Millions of Democrats and independents view Trump’s four years in office as a disaster but for supporters it is his biggest asset
Wearing a shirt festooned with countless images of Donald Trump, Leverne Martin was looking cheerful for a man who had set off from Poplar Bluff, Missouri, at 9pm and driven through the night, arriving in Dubuque, Iowa, at 5.30am. When did he intend to sleep?
“As soon as President Trump is back in the White House,” the 55-year-old handyman replied without missing a beat. “If we don’t get him back in 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, where he belongs, we’re in a mess, man. That’s why I’m voting for President Trump. That’s why I drove nine hours.”
On a grey, rainy day, Martin was near the head of a long and winding queue outside a cavernous conference centre overlooking the Mississippi River. Like so many fans in so many towns and cities over nearly a decade, an overwhelmingly white crowd had come to cheer on Trump, elected US president in 2016, beaten by Joe Biden in 2020 and clear frontrunner for the Republican nomination in 2024.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Wearing a shirt festooned with countless images of Donald Trump, Leverne Martin was looking cheerful for a man who had set off from Poplar Bluff, Missouri, at 9pm and driven through the night, arriving in Dubuque, Iowa, at 5.30am.
Like so many fans in so many towns and cities over nearly a decade, an overwhelmingly white crowd had come to cheer on Trump, elected US president in 2016, beaten by Joe Biden in 2020 and clear frontrunner for the Republican nomination in 2024.
Video clips of allies such as the broadcaster Tucker Carlson and Hungarian autocrat Viktor Orbán and foes such as Biden and the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, elicit boos and jeers.
When he rode down a New York escalator in June 2015, Trump demonised immigrants as criminals, drug dealers and rapists and made the building of a wall on the US-Mexico border his signature issue.
I’ll also invoke immediately the Alien Enemies Act to remove all known or suspected gang members.” He also promised to expand on a travel ban that barred people from several countries with majority-Muslim populations during his presidency.
The rally came amid fresh criticism from conservatives for Trump over his refusal to commit to a national restriction on abortion and description of DeSantis’s signing of a six-week ban as a “terrible mistake”.
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