I Went to the Trump Rally in Lexington, KY

Sarah Sajadi

LEXINGTON, KY—Politically, I consider myself to be moderate. I have friends on complete opposite ends of the spectrum, and when I mention anything going on in current events, if they don’t agree with me one hundred percent, they end up yelling, which is why I try not to share my political beliefs with people at school. However, on the day before Kentucky’s gubernatorial election, President Donald J. Trump was scheduled to have a rally in my town. Now, I am not a Trump supporter by any means. But, as a journalist, I felt I had no choice but to go. If I didn’t go and cover the whole thing, what kind of reporter would I be?

So, it was decided. I was going to a Trump rally. Of course, I couldn’t go alone, and my mother, a sociologist, decided to go with me, in order to talk to her students about it in class. So when the day finally came, I went straight home and got ready to go. When we arrived, it was unfortunately too late for us to be close. We were towards the front on the second level, and I immediately pulled out my phone to check the signal and get ready to live-tweet the entire event, which I did. However, as a journalist attending a Trump rally, I wasn’t feeling very comfortable. After all, our president doesn’t really have anything nice to say about the press. I found myself covering my phone with one hand as if someone were going to look over my shoulder and realize that I was a journalist, and the crowd would hurt me in some way.

As I sat there, looking down at the little press corral, and the same thing that kept running through my head was a story from January, in which Trump made a statement about the press, one of his supporters jumped the barrier between the press and the people and assaulted a reporter for the BBC. Realistically, I knew that no one, no matter how irritated, would assault a 16-year-old girl for being a reporter. And yet the whole time I felt the fear. Every time I got a twitter notification in response to something I had tweeted at the event, my stomach rippled with anxiety, sure it would be someone only feet away from me saying something horrible, although, predictably, it never was. 

I remember that at one point, President Trump brought up the Iran nuclear deal, calling it “terrible,” and “one-sided,” something that has become more relevant now. Most of what he said directly pandered the audience he was speaking to, and he spoke a lot about Amy McGrath, Andy Barr (who was in attendance) and Mitch McConnell, using them all as reasons to re-elect Republican candidate Matt Bevin, which was the main objective of the rally. However, despite his hosting a rally for Governor Bevin the night before the election, the Democrat, Andy Beshear, defeated Bevin in the gubernatorial race. 

When Trump finally did mention the press, he pointed to the box in which they worked diligently, and called them liars, specifically naming the New York Times and CNN, which struck a more personal chord to me, as some of the people I look up to the most work for those groups. The entire crowd began to boo, and someone in the crowd who was obviously not a supporter screamed “F*** you,” leading to him being thrown out, and the crowd became extremely riled up. The crowd swarmed with fury, and it almost felt as though I were watching something from a dystopian movie. It did not feel as if I was watching a crowd of individuals, instead, the crowd as a unit was being controlled by the man on stage, manipulating them and their words in an artful way like a conductor might lead an orchestra. The power was growing and growing until it reached a crescendo of noise, although, in this case, it was a crescendo of anger. 

Although I learned a lot and it was most definitely the chance of a lifetime in terms of a historic presidency and time to live in general, it was frightening at the moment. Once we left, there were protesters outside, and things began to escalate between those exiting the rally and those protesting outside of it. I, at the time, lost all sense of self-preservation and wanted to rush to the middle to take photos and jot down quotes and basically just cover it. However, my mom, being sensible, pulled me away and we left. As far as life experiences go, it wasn’t one I expected, but it was definitely one that had a large impact on me, especially as a journalist.

 If you want to view any of the coverage from that night, check out my twitter, @sarahgsajadi !