In Alabama, Trump went from his dark campaign speeches to adoring college football fans

Tuscaloosa, Ala. (AP) — Like Donald Trump Protest against immigrants On Saturday afternoon in the Rust Belt, his supporters in the Deep South turned his earlier broadsides into a rallying cry for a college football game as they prepared for the former president's visit later in the evening.

“You've got to bring these people back where they came from,” Trump said in Wisconsin as the Republican presidential front-runner again focused on Springfield, Ohio. false claim He also reported that Haitian immigrants were stealing from neighbors' homes and “eating dogs…cats”.

“You have no choice,” Trump continued. “You're going to lose your culture. You are going to lose your country.”

Many University of Alabama fans, expected to arrive on Trump's campus for a showdown between the No. 4 Crimson Tide and No. 2 Georgia Bulldogs, sported stickers and buttons that read: “They Eat Dogs!” They randomly shout “Trump! Trump! Trump!” A preview of the rapturous reception he received throughout the day at the start of the second quarter, sitting in a suite on the 40-yard-line hosted by a wealthy member of his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida.

Trump's brand of populist nationalism leans heavily on his bleak rendering of America as a failed nation oppressed by elites and oppressed by black and brown immigrants. But his supporters, especially white cultural conservatives, heard in that speech an optimistic patriotism underpinned by the slogan on his movement's ubiquitous red hat: “Make America Great Again.”

Shane Walsh, a 52-year-old businessman from Austin, Texas, had the assessment. Walsh and his family decorated their tent on the university's quad with a Trump 2024 flag and professionally made signs depicting the newly popular message the Alabama football team predicted to “eat dogs.”

For Walsh, the sign wasn't about immigration or Trump's showmanship narratives, exaggerations and lies.

“I don't necessarily like him as a person,” Walsh said. “But I think Washington is broken, and it's the fault of both parties — and Trump is the kind of person who will stand up. He's many things, but weak is not one of them. He's an optimistic guy — he makes you believe that if he's in charge, we I'll be fine.”

The idea for the sign, he said, grew out of a meme he showed his wife. “I thought it was funny,” he said.

Katie Yates, a 47-year-old from Hoover, Alabama, had a similar experience with her life-size cutout of the former president. He was repeatedly stopped on his way to his family's usual tent. Trump's likeness was set to join Elvis, “who is always an Alabama fan at our tailgates,” Yates said.

“I'm a Trump fan,” he says, adding that he doesn't understand how every American isn't.

Yates offered no disparaging remarks about Trump's rival, the Democratic nominee and Vice President Kamala Harris, instead lamenting that she would not be able to stay for the game and watch Trump be recognized by the stadium public address system and shown pumping his fists on the big video screen at four. Corner of Bryant-Denny Stadium.

That moment came with 12:24 left in the second quarter, shortly after Alabama quarterback Jalen Milro ran down the right sideline, toward Trump Field, to give the Crimson Tide a 28-0 lead over the Vegas-friendly Bulldogs.

Trump did not respond to Milrow's scamper, perhaps acknowledging that Georgia, not reliably Republican Alabama, is the key battleground in his contest against Harris. But when “The 45th President of the United States, Donald J. Trump” was introduced to a capacity crowd of more than 100,000 fans — all but a few thousand were wearing crimson — Trump smiled broadly and pumped his fist, as he did on stage in July one. After the assailant's bullet grazed his ear and bloodied his face.

The crowd roared its approval, raising cell phone cameras and their red-and-white pompoms toward Trump's suite, where he stood behind the ballistic glass that became a feature after two assassination attempts. Bose and a few extended middle fingers broke the Trumpian decorum, but they also chanted: “USA! USA! USA!”

In fact, not everyone on campus was thrilled.

“There is, I think, a silent majority of students who are not with Trump,” argued Braden Vick, president of Alabama's College Democrats chapter. Vick pointed to recent elections when Democratic candidates in 2020, including President Joe Biden, greatly exceeded their statewide totals in campus neighborhoods.

“We have this great atmosphere for a top-five game between these two teams with playoff and championship implications,” Vick said, “and it's a shame that Donald Trump has to try to ruin it with his selfishness.”

Trump was a guest of Alabama businessman Rick Myers Jr., a member of Mar-a-Lago. Meyers said in an interview before the game that he invited Trump so he could enjoy a warm reception. And, as Mayer points out, Trump is a longtime sports fan. He tried to buy an NFL team in the 1980s and instead helped launch a competing league. And he attended several college games as president, including an Alabama-Georgia national championship game.

Myers also invited Alabama Sens. Katie Britt and Tommy Tuberville. Britt, a former Alabama student government president, delivered the GOP response to Biden's last State of the Union address, rebuking Trump after he used an unproven story about human trafficking to echo Trump's warnings about immigrants. Tuberville, the former head football coach at Auburn University, Alabama's arch-rival, is a staunch Trump supporter.

Joining the politicians in the suite were musicians Kid Rock and Hank Williams Jr. Herschel Walker, a Georgia football icon and unsuccessful Senate nominee in 2022, traveled in Trump's motorcade to the game.

Fencing around the stadium, scores of metal detectors and tents create a perimeter of security beyond the usual footprint. Alpha Omicron Pi sorority sisters showed off their security wristbands before being allowed into their sorority house adjacent to the stadium. Bomb-sniffing dogs stopped catering trucks carrying food. Hundreds of TSA agents spread out to perform a potentially unpopular task: imposing airport-level screening on every ticket-holder.

But what seemed most important was the opportunity for a friendly home crowd to cheer Trump as they cheered the Crimson Tide, without any burden of the increasingly bleak ending he argued in Wisconsin or elsewhere.

“College football fans can get emotional and kooky about their teams,” says Shane Walsh. “And so can Trump supporters.”

They didn't even notice that Trump's tie wasn't red. It was Georgia Red.