How I Accidentally Got Myself Kicked Out of a Trump Rally

by Samuel Breslow (United States of America)

A leap into the unknown USA

I’m a political junkie. Donald Trump was coming to town. I could spend my evening reading about Trump rallies in The New Yorker, or I could spend it experiencing one in person. As much as I love The New Yorker, it was an easy choice, so I covered up my Bernie bumper sticker and was off to the rally. One reason I love attending political rallies is that the subtle details of how they are run can often reveal a lot about the way a candidate thinks about the world. For a Trump rally, this meant there was a VIP section. This was troubling because I didn’t have VIP tickets. I had encountered VIP sections at other rallies before, but this one was unusually exclusive — only a few dozen of Trump’s most elite supporters had gotten in. It was completely fenced off from us lowly peasants without VIP tickets and closely guarded at each of its two entrances by massive, scowling Trump campaign officials. It also occupied the entire area in front of the stage, meaning that if I was to have any chance of Trump signing my pocket constitution, I would have to find a way to get in. But how? My thought was to wait around at one of the VIP section entrances for an opportunity to sneak in. I went over and found myself in the middle of a crowd of racist libertarians and spent awhile trying not to out myself to them as the kind of person who reads The New Yorker. At that point, a campaign official came by to usher a line of half a dozen (I assume) very important people into the Very Important Person section. I tapped the guy next to me on the shoulder — this was our chance! As they wove through the crowd, we tried to join the line. I wasn’t very covert about it — when I reached the entrance, the official stuck out his hand and delivered a stern “Do I have to ask you to leave?” to me as a warning. My co-conspirator was more successful — he got in before being identified as a non-VIP peasant and shooed back out. The official’s face adopted the expression of a high school bully who has just been made the target of a minor prank. He addressed the nearby crowd: “The next person to try that gets thrown out.” At a normal rally, my offense would’ve been treated as relatively minor. Normal campaign officials want to win your vote, and throwing you out for sneaking into the VIP section isn’t exactly the most effective means to that end. However, the Trump campaign officials saw their primary job as more that of guardians — they were there to ensure that everyone in attendance was worthy of the immense privilege and honor of being in the presence of Donald Trump. Their paranoid mission was to maintain order and authority by weeding out the protesters and the troublemakers before He appeared to give His speech. I had been identified as a troublemaker. I had mortally sinned by attempting to rise above the lowly peasant status assigned to me by my general admission ticket to join the ritzy VIP’s in their sacred oasis directly beneath the podium. Five minutes later, as I was continuing to mingle with my racist libertarian comrades, I turned around and saw two police officers wading through the crowd towards us. One addressed my co-conspirator and I: “We need to have a talk,” he said. “Outside.” With that, they escorted us through the crowd towards the exit. People stared, wondering whether we might be protesters, which was embarrassing to my Trump-supporting co-conspirator. He complained agitatedly whereas I went more quietly, but we were both coldly shown the door. The metal detectors I had gone through earlier were taken down by that point, so I knew we had no chance of getting back in. Attempting to sneak past Trump campaign officials hadn’t served me especially well; I wasn’t about to try the same thing with the United States Secret Service. Next time Trump comes to my town, I plan to contact the local GOP chapter to see if they have any VIP tickets.