Consider it Donald Trump's very own safe space.
Far away from Washington DC, where his legislative agenda is sputtering and the Russia investigation rolls on, or New York City, where he can't go home without a horde of protesters gathering at the foot of Trump Tower, the American President is finding solace in campaign-style rallies far from the beltway.
More World News Videos
- Video duration
- 02:08
Trump-McConnell feud threatens GOP agenda
Trump-McConnell feud threatens GOP agenda
President Donald Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell are locked in an increasingly public and personal feud that threatens to derail the GOP's re-election prospects and its ability to govern.
Up Next
Police destroy factory equipment in Yongkang
- Video duration
- 00:21
- Video duration
- 00:21
Police destroy factory equipment in ...
Police destroy factory equipment in Yongkang
Chinese police file into a factory in Yongkang, outside Shanghai, and use hammers to destroy equipment as part of efforts to shut down outdated and inefficient factories.
Up Next
Trump pardons controversial Arpaio
- Video duration
- 01:31
- Video duration
- 01:31
Trump pardons controversial Arpaio
Trump pardons controversial Arpaio
President Donald Trump has pardoned Joe Arpaio, the former Arizona sheriff whose aggressive efforts to hunt down and detain unauthorised immigrants made him a national symbol of the divisive politics of immigration.
Up Next
New video emerges of deadly Barcelona van attack
- Video duration
- 00:59
- Video duration
- 00:59
New video emerges of deadly Barcelona van ...
New video emerges of deadly Barcelona van attack
RAW: Pedestrians narrowly avoiding a white van as it raced down Las Ramblas boulevard at high speed in a deadly militant attack on August 17.
Up Next
Hurricane Harvey closes in on Texas
- Video duration
- 01:31
- Video duration
- 01:31
Hurricane Harvey closes in on Texas
Hurricane Harvey closes in on Texas
Residents have been urged to evacuate as Hurricane Harvey, the most powerful storm to hit the US mainland in more than a decade, barrels toward Texas.
Up Next
North Korea fires 'several projectiles'
- Video duration
- 00:56
- Video duration
- 00:56
North Korea fires 'several projectiles'
North Korea fires 'several projectiles'
The short-range projectiles were fired into the sea off South Korea's east coast early on August 26, according to South Koreaâs military.
Up Next
Riots from Indian 'holy man' rape case kill scores
- Video duration
- 01:15
- Video duration
- 01:15
Riots from Indian 'holy man' rape case ...
Riots from Indian 'holy man' rape case kill scores
The rape conviction of a self-proclaimed spiritual leader in India poured thousands of his supporters into India's streets, killing at least 19 in the violent protests that followed.
Up Next
Man dead in Brussels after attacking soldiers
- Video duration
- 00:31
- Video duration
- 00:31
Man dead in Brussels after attacking ...
Man dead in Brussels after attacking soldiers
A 30-year-old man has been shot dead in central Brussels after attacking soldiers with a knife, Brussels prosecutors say.
Trump-McConnell feud threatens GOP agenda
President Donald Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell are locked in an increasingly public and personal feud that threatens to derail the GOP's re-election prospects and its ability to govern.
On Tuesday night, he shook off the ongoing fallout from his mealy-mouthed response to a deadly white supremacist rally in Charlottesville - which has drawn out Republican critics and seen business leaders abandon his administration - to bask in the roar of a loving crowd thousands of miles away in Phoenix, Arizona.
It has been only six months since Trump was inaugurated, and it will be three and a half years before he faces re-election. Monthly campaign-style rallies might seem a curious strategic choice right now.
But being there, or even watching them unfold on television, their appeal for the president is clear.
In an arena with no opponent bar the "fake media" - corralled in their viewing pen - and the enemies he conjures with his speech, Trump is at his most comfortable.
Here he's the only one with a microphone - and there are no pesky fact-checkers, no protocol dictating presidential behaviour, to hold him back. It's in this charged environment that he once performed a crude impersonation of a disabled reporter, and glibly encouraged "knocking the crap" out of protesters. He is free to be himself.
I've been to a couple of these rallies, and they feel both as epochal and as absurd as they look on TV. A heady, political theatre that is virtually unknown to Australians.
Outside there's always a carnival atmosphere - the so-called Bikers for Trump revving in the car park, merchandisers still selling "Killary Rotten Clinton" posters with her face in the crosshairs, groups of jubilant women dolled up in co-ordinated "Adorable Deplorables" shirts or young men in InfoWars garb.
The last rally I attended - in Pennsylvania in April - a member of a local skinhead crew, built like a mountain, proudly wore a T-shirt proclaiming his affiliation with the notorious white nationalist group called Keystone United. Its goal is "uniting all racially aware skinheads" in Pennsylvania.
When Trump enters these arenas, conveniently, his favourite punching bag is always right there. The press serves as a handy prop, clustered at the opposite end of the floor. It's a confronting thing to be sitting at your laptop doing your job, while 5000 people scream "CNN sucks!" and other anti-media slogans right at you. I know no one feels too sorry for journalists, and well, in many ways, CNN does suck, but the frothing anger of the crowd can be truly unnerving. One reporter has already been decked by a GOP candidate this year, it feels almost inevitable that a journalist will be attacked at a rally. Protesters are already treated roughly.
On Tuesday, Trump spent more time laying into the media and its coverage of his Charlottesville response than anything else in his 80-minute diatribe. He was there to settle a score.
He kept telling the audience the cowardly media were switching off their cameras in protest. They weren't. He read out his initial post-Charlottesville speech to prove he'd done a good job, conveniently leaving out his statement that the violence was "on many sides".
"These are really dishonest people," he said of the media. "I really think they don't like this country."
To Trump's supporters these rallies offer a vital means for the President to speak directly to his base, to keep his war with the media alive and, in turn, to remind his detractors that he is still truly adored by many. His team no doubt relishes the negative and disbelieving press it gets about these events, a sign it's annoying the right people.
But the continual retreat to this alternative universe of the campaign reveals much about Trump's political failings too. His cack-handed travel ban, his inability to pass legislation such as an Obamacare repeal, and the lack of progress on his tax and infrastructure reform stem from his gross missteps back in DC: alienating members of his own party, a total absence of bipartisanship, disinterest in actual policy and law.
At the rallies these failings don't matter, and in fact they play well - lashing out as he did on Tuesday at two Republican senators whose votes he needs and making wild promises and threats (such as a government shutdown if taxpayer money isn't spent on his border wall). He unabashedly stoked the still-open wounds of Charlottesville too, including using the thinly veiled racist language to tell his supporters that "our heritage and our history" was under threat.
Being at, or just watching, a Trump rally is instructive for understanding how he rallied so many to win an election, but it also clearly displays why his presidency is such a chaotic disgrace.
202 comments
New User? Sign up