Trump Standout on Saturday-My Account (VANITY)

I arrived a little early, and I saw Harris supporters getting out of cars with signs. This was disappointing, but not unexpected. It was as much their right to have a presence on this large and busy crossroads as ours to be there, so that's how it goes.

I got there in time to meet with one of the other members of our team, and we began to stake out territory. This is how it is done. You get there before someone else, and lay your claim to a contiguous region, along the road which we did. Our group eventually spread out to cover each of the four corners, we had maybe 10-15, and they had perhaps the same number. Their group was all female, and included four young girls of perhaps eight years old.

The Leftists set up on one side of one leg of the crossroads and put more of their crowd on the other side of our corner (with our main body sandwiched between) and we spread out to cover the rest.

It was not as much fun because we could not tell who the passing cars were honking in support of, but that is how those things work. Also (and I know I am not alone in this) I detest the bovine female screeching of the crowds you hear from the Oprah show, Good Morning America, and any other number of network television shows, and we would hear that from them anytime someone showed them direct support. Well, that is their thing, and I had to concede they haven't had much to enthusiastically screech about lately, so I would shrug my shoulders.

And that is how it went for some time, with the honks of support along with their thumbs up as they passed, and the Leftists in their cars would pass by frowning and scowling with the accompanying thumbs down. We would still get the occasional middle fingers, sometimes the double-barreled ones, and even occasional shouted obscenities.

This is nothing new. Par for the course.

We had a woman who brought a bullhorn with her, and said things like "Vote Trump" and "Democrats are destroying this country" and she put it down after a while. We had another woman with us who had emigrated to the US from Communist China and became a US Citizen, and she picked that bullhorn up and used I the way I had seen Asians use bullhorns in dissident protests when I lived in Japan. She was able to maintain a non-stop clear string of verbiage like "Kamala Harris is a communist! Kamala Harris is a socialist! Kamala Harris hates white people and wants to divide them! Kamala Harris hates latinos and wants to divide them! The Democrat Party wants to divide and weaken people! This is what the Communists do in Communist China!"

More than once I would point her out to people and say "Listen to her. She knows what this is all about. When people like her say things like this, that what she saw in Communist China is appearing here in this country, I am going to listen closely and take it to heart."

And this was how things went for most of the day. However, near the end, we had one of the same Leftist interlopers from the prior week show up, mingling in with us, and standing in front of one woman to obscure her sign. He was an averaged sized hippie-looking guy with long stringy hair and dirty white beard wearing a blue t-shirt with a tie-dyed multi-color "Peace" or something like that on the front of it.

The woman he would step in front of to block her was having none of it, and she would just reposition herself and put her sign in front of his. This went on for some time, but she was just as persistent as he was, I said to the guy "Look, we don't "hate" you and are willing to talk, but what you are doing isn't how things are done." He saw my military hat and said "Well, you're military, so I hate you, and..." I just shut him out and turned around to face traffic.

Around this time, a balding, bearded guy of perhaps 35-45 years walked up to me since I as all the way out "defending the flank" with the Leftist women about five or ten feet away. I saw him walk up to me, smiling and open, with the obvious intent of speaking to me. I reciprocated, that openness being in my nature, and he introduced himself. He said he was a reporter, and asked if he could interview me. The conversation went something like this:

STRANGE MAN: Hi, how are you doing?

ME: Doing great! What's up?

STRANGE MAN: Just passing by, and wanted to see what is going on.

ME: Sure. Just ask.

STRANGE MAN: I'm a reporter. Would you mind if I interviewed you? (holding his phone out in recording mode)

ME: No. Please don't take this personally. I don't trust your profession at all. Nothing personal, but I simply don't trust the media, so, no. I don't want to be interviewed.

STRANGE MAN: Oh. Okay. I'll put my phone away. (Puts it in his pocket, but I expect he was still recording.) NOTE: My state requires consent by all parties to record a conversation, so even if he was still recording, it would be illegal to use.) Can I ask you a few questions then, off the record?

ME: Sure. Ask away.

STRANGE MAN: I just want to ask you a question: why would you support a candidate who says he will use the US Military to hunt down and kill journalists who disagree with him?

ME: That's absurd. He's not going to do that.

STRANGE MAN: How do you know? He said he was going to do it, and we should take him at his word.

ME: He had four years in which to do that, and he didn't do it. I don't expect him to now.

STRANGE MAN: How do you know he hasn't changed his mind?

ME: It's BS. He isn't going to do that.

STRANGE MAN: You were in the military. Do you approve of enabling the US Military to murder reporters, people like me, who disagree with him?

ME: Of course I don't. That's just stupid media BS.

STRANGE MAN: Why do you say that? Respected Generals, war heroes like General Mark Milley and General both say he is a fascist and would do just that-

ME: Okay. Wait. You are referring to General Mark Milley, who went behind his Commander in Chief's back to talk to secretly "reassure" his counterpart in the Communist Chinese military that if Trump launched an attack, he would not carry out the attack. That "General" Milley? That man is disgrace to the US Military, and should have been fired and punished.

STRANGE MAN: Oh, come on. That sounds like "Fake News" to me. I've never heard of that.

ME: Oh, really? You've never heard of that? Really? You're a reporter, and have never heard of that? You need to check that out. He admitted it.

STRANGE MAN: Well, how about how much he admires Hitler? General Kelly said-

ME: Sorry. It's all Media BS.

STRANGE MAN: How can you say that? These are war heroes saying this-

ME: Those "Generals" are both disgraces to the uniform-

STRANGE MAN: Those are war heroes-

ME: Those men took an oath when they were commissioned to protect and defend the Constitution of The United States, and supporting the Democrat Party as they do shows that they have violated their oath, and cannot be trusted. I am former military-

STRANGE MAN: Yeah, I know. I see your hat. But you don't know anything-

ME: Yeah. I don't know anything-

STRANGE MAN: (shouting at passing cars) I am against fascism! That's why I am here! I am going to fight facism! THESE PEOPLE ARE FASCISTS!

ME: Yeah. Right. I'm a Fascist. We are all Fascists. Yeah.

STRANGE MAN:(shouting at me, approaching me within a foot, and poking his finger in my face). Yeah. You hate me. You want to kill me, don't you? You see me as an enemy who should be killed, don't you? Don't you?

ME: If you're in the media, I certainly regard you as an enemy. But you're the one who is saying we are going to kill you. Trump isn't saying that, and I am not saying that. That is you.

STRANGE MAN: You want to punch me, don't you? DON'T YOU? (NOTE: At this point, several of my group came over, because he was now seriously unhinged, his face was red, his eyes were bugging out, and he had spittle on his lips. They attempted to de-escalate the situation, I suspect because they thought I was going to slug the guy. But I was never going to punch him. I have impulse control, but it was pretty uncertain as to whether he had any impulse control. I was not going to end up on any video taking the first such at a douchebag like him. Never going to happen.)

ME: Yeah, right. I'm a fascist. We're all out to kill you...

STRANGE MAN: You're ignorant. You're a little man. A little man...

ME: (facing the passing cars with my sign). Yeah. Ok. I'm a "little man"...

WOMAN IN MY GROUP: (talking to the deranged Leftist). I'm a Christian, and I don't hate you. Nobody is going to harm you..."

STRANGE MAN: HE called me an "ENEMY" (pointing at me)...

From that point on we ignored him, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw him talking to a few more or our team, and the last I heard of him was as he recorded himself, walking back and forth about twenty feet away, talking loudly to his phone (ensuring he was overheard) saying "I am here at a Trump Rally today, and came here today to stir things up..."

I have been to dozens of protests and standouts in the last twenty years, probably at a minimum 4-6 a year, and have had plenty of experience facing off against these people. In this case, when the guy appeared smiling and friendly, he was no different than many people I have encountered over the years who really were approaching me at a demonstration out of real curiosity and to find out what was going on. Those people were almost universally middle of the road, or conservative.

This man, however, was deliberately trying to hide his intentions, and was clearly angling for an ambush. Granted, I KNEW as soon as he asked me his first question, but I was going to let it play out. He wasn't hostile at that point. In retrospect, I should have just ignored him after his first question, since my extensive experience with them tells me there is no such thing as "civil discourse" with his type, but I admit to being curious as to how he was going to proceed.

He didn't disappoint.

There was one more thing about those Harris supporters that really affected me, and made a bit depressed about the day. I mentioned earlier that there were four young girls, perhaps eight year-olds there.

I question the judgement of anyone who brings little kids like that to an event like this, where the temperatures are sure to be elevated, but...it is their kids.

At one point those little girls were chanting in unison like Cheerleaders for Kamala, but instead of some cheer you might expect from girls that age, I heard “Vote Harris-F**k Trump!” repeated over and over again. I am not one of those people who records everything, but I had to try to get my phone out and record it because I felt pretty sure there are people who wouldn't believe it is true. Unfortunately, by the time the shock wore off and I got my phone recording, it was tailing off (Probably because one of the "responsible" adults over on that side realized it wasn't a good look for their side)

I was pretty shocked. The first time I ever heard the “F” word uttered in the presence of my parents (by ANYONE, not just us kids) was when I was fifteen.

It saddened me to hear these young girls doing this chant. I know the “F” word is far less serious today than it was when I was fifteen, but still. It made me think those girls didn’t have a chance to think for themselves, and likely never will.

Resisting cussing is an integral part of fundamental impulse control. And the Left, and those poor girls don’t have that.

So, yeah. It bothered me.

And I did keep in mind my hearing isn’t what it used to be, but the way the spoken consonants of what they were saying fit together, I thought of all things it might have been that could be mistaken for “F**k” with the name “Trump” after it, I honestly cannot find an alternative that would not sound absurd coming before the shouted name “Trump!”

It was one of the saddest things to realize that I could be so out of touch that the “F” word could be so freely spoken by eight year old kids in front of their parents, who not only did not admonish them severely, had to be actively encouraging them. Granted, there are other more obvious indicators, but that one really hit me.