Many of President Donald Trump\u2019s most dedicated supporters say their lives changed on election night. Suddenly they felt like their views were actually respected and in the majority. But less than one month into Trump\u2019s term, many of his supporters say they once again feel under attack…<\/b>
Many of President Donald Trump\u2019s most dedicated supporters – the sort who waited for hours in the Florida sun this weekend for his first post-inauguration campaign rally – say their lives changed on election night. Suddenly they felt like their views were actually respected and in the majority.
But less than one month into Trump\u2019s term, many of his supporters say they once again feel under attack – perhaps even more so than before.
Those who journeyed to Trump\u2019s Saturday evening event on Florida\u2019s Space Coast said that since the election, they have unfriended some of their liberal relatives or friends on Facebook. They don\u2019t understand why major media outlets don\u2019t see the same successful administration they have been cheering on. And they\u2019re increasingly frustrated that Democrats – and some Republicans – are too slow to approve some of the president\u2019s nominees and too quick to protest his every utterance.
\u201cThey\u2019re stonewalling everything that he\u2019s doing because they\u2019re just being babies about it,\u201d said Patricia Melani, 56, a Jersey native who now lives here and attended her third Trump rally on Saturday. \u201cAll the loud mouths? They need to let it go. Let it go. Shut their mouths and let the man do what he\u2019s got to do. We all shut our mouths when Obama got in the second time around, OK? So that\u2019s what really needs to be done.\u201d
She blames the media for circulating \u201cfake\u201d stories about the president – like when she believed he was \u201cvery cool, wasn\u2019t yelling\u201d at a Thursday press conference, yet a CNN anchor described his behavior as \u201cunhinged.\u201d
\u201cThere\u2019s such hatred for the man,\u201d she said. \u201cI just don\u2019t get it.\u201d
It was a common sentiment at the rally in an airplane hangar here, flanked by Air Force One and attended by about 9,000 people. There were chants of \u201cCNN sucks!\u201d and \u201cTell the truth!\u201d A pre-rally speaker gleefully announced that the president had given the media \u201ca spanking.\u201d
Rally attendees panned coverage of the chaos within his administration, the cost of security for his family and the president\u2019s now-halted executive order that briefly banned refugees and residents of seven Muslim-majority countries. Many acknowledged that the president\u2019s first month could have been smoother, especially with the roll-out of the travel ban, but they said the media has overblown those hiccups – and they\u2019re glad to see the president fight back and label the media on Twitter Friday as \u201cthe enemy of the American People!\u201d
\u201cIt was hilarious to see him give it to the media,\u201d said Tony Lopez, 28, a car dealer who drove to the rally from Orlando. \u201cThe media\u2019s problem is that they keep wanting to make up stories so that he looks bad. It doesn\u2019t work. He\u2019s talking right through you guys.\u201d
Several people said they would have liked to see more coverage of a measure that Trump signed on Thursday that rolled back a last-minute Obama regulation that would have restricted coal mines from dumping debris in nearby streams. At the signing, Trump was joined by coal miners in hard hats.
\u201cIf he hadn\u2019t gotten into office, 70,000 miners would have been put out of work,\u201d Patricia Nana, a 42-year old naturalized citizen from Cameroon. \u201cI saw the ceremony where he signed that bill, giving them their jobs back, and he had miners with their hard hats and everything – you could see how happy they were.\u201d
The regulation actually would have cost relatively few mining jobs and would have created nearly as many new jobs on the regulatory side, according to a government report – an example of the frequent distance between Trump\u2019s rhetoric, which many of his supporters wholeheartedly believe, and verifiable facts.
Melani, for example, gets most of her news from talk radio – \u201cI listen to Herman Cain on my way into work, I have Sean [Hannity] on my way home,\u201d she says – and Fox News.
She and her husband were well-versed on hold-ups with the president\u2019s Cabinet nominees and legal arguments for the now-frozen travel ban. But they didn\u2019t know much about the resignation of Trump\u2019s national security adviser Michael Flynn on Monday amid accusations that he improperly discussed U. S. sanctions with the Russian ambassador – and then withheld that information from Vice President Mike Pence and other top officials.
\u201cSee, don\u2019t question me on that because I haven\u2019t really been watching and listening too much on it,\u201d Melani said. \u201cI think he kind of did it just to step away, a trust kind of a thing. And now, of course, they want to pull a big investigation and all of this stuff. And to be honest with you, I really think it\u2019s only because of the way the haters are out there. That\u2019s what I really think it is.\u201d
The division that has consumed the country was on display outside Trump\u2019s rally.
On one side of the street: Thousands of his supporters wearing campaign gear and vendors selling anti-Hillary Clinton merchandise and T-shirts showing a map of the 2016 election by county, with most of the country colored Trump-red and the legend: \u201cWe the Deplorable.\u201d
On the other side of the street: Hundreds of protesters gathered in a \u201cfree speech zone\u201d behind orange mesh fencing. Several wore pink knit hats, and some carried signs that focused on Trump\u2019s alleged connections to Russia: \u201cImpeach that puppet\u201d and \u201cI can see Russia.\u201d
Robert Welsh, a 63-year old vice mayor from Miami Beach, carried a speaker blasting the Beatles song \u201cBack in the U. S. R,\u201d and a sign that portrayed Russian President Vladimir Putin thanking Trump for his service.
Insults hurled back and forth across the street, as did accusations that the other side was fabricating information. Both sides accused the other of being hateful and of being paid to be there, which both sides denied.
On the protest side was Rosemary Menneto – a 53-year-old from Satellite Beach – who said several of her friends skipped the rally for fear there might be violence.
\u201cThere\u2019s so much anger and hate and foulness,\u201d she said, \u201cand he\u2019s encouraging it.\u201d
On the supporter side was Tammy Mussler – a 48-year-old whose family runs a local mobile home and RV park who said one of her guests was hesitant to tell others he was coming to the rally.
\u201cHe goes: \u2018Well, I\u2019m nervous because people are so nasty about it that you\u2019re afraid to admit that you\u2019re doing something,\u2019\u201d said Mussler, who said the pushback is just nastier now.
Mussler said that the women in her family are especially divided right now. She supports Trump, while they do not. She\u2019s opposed to abortion rights, while they support them. They attended the Women\u2019s March, while she found it not at all representative of her way of life.
Can this nation ever be united?
\u201cI hope so,\u201d Mussler said with a shake of her head. \u201cI don\u2019t know. I don\u2019t know. It would be nice, and I think if – I don\u2019t know, I don\u2019t know. I think the only thing that\u2019s going to reunite us is maybe the Lord coming back.\u201d<\/p>\n

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