“We have become so politically correct … we don’t know what the hell we’re doing,” Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump said during a Friday night campaign rally at Raleigh’s Dorton Arena.
The enthusiasm expressed by the more than 7,000 attendees in the packed arena suggested they agreed with the billionaire businessman, who was lauded by several attendees as an astute entrepreneur and charismatic leader who would protect the nation.
Trump blasted failures in leadership that he said have tarnished America’s geopolitical star. He skewered President Obama as “a great, great divider,” mocked Democratic presidential favorite Hillary Clinton, and chided several of his Republican opponents.
“We have a situation in our country where we have a president who’s out of control,” Trump said, referencing Wednesday’s attacks in San Bernardino, Calif., by a husband-and-wife team of Islamic radicals who killed 14 people and wounded 21 others. “He won’t say the term as to what’s happening,” Trump said in reference to Islamic terrorism.
San Bernardino “was a terrorist attack,” Trump said.
“I would handle it so tough you do not want to hear it,” Trump said of what his response would have been as president. “We’re going to get it stopped.” He said if the victims in the gun-free zone had been armed, they could have protected themselves.
Trump promised to fix the struggling Veterans Administration to care for “wounded warriors,” to protect the Second Amendment, end Common Core curriculum standards in K-12 public schools, and restrict immigration by building a wall on the Mexican border that he said the Mexican government would pay for.
“Corporations, and companies, and small businesses are going to benefit” under a Trump presidency and revised tax code, he said. “We’re going to have a dynamic economy again. … The middle class has been so hurt in this country,” and taxes will come down.
He even vowed “to bring Merry Christmas back to our states.”
Each time he made a pledge he received thunderous cheers. But his greatest applause line erupted when he delivered his signature phrase from his television reality show “The Apprentice”.
“I’m wondering,” a woman asked during an audience question-and-answer period, “what you would say to President Obama?”
“You’re fired,” Trump interjected, evoking sustained howls of approval.
Trump’s remarks were interrupted briefly six times by protesters. Their complaints could not be heard over the shouts of the crowd and an annoyed Trump directed law enforcement officers to remove them.
North Carolina Democratic Party Chairwoman Patsy Keever said Trump “would be a disaster for America and North Carolina. Why won’t Governor McCrory tell us where he stands” on Trump’s candidacy should he win the Republican nomination?
Trump “continues to energize his supporters with his mix of bravado, self-congratulation, and theme of America’s future greatness,” said David McLennan, a political science professor at Meredith College. “Like his other speeches, Trump was long on superlatives, and short on specific details.”
Trump’s message about crushing ISIS “illustrated the Trump style as he referred to himself as the ‘most militaristic person in the room,’ while talking about how he would end the threat of ISIS and keep America safe,” McLennan said.
But Trump’s “remarkable campaign continues to defy conventional wisdom,” McLennan said. “He attacks fellow Republicans and Democrats with equal disdain, and makes statements that, in previous presidential campaigns with other candidates, would have ended their presidential bids.”
Given Trump’s endurance at the top of election polls, Republicans may throw their support around their “emotional choice” in this election, unlike four years ago when they coalesced around a “logical” candidate in Mitt Romney, McLennan said.
“I’m voting for Donald Trump. He’s my man,” said Jeanette Bennett of Raleigh, who described herself as “a senior citizen who’s been around a long time.” She said Trump statements that get pilloried in the press don’t bother her.
“That’s why I like him. He says what’s on his mind, and you know he means it,” Bennett said. “It’s almost like freedom of speech has gone down the drain” as race relations and national security deteriorate under the current administration. She said America needs a person with Trump’s business experience at the helm.
Aaron Ferris of Atlanta, Ga., said he would vote for Trump.
“He’s saying what you want to say. I’m sick and tired of hearing politicians just talk … homogenized stuff,” he said. Trump is “a smart guy.”
Robin Stanaway of Raleigh said Trump’s pledges to beef up national security and public safety and reduce taxes on the middle class are the main reasons she would vote for Trump.
“Sometimes I feel like he gets a little strong on the immigration,” especially as it involves deporting immigrant children in schools, she said.
Heritage High School senior Ben Chappell, 18, was among a group of Trump-supporting students from Raleigh at the rally. He said Trump’s border control policy is his biggest asset.
Chappell said Trump’s “energy and fire,” which the audience reciprocated, was “just incomparable to anything I’ve seen.” He said Trump “is the leader that will get it done.”
Trump praised his own high energy while zinging Clinton as a lethargic politician who will be a carbon copy of Obama.
“She wakes up, she puts on her pantsuit, she does an event and we don’t see her” for days afterward, Trump said.
He said “the world blew up” under Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state, and weighed in on the controversy about her sending classified information on an unsecure private email server.
“What she did was illegal,” Trump said, and other people’s careers have been destroyed for similar violations. “She’s going to get off. It’s going to be her greatest achievement.”
Kimberly Brandon, a 45-year-old African-American child care worker from Durham, said she “will definitely vote” for Trump, whose military and veterans policies she and members of her military family support.
“A lot of people might not be aware of this, but black Americans are for what Donald is talking about,” Brandon said. “A lot of people are really … digging what he’s doing.”
Andy Taylor, a professor of political science at N.C. State University, highlighted the “unique” nature of Trump’s campaign. “There is little strategy except compete and be everywhere and keep discussing issues in such a way that he can keep in the news,” Taylor said. “Trump was his usual self in Raleigh Friday night: Provocative, interesting, light on substance, and ideologically ambiguous.”
Taylor said Trump should be able to stay strong in the early primaries and caucuses, including the March 15 North Carolina contest, but “it will get harder for him as the field winnows, however, since his negatives are so high. He could win a primary with five or six competitors, [but] he’s got little chance if or when it is him versus one or two others.”
Dan E. Way (@danway_carolina) is an associate editor of Carolina Journal.