Fellowship in the Desert
A Bookend for a Very Personal Journey
“Hey, can I get a hand?”
His tone wasn’t pushy, just earnest, and he clearly needed help: Having finished heaving four 16-pound bags of ice into the bleachers, the youngish man of about 25 or so had picked the 61-year-old me out of the sweltering throng to assist with distributing the quickly melting cubes to the several dozen people in our immediate area. It was unseasonably hot for mid-October, even by the standards of Coachella, which, in addition to being known for the music festival that bears its name, just happens to lay within the hottest desert in the western hemisphere. With temperatures reaching 101 degrees by 2:00 p.m., on this day, tens of thousands had descended into the scorching valley to hear and (if they were lucky) catch a glimpse of Donald Trump as he spoke at one the final rallies of his campaign.
One for all: a young Trump supporter steps up
As unlikely as it was for so many people to have turned out under such circumstances for an event they could stream live from the comfort of an air conditioned living room, it was all the more so that I was among them: Disillusioned by George W. Bush and absolutely revolted by Dick Cheney, I had promised to “never vote Republican again” –a vow I took in 2004, and to which I remained true for the next 12 years (the confounding choice of Mitt Romney to lead the 2012 Republican effort didn’t help).
Yet, there I was, in the middle of a blazing field on one of the most infernal days I’d ever experienced, for the sole purpose of standing in the presence of the Republican Party’s preeminent statesman and 2024 presidential candidate. Among a veritable ocean of people who had come from all over California and beyond, I was already learning some very valuable lessons about myself and those who surrounded me. Like many of them, I had travelled hundreds of miles to be there. In so doing, we had braved not only the elements (and Los Angeles traffic), but also the omnipresent threat of something more sinister: the mentally dispossessed. With boundaries already tenuous in the best of times, their dormant impulses were being awakened, nourished, and spurned on by Democrat-sanctioned and proliferated propaganda, leading some on the fringe to arm themselves for one final flash of glory in service of a demented call to immortal heroism. More than one of us must have reflected on how, a mere eleven weeks earlier, the likelihood of co-lateral casualties was not a deterrent for one such twisted soul. The willingness of the Left to court such outcomes was further rationale for why I no longer embraced what I once proudly proclaimed as an unabashed liberalism.
Sign of the Times: Sharpshooters keep an eye out for the real threat to democracy
The others around us - in various stages of consciousness and heat-induced distress - were in no position to hoist what were quickly becoming plastic sacks of mush. “I’m on it,” I replied, grabbing two bags the dutiful volunteer had lugged from an area outside the grandstand where event organizers were passing out liberal amounts of free ice and water. As I poured the ice into hats, t-shirts and other impromptu vessels of convective cooling, I was taken by how many people refused what would have afforded fervid relief: “I’m okay, thanks!”, “Give it to a kid”, “God bless you, but others need it more than me.”
For me, as well as several I spoke with that day, the experience at Coachella was a capstone on a journey that had begun years earlier. In fact, my migration to the Republican party began when I was still walking into polling places as a registered Democrat. During those years, I’d undergone significant personal transformations: falling in love, getting married, and starting a family.
Almost immediately, it became clear that the affiliations I’d built, and the loyalties I’d tried to foster in forging an allegiance to the Democratic party and those within it, were a fool’s errand of the highest order: I was, somehow, just wrong to them - and they didn’t hesitate to make that known at every available opportunity. To this day, I’m not sure why. I am a white male, but then so are many others driving their slogan-festooned Priuses and Subarus. I do own several guns for home protection, but I don’t hunt. Nor do I drive a truck, drink beer or follow sports.
I am also married - albeit not to an inherently angry or reflexively righteous woman, but rather to a very beautiful lady who has a lot of security in my emphasis of that: an ardent admirer of Trump herself, my wife has no problem with women being women in the traditional sense; she sees no contradiction or betrayal in the juxtaposition of that fact with her own razor sharp intellect. Moreover, I was a devout centrist, with sympathies ranging from single-payer health care to questioning the prudence of capital punishment in a country with a judicial system that fails as frequently and as spectacularly as our healthcare system.
Yet, on a personal level, in situations grand and trivial, those of the “Blue no matter who” ilk spewed forth their loathing with astonishing predictability, their political proclivities emerging as the common thread in so many instances that it became impossible to explain away the vitriol as a product of anything else. I’m not sure whether it was gradual or some epiphany, but there came a point when I realized the irrefutable truth: these people hate me.
In retrospect, I’m surprised, nay, ashamed to admit just how many examples had piled up over the years. There was the (now former) superintendent of the Ventura Unified School District, who, serving at the pleasure of, and hence obligingly operating at the behest of, the Democrat-aligned teachers’ unions, worked hand in hand with underlings to cover up a teacher’s abuse of my daughter. There were the Democrat-voting members of our family that were consistently going on deranged, high-decibel, obscenity-laced tirades in front of her while she was still sporting baby teeth. Once she was (barely) a teen, there were the neighbors with their leftist yard signs and bumper stickers of varying degrees of taste who would harass and make lewd comments to her, and, once I took action against them, formed a coalition to fight the charges and indictments.
Once realized, this revelation was something I couldn’t unsee. The only plausible explanation was that, for all their sloganeering about social justice and other lofty-sounding ideals, for all of their discriminatory and exclusionary agendas dressed up in euphemistic catchphrases, “progressives” were basically hateful people; many were simply sick. Their tribal instincts didn’t apprehend the same in my more classical liberal approach, which was driven by a genuine benevolence that, despite my lack of abject religiosity, didn’t have much room for a valentine proclaiming the sublimity of abortion.
Notwithstanding the Cheney-constructed neocon war machine (which, at this writing, has defected to the Democrat ticket anyway), it’s actually embarrassing to disclose how long it took me to entertain the possibility that the deeply personal aspects of my experiences with progressives clearly begged for an alternative.
About 1200 or so people lucky enough to have secured a space on the bleachers sat broiling in the mid-afternoon sun in the stage right area, behind where, in a little over three hours, Trump was scheduled to take the podium. Thousands more spread out in front of the stage on the vast Calhoun ranch. By that point, I’d already borne witness to three separate instances of people fainting from the heat. As I lugged the increasingly drippy bags up the bleacher steps, I had to deal with not only the weight of the ice, which was thankfully dissipating with each grateful reception (and, admittedly, no small measure of evaporation and spillage onto the ground), but also distraction from an earlier mistake: I had left my magnet on my car.
As far as the Eye Can See: A portion of the afternoon crowd
Purchased at an earlier rally in Santa Barbara, it was direct in it’s message: “Bidenflation: The cost of voting stupid.”
The magnets were (understandably) very popular; apparently, I’d purchased the last one. Unlike a bumper sticker, a magnet could be easily removed on arrival at a destination, thereby preventing some inveterate leftist from tearing it off (or worse). Now, I was worried: was the ingeniousness of the design going to become a liability, tempting one of us to help himself to a highly coveted collectible? Hours would pass before I could know.
Trump walked up to the dais. Pandemonium ensued as the man many regard as a mortal savior found himself treated to a reception I hadn’t seen since the reunited original members of Kiss took the stage at the L.A. Forum in 1996. With the sun setting and the temperature quickly dropping to a soothing and gentle 85, the field, and the vast expanse of the MAGA hat adorned, was now bathed in purplish pink light as cool breezes washed over those gathered to hear the message of hope.
The only president in modern times to not start a new war or expand an existing one (and, bafflingly, the one most maligned by Democrats) began to deliver his remarks. They followed a familiar theme: we can look forward to peace and prosperity, just like last time. Of course, these were punctuated by no small measure of entertaining, often-irreverent anecdotes and willful hyperbole (two things which the left, astoundingly at this point, doesn’t understand add to Trump’s populist appeal, rather than detract from it - especially when contrasted with a decidedly inauthentic opponent).
Wanting to get a jump on the ensuing mass exodus, as Trump wrapped up I made my way out of the ranch and into the mild desert evening, reflecting on just how well-behaved, compassionate, and truly well-adjusted almost every single person I came across had been that day and early evening.
Calm, Collected and a little Cooler: Hours of waiting in the sun pay off
I can’t imagine any other scenario in which that impression would be taken from a similar number of people packed into a field, in blazing hot sun, for seven hours. (I haven’t been able to obtain an exact attendance figure, which is testimony to the fact that the crowd size must have been far in excess of the 15,000 the mainstream media reported – especially considering that they had also stated that an estimated 40,000 people were left “stranded” without busses back to the parking lots - a stupendous lie, one I wish I’d been able to refute by simply taking pictures during my ride back to the lot in a luxury coach).
Dropped off in the parking lot from which I’d departed nine hours earlier, I walked past dozens of vendors still hawkingTrump merchandise. One shirt read, “I’m Voting for the Felon”, and another, “Impeached. Arrested. Convicted. Shot. Still Standing.”
These were testimony to another aspect of Trump’s appeal that’s completely lost on his detractors: In American history, there has never been a comparable instance of officially sanctioned attempts to take down someone running for public office, juxtaposed with ceaseless propagandistic media attacks and the looming, dark spectre of assassination. For those that have struggled against tribulations in their own lives, that is inspirational on a transcendent level. For those inclined to embrace the central tenet of the modern left - the abdication of personal responsibility - it is threatening beyond measure, a rationale for stopping its personification at all costs.
Back at the lot, ensconced in darkness: I pass rows and rows of still-parked cars awaiting their owners’ return. I recalled how I hadn’t seen a “Bidenflation…” magnet on any other car, or on any of the vendors’ tables. I grew anxious and, for some inexplicable reason, picked up my pace. When I arrived at my car, I jogged to the rear. Safe and secure as I’d left it, was my easily peelable magnet, untouched as thousands of honor-bound brothers and sisters, united in their hope for a rekindled American greatness, walked past.
Together, our stories are a collective defiance of the odds, epitomized by one man in pursuit of the same; a summation of tens of thousands of distinct triumphs large and small. Individual differences are set aside in service of a common theme: we are good to each other, and we will care for one another. After a long, arduous personal journey, on that searing day in the desert, I’d finally arrived home.