Chilly.
A few days ago Amanda Carpenter described Trump’s packed, largely maskless rallies as rituals conducted by “a loyalty cult, where members risk coronavirus infection as a feat of strength.” There’s no reason why COVID should be the only physical test of loyalty, though. Why not hypothermia too? He held a rally last night at Eppley Airfield in Omaha, Nebraska. It wasn’t brutally cold, but it was cold — around freezing temperatures when the rally began. If you’re wondering what he’s doing spending time in a red stronghold like Nebraska, remember that state awards a single electoral vote to the winner of each of its congressional districts. It’s not a statewide winner-take-all. And that’s potentially very important, because Nebraska’s Second District is leaning blue this year. If Biden were to win Michigan, Wisconsin, and Arizona, he’d land at 269 electoral votes, needing just one more for the presidency. Omaha could decide who governs the country. Anyway, because the rally was held at an airport, attendees had to park some distance away and were shuttled in by bus. Trump wrapped up a bit before 9 p.m. local time and was in the air sometime within the following hour. Rallygoers queued up to wait for the shuttles back to their cars; some buses arrived quickly, taking a lucky few back to the parking lot. The remainder waited behind. And waited. And waited. In the cold. Some didn’t get on a bus until 12:40 a.m., some four hours after the rally ended. Walking out of the rally, The World-Herald saw two people receive help from Omaha police — an elderly woman who was warming up in the back of a police cruiser and a boy to whom an officer lent a blanket. Trump campaign officials said they had enough buses ready nearby to shuttle people back to their cars, but said a larger-than-expected crowd, estimated by a reporter at 6,000 but by rally organizers as 29,000, slowed the buses’ return… That left masses of people huddled in 31-degree weather along two-lane Lindbergh Plaza. Some tried walking back to their cars, pouring into the street, which slowed exiting traffic as well… “We were all parked over at Eppley,” [one rallygoer] said. “We were 3½ miles through darkness to get there. There was no direction given. I expected at the end of the rally somebody will say, ‘Go this way and there will be buses waiting.
