/.
9. Ordinary People
1. “America does not consist of groups”: Chua, Political Tribes: Group Instinct and the Fate of Nations, 17.
2. “These to me were just ordinary people”: Christabel Bielenberg, The Past Is Myself: An Englishwoman’s Life in Berlin Under the Nazis (London: Corgi Books, 1984), 27.
11. The Leader Wants to Survive
1. They want to indoctrinate our children: https://factba.se/transcript/donald-trump-speech-kag-rally-dallas-texas-october-17-2019.
2. “The autocrat’s only true subject”: Canetti, Crowds and Power, 232.
3. “The moment of survival”: Ibid., 227.
4. “The satisfaction in survival”: Ibid., 230.
5. “The sense of this danger”: Ibid., 232. Italics original.
6. “The old, that is those men”: Ibid., 248. Italics original.
13. I’d Pick Up His Poop
1. Not long afterward: Christopher Ingraham, “The Entire Coal Industry Employs Fewer People Than Arby’s,” Washington Post, March 31, 2017.
2. Underground coal mining: Hiroko Tabuchi, “Coal Jobs Prove Lucrative, But Not for Those in the Mines,” New York Times, May 2, 2017.
3. In their paper: David Autor, David Dorn, and Gordon Hanson, “When Work Disappears: Manufacturing Decline and the Falling Marriage-Market Value of Young Men.” In National Bureau of Economic Research. Retrieved on March 7, 2020, from https://www.nber.org/papers/w23173.
14. I Would Fight You For Him
1. According to a press release: “50 State Road Tour of ‘American Patriot’ Eagle Sculpture to Honor All Americans Starts Tomorrow.” In Cision PRWeb. Retrieved on March 7, 2020, from: https://www.prweb.com/releases/2006/09/prweb439539.htm.
2. And I found two newspaper: Tom Sharpe, “Man Accused of Harassing Cook Says Family Hired Him to Find Gold,” Santa Fe New Mexican, October 1, 2013. And Mark Oswald, “Treasure Hunter Settles Dispute,” Albuquerque Journal, October 25, 2013.
17. Thousands Cried Out . . . Some Fainted
1. It was here in August 1801: Canetti, Crowds and Power, 60.
2. “I turned to go back and was near falling”: “Revival at Cane Ridge.” In Christian History Institute. Retrieved on March 7, 2020, from: https://christianhistoryinstitute.org/magazine/article/revival-at-cane-ridge.
3. “The scene to me was new”: Ibid.
4. In these revivals: Ibid.
5. “The noise was like the roar of Niagara”: Ibid.
6. “Religion is the soul of culture”: William G. McLoughlin, Revivals, Awakenings, and Reform: An Essay on Religion and Social Change in America, 1607–1977 (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1978), vii.
7. “Puritan social theory”: Ibid., 28.
8. The men and women who came to America: Ibid., 36.
9. “I have expressed enough to characterize”: Alexis de Tocqueville; trans. by Gerald E. Bevan, Democracy in America: And Two Essays on America (London: Penguin Books, 2003), 55.
10. “This civilization is the result”: Ibid. Italics original.
11. “At the heart of our culture are the beliefs”: McLoughlin, Revivals, Awakenings, and Reform, xiv.
12. Even the Statue of Liberty: Jacey Fortin, “‘Huddled Masses’ in Statue of Liberty Poem Are European, Trump Official Says,” New York Times, August 14, 2019.
13. The Puritan Revitalization Movement of 1610: McLoughlin, Revivals, Awakenings, and Reform, 24.
14. The First Great Awakening in the mid-1700s: Ibid., 1.
15. “Revivalism is the Protestant ritual”: Ibid., xiii.
16. These great awakenings: Ibid., 2.
17. Preachers, writes J. D. Dicky in American Demagogue: J. D. Dickey, American Demagogue: The Great Awakening and the Rise and Fall of Populism (New York: Pegasus Books, 2019), 44.
18. Preacher Gilbert Tennent: Ibid.
19. “We live in a religio-slash-secular culture”: Author’s telephone interview with Martin Marty on December 18, 2019.
18. A Self-Induced Imaginary Frenzy
1. After he’d been arrested: Al Weaver, “Trump Fan Arrested at Elizabeth Warren Rally Is an Ex-Con Former Crack Addict with 72 Criminal Convictions,” Washington Examiner, January 10, 2019.
2. The story of his dog: “Military VET’s Dog Named ‘Donald Trump’ Shot Dead.” In gofundme. Retrieved on March 7, 2020, from: https://www.gofundme.com/f/military-vets-dog-named-donald-trump-shot-dead.
3. It issued a press release: Amanda Seitz, “Jackson County Sheriff: Dog Named Donald Trump Wasn’t Killed Over Politics,” Southern Minnesota News, February 14, 2019.
4. The far left wants to change our traditions: https://factba.se/transcript/donald-trump-speech-kag-rally-lexington-kentucky-november-4-2019.
21. Coercion. Domination. Control.
1. And it made me think of a line: Finchelstein, From Fascism to Populism in History, xxxvi.
22. I Won’t Bend Over and Lick Their Ass
1. “As I sat around with some others”: Raymond A. Bucko, The Lakota Ritual of the Sweat Lodge: History and Contemporary Practice (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1998), 1.
2. In March 1933: Julia Boyd, Travelers in the Third Reich: The Rise of Fascism: 1919–1945 (New York: Pegasus Books, 2018), 96.
3. “In the former Austrian vagabond”: Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, 186.
4. And yet “the one-party totalitarian”: Ibid., 201.
23. The Q Clock Will Blow Your Mind
1. Rick Frazier was nodding as Trump told us: https://factba.se/transcript/donald-trump-speech-kag-rally-hershey-pennsylvania-december-10-2019.
24. Someday We’ll Go for a Horseback Ride
1. Trump Unleashed: Brett Samuels and Morgan Chalfont. “Trump Unleashed: President moves with a free hand post-impeachment,” The Hill, February 15, 2020.
2. Trump called each of them out: https://factba.se/transcript/donald-trump-speech-kag-rally-manchester-new-hampshire-february-10-2020.
3. “Each one approached the throne in turn”: Ryszard Kapuscinski, trans. by William R. Brand and Katarzyna Mroczkowska-Brand, The Emperor: Downfall of an Autocrat (London: Penguin Books, 2006), 31.
4. But as the novel coronavirus spread death: https://factba.se/transcript/donald-trump-speech-kag-rally-charlotte-north-carolina-march-2-2020.
5. Trump was putting “politics and cronyism ahead of science”: Giovanni Russonello, “On Politics: ‘Politics and Cronyism Ahead of Science,” New York Times, April 23, 2020.
6. “This is the excellent foppery of the world”: William Shakespeare, The Tragedy of King Lear. In OpenSourceShakespeare. Retrieved on March 7, 2020, from: https://www.opensourceshakespeare.org/views/plays/play_view.php?WorkID=kinglear&Act=1&Scene=2&Scope=scene.